Giant Tonka trucks and antelope island

Today started back at Midvale Mining Cafe for breakfast. This is hands down one of the best breakfast places I have ever been to. They serve what they call scones, which is the east coast version of fried dough without the cinnamon and sugar, but so yummy. Ma took some for the road as a snack.


We then headed to the mine - Bingham Copper Mine. We took the tour and watched the informational video. It is amazing that this mine started in 1896 as an open pit mine and has operated since then and expanded to over 2 miles wide and 8,000 feet deep. The trucks that haul the ore looked like they were tiny tonka trucks compared to the mountain around them. The picture of us is next to one of the tires from the "tiny trucks". The machinery that they use there can carry 250-300 tons.



From there we road around Salt Lake and Ma ended up getting her hair done and I got my toes done - they were surprised at my choice of color, but did it anyway.


Then we started heading out of town and I felt a bit strange coming all the way to Salt Lake City and not seeing Salt Lake. So, detour to Antelope Island. Not to self, in the future go to the visitor's center to find out where you should go, but after the less than helpful experience in southern Utah, I decided to attempt the 30 miles of roads and find some of the 600+ bison and antelope and deer on my own. Well we headed east and that only resulted in finding seagulls and some scenery, which was beautiful, but not what I was really after.


Heading out towards the ranch, we passed and antelope and a deer and I said to Ma that I hope that we see something different than we had seen on other rides and then it happened. What originally looked like a large rock in the water off in the distance, started to come into focus. I was happy that we saw one and then as we headed down the road another 1/4 mile, we saw about 100 to the right side of the road, then some more started crossing the road in between my car and the other coming in the other direction...needless to say they stopped traffic. The one bad part of this trip is the mosquitoes. There were millions and anytime the car stopped they stopped by to have a bite, or several. Not knowing we were coming, bug spray wasn't applied and we left a bit itchy. The picture with the bison and the rainbow - and the "dust" those are them*. There were so many in the air, I think they created the rainbow, as it wasn't raining, but as you all well know, I am not the outdoorsy type of girl, so your guess to the cause is probably better than mine.


We landed in Idaho tonight, and thanks to the advice from a couple at the diner we ate at, we stopped at Malad Valley as the rest of the ride is rural and filled with fury woodland creatures who like to venture onto the roadways. Tomorrow Craters of the Moon....talk to you later!


*having a problem uploading photos, will try again tomorrow