Thursday - Day 8

Some photos from the grocery/hardware store in Mountain View, WY that I forgot to include earlier.

This morning we drove to Antelope Island (121 miles round trip). It is a 22,000 acre island in the Great Salt Lake. The Great Salt Lake usually covers about 1,799 square miles so 22,000 acres doesn't make a dent in it. The island is now accessed by a many (8?) miles long causeway. Prior to that the island was accessed by boat or sometimes by crossing a sandbar.

The island scenery was great but the ranch house area alone was worth the trip. The island was a working ranch for many years.

Bison (what most of us mistakenly call buffalo) were introduced into the ranch years ago. There are now 550-800 in the herd. Every year 300 cowboys, and cowgirls, on horseback, push the bison to the north end of the island and into pens. They are individually checked for health, pregnancy, etc & given shots. Then the herd is pared down to 550, about the maximum the island can support long term. The excess bison are auctioned off. Bison bulls are periodically traded with other bison ranches to provide genetic diversity.

If interested you can read more about it at https://utah.com/antelope-island-state-park
The site does a poor job of touting the values of the island. If you are in Salt Lake City it is well worth a visit.

Looking back (east) across causeway from Visitor Center.

Looking west across the Great Salt Lake from a vantage point on the west side of the island. To give you an idea of scale note the island beach. There are people on at the edge of the water that you can't see in the photo because they are so far away.

I zoomed out the lens of my camera to the maximum so that you could see the people.

The ranch house. The original house was the right section, two windows and one door. Then a kitchen addition added the next two windows and one door. The white section at the right was the bathroom addition.

The blacksmith shop.

 Larry Farley, a friend from Centertown has one of the Maytag washers that are powered by a gasoline engine. I watched his start with one kick of the pedal. This one probably wouldn't start that easy. There were LOTS of other interesting areas to look at on the ranch.

At one time the island was used as a sheep farm. There were over 6,000 sheep on the island. They has a setup where they could shear a sheep every 5 minutes. The sheep were pastured on the island part of the year and then at two other places during the remainder of the year. This was before the causeway was built. They were driven across the sandbar at the south end of the island.

In the evening we had a very enjoyable dinner, and visit, with John, Leanne & Olivia who live in Salt Lake City. Leanne is our niece, Tom & Mary Lou's granddaughter. Olivia was an absolute sweetheart the entire time we were together, although she was a little leery of the old fat guy with the fuzzy face😊.

Goodnight. God is good, may He bless you and yours.