Contrast

Saturday
We were up at 4.30 this morning, in order to leave at 5.30 am, to get down to the airport for our 8.25 flight to Salt Lake City. Everything went really smoothly - a good drive down there (not much traffic at that time in the morning (!), a smooth parking experience, speedy and efficient check-in, and speedy security experience, partly due to being assigned TSA pre-check, meaning we didn’t have to take our shoes off, take the cameras, iPad and kindles out etc! This gave us ample time to get a coffee and share a scone from Starbucks while waiting for our flight which actually pulled away from the gate early - totally full! We had a good flight, arriving in SLC at about 10 am, with the 2-hour time difference, and Jason was soon there to meet us - Jen was working today. They had to move from their previous apartment back in the summer, as the owner was coming back earlier than expected, so we hadn’t seen their current place - a small rental house. Jason showed us around and we had a drink and chatted for a while, then went out for the rest of the day. Jason had things to do, but either at home, or locally, so kindly gave us the use of the car for the day.
Jen had given us a few suggestions of somewhere to get lunch, and some places we could visit. It was quite a cold, grey murky day in Salt Lake, and while we were having lunch it was raining fairly steadily and we were beginning to think we would have to find some inside things to do, but looking at the weather on our phones, it looked as if the rain would soon be moving out, particularly in the direction we were headed, so we continued on to Great Salt Lake Shorelands Preserve, “ a unique system of salt and fresh water marshes, ponds, sloughs and mudflats, and a rich feeding ground for migrating birds”. By the time we got there, the rain had indeed stopped, and as we walked along the boardwalk amidst all the grasses and bulrushes, we began to get breaks of sun, while dark clouds continued to sit over the mountains, giving striking light conditions, as you can see in my blip. There were various information panels along the boardwalk, talking about the different birds that stop over there, and an observation towers to climb. We didn’t see much bird life today - not the right time of year, but it was a lovely walk anyway. It also seems to be a popular place to go and get pictures taken. We saw two couples being photographed - from the poses the photographers were suggesting, I’m guessing one was an engagement picture, and another possibly a couple expecting a baby, and there were two family groups, we guessed doing photos for Christmas cards! From there we continued on to Antelope Island State Park - quite a sizable island in the Great Salt Lake, connected by a causeway. We had visited there last year with Jen and our son Philip, when we were there celebrating our 40th wedding anniversary, and had enjoyed a wonderful hike at that time. It was latish in the afternoon by this time, so we didn’t have too long, but we walked for about 45-50 minutes, enjoying the late afternoon light.
Jen didn’t get off work until about 8pm, so the three of us went to pick her up and we ate out at an Ethiopian restaurant that they had tried, and wanted to introduce us to. This was a different experience, as Ethiopian food consists of vegetables and fairly spicy meat dishes served on top of a large sourdough flatbread called injera. You eat with your fingers, using pieces of the injera to pick up the meat or vegetables! When we got back to their home, we just had a drink, and then turned in for the night, since our body clocks were two hours ahead, and we had got up at 4.30, so it had been a long day!
I have posted a couple of extras from Antelope Island.