** * Our Life with 13 Kids * **: Salt Flats and Great Salt Lake

Melodie is going to be set apart as a missionary tomorrow evening. Since today was a day off of school for her younger siblings, we thought it would be appropriate to go on "one last" family outing in her honor. She wanted to go to the Salt Flats and the Great Salt Lake. And since she is born and raised in the Salt Lake Valley, it seemed like an appropriate thing to do before she goes off into the world representing Salt Lake-ians. (None of us have ever been out there either!) It was high time for us to make a family pilgrimage. Corey has a vague memory of maybe going to the Great Salt Lake once. I've never been there or to the Salt Flats. I don't think I've ever even driven out on I-80 past the airport. Pathetic I know. Corey was smart and made sure we all actually did this activity by inviting Father David along. He was going to be at our house at 1. We had lunch, then Corey took him to show him the Granite Vault real quick while I got shoes on all the kids. Then we left for our outing.

The plan was to go to the Lake first, then those that were feeling adventurous could continue west and take the 2 hour drive to the salt flats. I followed Corey. Somewhere along 1-80 they got lost in conversation and missed the Salt Air exit. even though you could totally see it right in front of us. I kept following their lead. The kids were a little confused as to why it was taking so long, but they continued watching the movie (Minions) and I kept listening to the Talking Scriptures podcast (I LOVE IT! I finished Revelation and started on the Book of Mormon introduction and the first few sections of 1 Nephi, sooo good! The stuff he shared in 1 Ne 1-7 about the Deuteronomic Reform kinda blew me away) So I was having a podcast party by myself, and we finally arrived at the Salt Flats Rest stop. Here's one of the signature photos for the day -

It was very windy.

We tried to give Peter shelter behind a slab of cement, but it didn't help much.
Then we walked out onto the salt flats. The wind blew the salt against the kids ankles and it would sting a little bit, they didn't like that either.

But it was still cool and fun and we took lots of pictures.

Cause if we're gonna go through the hassle to drive out here, we gotta document it and make it count!

I felt like I wanted to Forrest Gump and run an not stop until I found deliverance on God's Thumb

RUN!

And just keep going and going. If I had a water bottle I would have. This would be a cool place for a long bike ride. You could get lost out there, but probably not.

We stopped running and I tried to take some photos. None of them turned out.

Wes has got the whooole family, in his hands... He's got the whole fam in his hands.

Then Mel came out and joined us and then we got a few more pics.

The wind wasn't exactly cooperating if you had your hair down

Melodie's first "last hurrah".

Mel gettin' a pic for Instagram

Lily playing Lawrence of Arabia.

And then we tried to get a jumping photo, which was really funny.

Apparently saying "1 - 2 - 3 - jump!" was beyond our capacity to execute on.

"Ready? 1 - 2 - 3..."

"Jump!"

Lily jumps, then Mel, then Abi and Sophi... all at different times...

Ha!

This one below was probably our best of the jump photo attempts. Natalie's jump looks great, and I like the hair on Mel and Lily, so we'll call this one our best picture.

Jump shot attempt 2 - that one didn't work either. I'll just share one of this set.

90+ photos and then Corey came on the salt to pick us up, how nice of him! Looks like a photo from a car magazine ad, eh?

That's Corey's new set of wheels. We all got in the back. That makes 14 people in the car.

Then we drove a little further to get gas, cause we didn't get it at the beginning of the trip, since we didn't know we were going all the way out, we just went. We were both at a quarter of a tank. We filled up and bought some gatorade and were attacked by flies, and then we started to drive back to the valley. We would put the windows all down and up again over and over as we tried to blow the flies out of the car. There were seriously a lot in the car. One of them made it all the way to the Great Salt Lake. He just was looking for a change of environment, a fresh start. I'm glad we could help him out. I'm not sure what went on in Corey's car during the drive. Wesley said he took a nap, and that they showed "The House" to Father David, who was laughing a lot, which made Corey and the kids laugh as they listened to him laugh and as they knew which part he was seeing. One other funny thing at home, Lily was telling Father David about Ethan's mockumentary, and she assured him that she did shower more than once during quarantine, and he laughed and his laugh came from very deep - like it was almost like a Santa Clause ho-ho-ho, and after Lily made him laugh a few times, Daniel started to imitate his deep laugh and Hyrum and I thought that was hilarious, and we laughed in horror of "Don't you make fun of the priest!" and Hyrum hurried Daniel outside onto the trampoline. But that still makes me laugh to think of Daniel leaning toward's Father David saying "ho-ho-ho!" Super funny. At the Great Salt Lake, $5 per vehicle and we were at the beach.

"Silver Sand Beach" might be a bit of a stretch

"What do you think Wes?"

"It stinks."

It did stink. Not horrible, just unpleasant. It smelled... fishy. But since there aren't fish here I guess it smelled seagull-y?

The girls ran ahead to scare all the birds away.

As we got closer and closer to the water, I noticed more and more all the little flies that flew away from our feet and cleared the path before us, Cleared the path as best as flies can. Sooo many flies.