Adventures with Mom

My mom has been in town quite a bit this summer, so I've been able to see her a lot more than usual. Yesterday we went on some site-seeing expeditions. First stop: Bear River Bird Refuge. What exactly is a bird refuge? I'm still not really sure, but basically I guess it is just a lot of land with some birds on it. And the word "refuge" is used very loosely because we found out swan hunting is still allowed there sometimes. Sad. The refuge is HUGE so we drove the loop around it, and we saw a lot of cool birds! It was really beautiful, and neat being on the other side of the Salt Lake looking back over to the mountains.

Next stop: Spiral Jetty! I was most excited about this one, because it was always in my art history textbooks and it's just one of those things that seems a shame to NOT see it when it's just a couple hours away. It was partially covered with water, but you could still see the shape of it.

"Love, Robert Smithson. 1970"

The water was pinkish.

Babins liked it too (she's getting big in there!)

Oh yeah, also the jetty is pretty much in the middle of NOWHERE, like dead-cow-on-the-side-of-the-dirt-road-nowhere.

If you're familiar with this historical area, you might be thinking, "Wait, isn't the Golden Spike National Monument on the way to the jetty?" Why yes it is, but about 12 years ago my parents dragged us all there on a little detour that was later to be remembered as the worst stop ever, and that day I vowed never to go again. Luckily for me it was closed yesterday anyways, but I was happy to drive right by it and speed up without looking back.

The last stop of the day was the ATK Rocket Garden, where I guess they plant rocket parts in gravel and see if they'll grow. Rockets are cool, but we wished my dad was there to explain rocket stuff to us! I don't know what any of the big parts are.

Fun adventure times.