The Great Stinky Lake

We had a lot of family at our house today. My sister and her three daughters came up from Arizona; my parents and another sister came down from Idaho; and my brother and his wife and their daughter came over from across town. The Arizonites (Arizonians? Arizonaphites?) wanted to go see (dun dun DUNNNN) THE GREAT SALT LAKE, to which my kids replied: "Ewww. It stinks over there." But out-of-staters will never understand why we locals never go there until they try it themselves, so we took them. The first thing out of my niece's mouth was, you guessed it: "This stinks!" But it was fun anyway. It's too cold for the billions of bugs to be out so that was a plus. The thing is pretty spectacular, like an ocean without waves. But be warned: It does stink. When there's a wind coming off it we can smell it in our yard, a putrid dead fish smell. My nieces wanted to get in it to see if they can float as it is rumored. It's true enough. The high salt content means you can float in it without a life preserver, but the thing is so filthy I'm not sure why you'd want to. Besides, it was only about 40 degrees. She'd freeze her little tushy off.

We saw a guy launching a kayak and went and talked to him about it. Once you get out there a ways, the smell goes away, apparently. All of a sudden I have a desire to buy a kayack and lose myself in the lake. That would be a lot of fun, don't you think?