Thunder Clouds over the Bonneville Raceway, Salt Flats in Utah

The Western Desert of Utah is one of the most dramatic places you can visit. Of course, you need to love driving on dirt roads with lots of dust, no GPS or phone reception, no services for 130 miles including restrooms, mostly no people, and a lot of distance between anything you want to see. This is definitely my kind of place.

Under Water at the Bonneville International Raceway

Note: More than one photo.
We took a trip recently to one of the cumulatively strangest places in the United States: the Western Desert of Utah. To start our journey we stopped off at the world famous Bonneville International Raceway on the Salt Flats of Utah. This is was the view at the location of the Raceway. Yes, the entire area had reverted to is prehistoric state of being covered by water and I should add very salty water. This photo begins a series of photos that show some of the unexpected, wierd, and always beautiful locations that highlight a 400 mile trip on dirt roads with no phone reception. Here is another photo taken from the same location in a different direction.

If you visit the Western Desert area of Utah other than by freeway, you will begin to notice that the horizon is flat and there are always mountain ranges either near or far. During my many visits to the area that consists of the western 1/3 of Utah, I am always surprised at the grand vistas and unexpected details. Here is another view. You probably should know that this salty water is only about 6 inches deep.

Mud Cracks

My fascination with the way that mud cracks when it dries began as a child. Now, I think they explain a lot of things about the geophysical world we see around us. They are also a classic example of chaos and ultimately the opposite of fractals. We have been poking around in the West Desert of Utah and have had an ample opportunity to see mud cracks after the Winter rains and snow.

You Never Know What You Will See

During a recent visit to a local art museum, we saw this. You never know what some people consider to be art. I should have kept my art major and become an artist. I have a shop vac and a broom in my garage. Maybe I should open the garage as an art museum.

An Afternoon Break with Friends

This is a common scene in the Arizona desert. We get used to sharing our drinking fountains with bees and wasps. Of course, this is usually only a problem with drinking fountains that leak. Here is an appropriate poem about bees.

Like trains of cars on tracks of plush
I hear the level bee:
A jar across the flowers goes,
Their velvet masonry


Withstands until the sweet assault
Their chivalry consumes,
While he, victorious, tilts away
To vanquish other blooms.


His feet are shod with gauze,
His helmet is of gold;
His breast, a single onyx
With chrysoprase, inlaid.


His labor is a chant,
His idleness a tune;
Oh, for a bee's experience
Of clovers and of noon!

The Bee by Emily Dickinson

Cholla Fruit

Many of the common cactus plants of the desert Southwest have edible fruit. Mostly, this fruit gets eaten by birds, bats, and other fauna of the desert but potentially, it can be eaten by humans. If you see cactus jelly or candy for sale at a tourist-oriented store in Arizona, the cactus fruit used will almost always be from the Opuntia family with Prickly Pear fruit being the most common. One reason for this is that the fruit is fairly accessible for picking if you use a pair of salad tongs or similar items. However, cholla cactus also bave edible fruit and as you might guess, it is smaller, has less juice and better protected with very sharp spines.

Here is an appropriate poem.

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf,
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day
Nothing gold can stay.

Robert Frost

Yes, they are cactus

We all have the propensity to judge people, animals, and even plants as groups. This is especially true when we know little or nothing about the group. Each of these cactus plants is an individual. But collectively, they don't even look much like cactus. These cactus are Tephrocactus articulatus v. strobiliformis. They really are cactus. Here is an appropriate poem on the subject.

Walking in Beauty

With Beauty before me, may I walk.
With Beauty behind me, may I walk.
With Beauty below me, may I walk.
With Beauty above me, may I walk.
With Beauty all around me, may I walk.
In old age wandering a trail of Beauty,
lively, may I walk.
In old age wandering a trail of Beauty,
living again, may I walk.

Attributed to the Diné