7th trip

Visit to the state of Utah (Part 4)

Anoth­er attrac­tion in Utah is the Great Salt Lake. The lake is very large, and the oppo­site shore is not vis­i­ble; only a few moun­tain islands can be seen here and there. It some­what resem­bles our Azov Sea and is sim­i­lar­ly shal­low. The aver­age depth ranges from 4.5 to 7.5 meters, depend­ing on pre­cip­i­ta­tion, with the deep­est point being 15 meters. The lake is locat­ed in the north­west­ern part of the city. On the south­ern side of the lake, where the high­way approach­es close­ly, there is an obser­va­tion deck and a park­ing area for yachts.

On the way to the lake, we encoun­tered numer­ous salt­ed pud­dles and ponds with life­less, dried veg­e­ta­tion. At the obser­va­tion deck, one could walk to the lake, stroll along the shore, or take a swim. But no one was swim­ming; they only dipped their feet. By the water’s edge, there were many gnats. I don’t know if this is always the case or if it was some spe­cial period.

Return Home

We took a dif­fer­ent route back, pass­ing through Las Vegas. We noticed that Utah’s beau­ty and tourist infra­struc­ture rival those of Col­orado (and in some aspects, even sur­pass it). It turns out that the largest num­ber of nation­al parks are locat­ed in Utah. We passed by a large pic­turesque lake, Deer Creek Reser­voir, nes­tled among green moun­tains. It was a week­end, and the lake was bustling with tourists, fish­er­men, and cyclists. When com­par­ing the scenery along the roads (as seen from the car), the sur­round­ings in Utah were much more inter­est­ing and beau­ti­ful than in Col­orado. Over­all, the towns in Utah that we passed through seemed very clean and tidy, with wide straight streets. Utah cities are rec­og­nized as some of the most liv­able in the States.

We bypassed Las Vegas on the ring road, not enter­ing the city itself, and then part of the route went through Hoover Dam, across the dull Neva­da desert. Tours of Hoover Dam were also closed due to the coro­n­avirus, so tourists could only admire it from afar. Even the Ari­zona desert looked live­li­er, green­er, and more var­ied due to the rains that had occurred in our absence.

Ari­zona greet­ed us with a huge cloud, which unleashed a heavy rain as we approached the city.

Rain in Ari­zona is always long-await­ed, but not when it catch­es you on the road. We suc­cess­ful­ly passed through the down­pour, though we saw that emer­gency and fire vehi­cles were head­ing toward the spot where we had just left the rain. In the city, it was dif­fi­cult to dri­ve along the high­way due to the wind; rocks and var­i­ous debris flew up from the wheels of near­by vehi­cles. There­fore, we had to return through the streets. It took a bit longer, but at least we avoid­ed unnec­es­sary adventures.