Days 5 and 6: Salt and water

After a series of early starts, we had a bit of a sleep-in in Salt Lake City because we wanted to check out the shops and they didn’t open till midday (stupid Sunday trading hours). So we watched some Law and Order in the morning, then it took us about an hour to actually find the shops. We grabbed brunch in a café/bar, who had beer labels as table decorations and served drinks in jars:



At the shops, I stocked up on shirts and Matt window-shopped for shoes, then we drove out to the Bonneville Salt Flats. This was Matt’s contribution to our tour, since I didn’t even think of going there or realize they were so close. Well, two hours away, which on our trip is pretty close. And they weren’t really out of the way – we just took a different highway to our next destination. The Salt Flats were surreal, and we drove across them (on the freeway) for around 60km!



Look them up on Google Maps and click on satellite view – they’re HUGE. We got heaps of awesome photos on Matt’s camera, and these pretty average ones on mine:





We then crossed back into Nevada (the border was quite obviously marked by a casino), and drove for a few hours through more giant valleys flanked by mountain ranges. Similar to the drive to Salt Lake City, but much drier and with almost no houses along the route. A very isolated region. That night, we stayed in Twin Falls, Idaho.

The next day, we visited the falls that Twin Falls is named after, which flow into the Snake River. The Snake River carved out a canyon, which is strangely enough called the Snake River Canyon. The canyon was cut out to its current size (180m deep in some places) by raging waters from the Bonneville Flood in the ice age. This was apparently the second largest flood in known geologic history, with approximately 930 000 cubic metres per second flooding over the Snake River Plain at the peak of the flood. The flood waters came from the much larger predecessor of the Great Salt Lake – Lake Bonneville. The scenic byway from Twin Falls to our next stop, Boise, followed this canyon and the Snake River:



On the way, we dropped into some hot springs:



and visited a few spots in Thousand Springs State Park, including Niagara Springs and Malad Gorge:





Pretty amazing natural wonders hidden amongst vast areas of farmland.

We stopped for lunch in a tiny town en route, and I was quite amused by the side salad I got, which consisted of lettuce, cheese, black olives, pepperoni and a good 150ml tub of ranch dressing – thank god it was on the side! We continued our drive to Boise, the capital of Idaho. On the way in, we drove through a windy, dusty haze and picked up the following souvenir:



Tumbleweed!