The Great Salt Lake??
 

How come we never hear of anyone boating in the great Salt Lake?

No water?
Too many Mormons?
No boats allowed?

Seems like a large enough lake, why doesn't anyone go there?

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When you have 17 wives that need service, kind of hard to have another hobby :D

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There is a marina there that has a few blow boats... but the water is so salty it eats everything in sight.... anything that is anodized looks like crap in a matter of two weeks.... you cannot have anything other than an outboard on your blow-boat ... so that you can pull it out of the water so it won't dissolve.... The state used to have a patrol boat on the lake that had a closed cooling system.... But the main reason hardly anyone boats on the lake is the horrible smell and all the brine flies........... :eek:

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My grandmother was the youngest daughter of the "second" wife..... :D

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There is a causeway that seperates the lake down the middle... the southern part is fresher.... also there is an area where the Bear river flows into the lake and there is a breakwater that keeps the bay fresh... It's called Willard Bay.... I've been boating there... it's not bad... just too small... If you want scenic boating.. go to Lake Powell... :D Here is a picture of the lake from space... you can clearly see the causeway... Salt Lake City is in the lower right hand corner of the picture.

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Thanks for the education.

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I have to go there once a year for work. Whoo-hoo. You can drink there now. (Sort of) I was fascinated by the great salt lake (being a boater) so I looked into it. Smell is right. Plus, it's losing water so fast (as is much of the west) that the shoreline is always moving. They built a concert venue near the lake and now it's not really that near the lake anymore! All there is around the edge is a crusty ring.

The causeway is a railroad crossing.

The sailboaters there have "crane days" where they all pitch in to get a crane to come to the lake and put the boats in/out.

Salt Lake fact: every street in town is something like 8 lanes wide. (EVERY street) They laid it out so that you could turn a wagon team around. Another wierd thing is that downtown , all the streets are named in relation to the temple square. (One block south is "100 south" etc.)
Makes for some interesting intersections. (meet me at 100 south and west 300.)
You pay about 5 bucks to join the "private club" when go in a bar, then you pay about 5 bucks a beer for watered down beer. Oddly, you can take your own bottle into a lot of places.

They don't tell you this on the tour, but the LDS church runs the city, the state, and controls the alcohol. (Including sales/distribution)

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where is this lake???? i have never herd of it !!

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Your Kidding Rite?? :eek:
Utah :rolleyes:

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nope not kidding I hide under rocks alot

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1 time we went sking in utah and after the first day we went to pizza hut for dinner and orderd afew pies and a few pitchers of beer. when we said beer the lady serving us flipped out :eek: guess her horse buggy was down :D

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You hard a hard time getting a drink at all before the Olympics were held there. They had to catch up with the times a little because of the Olympics. I think since 2002 most of the liquor laws have been softened some.

For a while, you could only be served alcohol with a meal in a restaurant.

SLC is definately a different planet.

Because the streets are so wide, they want you to pick up an orange flag on one side of the street, and carry the orange flag across the street with you, and drop it in a container on the other side for someone coming back across. And they have crosswalks in the middle of the block. Traffic must stop for your little orange flag.

I guess when your streets are almost one hundred feet across it's an issue.

Every time I see the great salt lake it makes me think of a lake on another planet.

SLC is also the dumpster capital of the world. All night, every night, all you hear is garbage trucks downtown. Drives me nuts. Slam. Beep Beep Beep. Slam. Beep Beep Beep Beep.

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Hey Fund..... I lived there for 36 years.... I can remember my Mother having to "register" as a drinker.... yeap... you got it... You had to apply to the state liquor commision... and for One dollar they would give you a "liquor card" that had a number.... When you wanted some liquor.. you had to go to the state run store... surrender your card... then tell the clerk what booze you wanted...then they would write down your number and sell you the booze... that way they could track how much liquor you were purchasing... Talk about an infringment on your privacy... that lasted only three years until it was repealed as unconstitutional... ok... now I'll date myself... it was the years 1958 through 1960....... :D

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So I take it that lake would eat my manifolds? Darn. What does it smell like? :D

Roby

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The worst pu......... uhhhh.... it smells like rotting fish... even though there aren't any fish there......... :D

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During the time I lived in SLC... I saw the lake go from a historic low level to a historic high level... in 1983 the level of the lake rose so high that I-80 which passes by the south end of the lake had to be sandbagged and was about 8 feet below the lake level.... then the next year the road bed was raised 10 feet in height... now the level of the lake is back down again. The only good thing about the lake level going down is the water gets saltier... which is good for the industries that extract salt and minerals from the lake... Ever wonder where the hydrochloric acid you use in your swimming pools comes from?... Or some of the salt that you put on your food?.... Or the lead in the tire weights... or the magnesium for aluminum alloys?.... they get a lot of it from the Great Salt Lake... :eek:

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Man, that's a switch.
Salt Lake City to Los Angeles? Talk about culture shock.

A certain LDS family whose daughter was a little bit country started a huge charity... so our annual meeting is in SLC.

I have to admit it's an interesting place. I go in October every year and the weather is fairly mild.

Temple square is pretty impressive. I find that the tour guides don't try so hard to indoctrinate you if you ask them out on a date right away.

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Oh, we both forgot... it's right next to the Bonneville flats. (Same salt)

And wasn't the whole intermountain area a huge ocean once?

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Yes... it was a large inland sea called Lake Bonneville.... it was there just after the last ice age... I think it's been gone about 50,000 years... I used to hike along the old lakeline in my youth and wonder why there were sea shells on a mountain side... There was a natural damn area of the lake up in Idaho... (that's how big it was ) anyway... there must have been an earthquake and this natural damn area started leaking... soon there was a torrent of water rushing down what is now the Snake river in Idaho... Geologists suspect that in less than a month... most of the lake drained into the pacific. If you drive along a certain roadway in Idaho there are markers pointing out the trough that was worn away as the lake drained. As far as culture shock moving from Utah to Los Angeles... not really... I am not Mormon so it was a relief to get away from the suffocating influence of the LDS. ( Psssttt... don't say anything bad about Mormons... I have it on good authority that Wasabe is a Mo' )......... :D

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We like to go to Utah to snow ski. Some of the best in the country in my opinion. When you fly in you really get a good view of the lake.

The lake has always interested me because a good friend back in grade school made a trip there and told me that there was so much salt in the water that you would not sink when you went swimming in it.

Well I guess I never learned if this is true or not, but have remembered it now for 35 years!

Anyone know?

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I skied Snowbird the first year it opened (1971)... I can also remember when Park City was just a mining town (silver).. The original ski resorts are Alta and Brighton.... (My grandmother was born in Park City in 1892) I like to tell people that I remember Park City when it was "Park City BC" the BC being "Before Condo".......Yes... when the lake level is low... the specific gravity of the salt water is so high that you literally float like a cork on top of the water... Picture post cards used to show people in a circle playing cards.... with only their butts and the tops of their legs in the water.... unfortunately the salinity burned your eyes and any mucus membranes in the water... so you didn't want to spend much time in the lake. :D

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Well then maybe some Kilo runs should be made there. Any reason why not?

Roby

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Yes, my son?

No, I work for a hospital.
Getting to hang out with them is just a side benefit. :D

I was never into their music, but their charity is excellent.

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I remember going there when I was a kid in 1966, All I remember was that in stank and stung you eye's and I got worn out trying to get deep enough, far enough out, to swim. It seemed like 100 yards.And the showers at the shore.

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Damn Reed,

You are one of them. Your grandma must have hung around with Brigham Young.

Must have been cool growing up before the modernization, so to speak.

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Nah... reed went there because he thought it was "bringthemyoung" :D:D

Roby

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Love Park City, have also skied Deer Valley. We have always caught it with good weather and good snow. Glad I thought about this, need to make plans to go back this year!

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It was interesting to see Park City change over the years.... Talk about missed opportunities.... get this... when I was in grade school... We used to drive up to Park City on a saturday to look around and there were houses for sale on Park Avenue ( small miner's houses ) for $100.00.... yeap... that isn't a missprint... $100.00 Then the ski resort opened and they skyrocketed to $1,000.00.... hahahahahahaha.... by the early 80's when they were developing Deer VAlley those same houses were $100,000.00 There were people that had bought 6 or 7 houses in a row when they were really cheap and then developed them into condos and sold property to build hotels... Talk about sitting on a gold mine.... :(

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Oh yeah?... Like why I don't have several wives?......... :D
Whenever I tell some one that I'm originally from Utah... I then sumarilly answer there next two question... NO and NO... No... I'm not Mormon... and NO I don't have multiple wives........ :drink:

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Just the downtown area.... The last home I owned in SLC was 637 ea 300 so... just two blocks from the Governor's mansion... I had a wide street... but further out in the suburbs the streets are normal size.

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I used to go up there once a month from Woodland Hill Ca. to Litton Industries.

We stayed at Little america or the Embassy Suits..

Mammaries that come to mind are:

Club 39

The Iron Horse

Studebakers

The Top of the Marriott

New York New York

Red Bull..

Ahhhh.. My customers never left dissatisfied..

BUTT..

Don't forget to mention that unless you bring your own bottle..Each drink is poured from a government owned electronic booze dispensor that measures exactly 1 ounce......& most hotels have a free membership to residents.

The town was loaded with hookers..

Not me ...never touched themm.. :drink: :drink:

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Yep. Sorry. Meant downtown not town. I don't know the burbs, so downtown is my reference. It was the streets that were built when wagions were still being used.

(Just before Reed left)

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There is one very misterious place on the salt lake that has been kind of an enigma for over a hundred years. I've traveled past the "Saltair" resort many a time and have watched it go from weird to bad to worse. The Original structure was kind of gothic but beautiful looking and was later burnt to the ground.I remember my parents telling me they used to swim or "float" in the great salt lake and then.It apparently was a fun thing for alot of people. The building had a dance hall, waterslides, mini golf course, and then some other odd amenities. In the 80's, the water rose so high, it flooded the now "airplane Hangar" structure to the 5 or 6 foot level. It was later abandoned. You can see the High water salt line on the outside of the building in the last picture.I think it reopened in the 90's with a few little gift/trinket shops. Nothing really there worth seeing anymore. Kind of an era gone by. If your interested, watch the 60's cult movie " Carnival of Souls" . It was filmed in part there and its kind of a freaky old movie to watch. Make sure that you have lots of popcorn!!!

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Carnival of the souls was filmed at the Saltaire II... you have pictures of Saltair I and Saltaire III... Saltaire II had amusment rides and it also burned to the ground in the late 60's... weird history to the place... I can remember they tried to sand bag SA III but the water got too high and flooded it... Then they installed the huge pumps at the southwest end of the lake... they cost millions of dollars.... millions of dollars to maintain... and they were never used.... just as they came online the lake level started dropping quickly... :eek:

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I always get a weird feeling when passing through the Salt lake area. Is this just me or does it seem like there is something a little "off in this area?

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Nope..... it's not you... it's them.... It really becomes obvious when you have lived there and go back.... I love it when the tv newscasters start off a news segment with " Today Church leaders voice their opinions".... which is Mormonese for all the faithful to listen........ :eek: I begin to freak-out when I have been there for more than a couple of days..... :snide:

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It's even stranger when you are in Utah County... If you were to remove Utah county from the country... with it's birthrate 51 percent higher than the national average and it's low income... it would qualify as a third world country..... :D

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Reed, Where in relation to Salt lake city is Utah county? or is it a part thereof? Any funny Mormonese stories to tell about growin' up there? What are some of the weirdest things you've encountered?

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Utah County is just south of Salt Lake County... Provo is the main city there,.... it is where Bigandhung ..... uhhh I mean Brigham Young University is located.... Oh... sh!t... Utah and Mormon stories... too many to think of.... where do I start.... :eek:

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I had a Mormon friend, he like to tell this joke.

If a moron and a Jew were stranded on a deserted island, the Mormon would have the Jew paying rent within a week.

I think they hold themselves in high esteem.