Fluffy Cows

May 9, 2024 – Day 55

Wendover KOA Journey, West Wendover Nevada – Antelope Island State Park, Syracuse, Utah

We pulled out of Nevada and were quickly driving across the very salty flats that happened to have a paved road through the middle of them.

We soon came across this sculpture, The Tree of Utah.

It has been said that the artist, Karl Momen, not Moron, was moved to create the 87-foot-tall (27 m) tree after having a vision of a tree while driving across the desolate Bonneville Salt Flats.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphor:_The_Tree_of_Utah

The salt flats went on forever. Then we went up over a rise and down and just like that no more salt flats. It was quite abrupt! Everything was so green.

Later we drove by a real, honest to gosh cattle drive with real cowboys on real horses! Paul snapped about 30-40 pictures, just “praying and spraying” out the RV window and did get a shot of it as we drove by at 60-65mph.

Water returned and we found this odd fence. Was it dry when they put it in and if it wasn’t why would you put a fence in the water? The Great Salt Lake has a highly variable shoreline depending upon rainfall. Still, it looked pretty odd. We wondered why anyone would need a fence in that situation.

How does one make salt for the shaker on your table? With a big salt factory on the lake! Look at those huge piles of salt! (susan here: no, not the mountains. Look CLOSER.)

We continued on to Salt Lake City. Eventually we’d need to turn north to get to the state park. We were greeted by these awesome mountains. We’re somewhere between the Sierra Nevadas and the Rockies so it shouldn’t surprise us but you can’t help marvel at the beauty here. (susan here: we’re always saying how incredibly beautiful it is in northern CA and UT. We love Nevada’s scenery too, and even some parts of AZ. But this area is really gorgeous.)

It was time to stop for a quick gas break. This quick stop took over 45 minutes to get propane and gas when it should have been 15-20 minutes tops. There was nothing normal about this stop. When we pulled up to the RV lanes it looked like someone had pulled forward some, gone in to pay something or get a receipt, and would be back in a few minutes. No biggie and that’s not unusual. Unknown to us the gas pumps were being calibrated and the bozo who was calibrating them never blocked them off. The net result of that fiasco was we had to unhook the Jeep, reposition for propane which involved backing out of the RV lane then a drive around a busy gas station with lots of gas pumps and then backing up in that busy parking lot to jockey up to the propane pump. A less than ideal situation. Then Susan got to drive around again to get a gas pump. The “bozo” employee, when asked about putting cones out, told Paul to “Just get lost.” Yes, we’ll be writing the Flying J about this once we’ve stopped looking at Bison and Birds. :- ) So, yeah. 45 minutes for a gas stop and propane fill up.

But at least you get to see inside a gas pump!

Susan drove through some pretty horrible Salt Lake City traffic (susan here: and it was windy as heck! It’s a white knuckle experience when your 30,000 pound RV change lanes all on its own!) We were both quite happy to pull up to the gate of Antelope Island State Park. Check out the warning sign about the bison!

We’d get very familiar with this causeway over the next several days. Antelope Island is an island and the only connection to the mainland is its 7 mile long causeway.

We drove in not knowing what to expect. Our neighbors at “Carlos’ Campground” in Sequoia had stayed here but didn’t see a single bison! We saw bison.

We’re approaching the campground and there they are! Note, this is the only time we see one in the road.

Yes, we were “too close” to the animal, and he is looking directly at us (which is bad). But we can only wonder what was going through his mind. Maybe it was “Wow, that’s big, I can’t win this battle.”

These tourists were almost too close. You are supposed to be at least 25 yards away from them. Did you know Bison can run 40 mph? I’ll bet they don’t know either. We’re sure the bicyclists can’t get to that speed.

One more beauty shot. We can’t resist. This is one of the most beautiful campgrounds we’ve been to.

Can you tell we were happy with the campground? Oh, how close were our neighbors, how was the view? (susan here: campsites were about 200 feet apart! This was the farthest we’d seen to date.)

But wait, there’s more! Bison footprints!

Sometime before we parked a bison was in our campsite! Later on that evening we watched one work on an itch by scratching on the metal posts holding up the roof of the shade shelter over the picnic table (which are made of concrete, not wood like most parks).

How much did we like this place? Within 15 minutes Paul asked Susan to see if we could move our next reservation by a couple days so we could we extend this one an equal amount. It was possible so we did, we’ll be here six days.

Daily: 159

Total: 5,088

Driving Miles/Day: 242

Overall Miles/Day: 93

mpg: 7.04

Life Birds: 1 (Red-necked Phalarope, Paul got this while Susan was driving past some wetlands, we both got it later on while on the island.)