A sunny day for a drive
We drove back to Roy for more sampling and got some gorgeous views on the way there and back. We sort of caught the sunrise. I'm not really sure when they consider the sunrise here. It is very flat and you would think it is when the sun comes up over the salt flats. However, you can't see this from the town of Wendover because the mountains block both the sunrise and the sunset. So we couldn't actually see the sun until we got out from behind the mountains and by that time the sun was pretty high up in the sky. So I'll call it the sunrise, anyway.
There is a nice scenic pullout on I-80 heading west from SLC near Stansbury Park. From there you get a nice view of the Great Salt Lake, Antelope Island, Stansbury Island and a beautiful hill with pinkish tilted rocks called hogbacks.
We also passed a place where they were harvesting salt out of the soil by irrigating it to dissolve the salts. We could see the Bingham Canyon Mine - the world's largest open pit mine - off to the south, but it was a little far away to get a good photo. They are mining for copper.
Back on the base, we collected our soil samples in the near 100 degree heat. I'm not used to such heat and I was dragging by the end of the day. But I did see a prickly pear cactus in bloom with gorgeous yellow flowers. A little bright spot in the brown, dusty desert.
Back near Wendover, we passed the Tree of Utah (about 20 miles east of Wendover) on I-80 near the Bonneville Salt Flats. The tree was built by a Swedish artist that thought the tree "brings space, nature, myth and technology together". The balls are covered with rocks and minerals found within Utah and are to symbolize the changing of the seasons (although I'm not sure the changing seasons are that well defined out here in the desert).
We got back to Wendover in time for the pink and purple sunset behind the mountains near the Bonneville Salt Flats. So pretty.
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