Salt

Hello Everyone,

I've been out of touch for some time as I've been doing some travelling throughout the U.S.  As I am a chemistry major, I took it upon myself to develop my own research project involving...well...salt.  I took about 12 days, (I left the day after the end of the school year), to travel via my 2001 Harley Davidson FLSTF Fat Boy from home, here in Chicagoland, down through MO, KS, CO, and finally to Salt Lake City, UT.  From SLC, UT, I stayed with my second cousin and her husband for 3 nights while I collected about 50 x 50mL samples of the thin salt crust that covers the ancient lake bed of Bonneville, commonly known as the Bonneville Salt Flats.  The next step for these samples will be to thouroughly analyze their composition using a variety of analytical methods and instrumentation about which I will be learning more in the following academic year.

         Along this trip, I had to endure several hundred miles of rather boring scenery throughout the midwest and great plains states.  Once I made my way into central Colorado, the scenery finally began to come alive with "Purple Mountain's Majesty".  I spent a night in Boulder, CO and, to be perfectly honest, I fell in love with the city.  Boulder is home to the University of Colorado, Boulder, and I must say that this town, like Naperville but bigger, (great shopping, dining, bars, without high-rise buildings to cut off the natural scenery of the very near mountains), is my favorite city I've seen.  This may not sound like a significant statement but when you consider the fact that North Dakota is the only state west of the Mississippi River that I've not seen, (I've been to all but 15 states or 13 if you only count lower 48), you can imagine that I've seen a fair number of cities.  Granted, I've not visited every city of all 35 states I've rode the harley through, but nevertheless, I've seen a lot and Boulder is hard to beat.  In Boulder, I saw, for the first time, a professional circus entertainer performing out on the street, juggling torches, balls, and small swords, walking a tight-rope setup he built, and other impressive feats the likes of which I've never seen.  Aside from this entertainer, there were others who brought this lovely Pearl Street Center of Boulder to life with their music with instruments ranging from flutes to violins, and guitars to drums.  The city was teeming with life, the food offered at a contemporary, organic resturant, Salt The Bistro, http://www.saltboulderbistro.com/ was lightyears beyond the fare you'd find at any chain resturant.  The food prepared at Salt is created entirely form local farmers and ranchers; the quintessence of freshness.  So I topped off the evening with a large white sangria with enough wine and rum to do the trick.  At the end of the evening, having seen everything from a street busking violinist and circus entertainer to a priceless mountian sunset, I notified my advisor that the University of Colorado, Boulder will definitely make my list of prospective graduate schools for my Ph.D.

             Having left one memorable night behind, I made my way into the real "meat and potatoes" of this trip, Salt Lake City, UT.  I was fortunate enough to enjoy the hospitality of my second cousin and her husband, their wonderful cooking, and beautiful home surrounded by snow-covered mountains in Heber City, UT, (20mi from the former home of the winter olympics, Park City, UT, (another one of my favorite cities though quite expensive).  What I didn't plan on was the fact that I would have to drive 160 miles from Heber City to the Bonneville Salt Flats for my sampling work.  My first day on the salt, I was only able to collect a few samples before a series of severe but small thunderstorms chased me back home.  There's little you can do in the face of a thunderstorm when you're out in the middle of a vast salt flat with no conceivable form of shelter for 5 miles...and I happened to be the tallest thing out there, (no trees), so the threat of lightning was surely on my mind.  So I packed my gear and set out for another day.  The next try was perfectly successful...except for the fact that a portion of my sample lot was turned into a 3-4 inch deep lake by the previous day's weather.  At the end of that day, I spent several hours on the flats, got sunburned in a couple areas I failed to adaquately cover with sunblock, allowed my feet to soak in the saturated salt water because my boots leaked, and livened up a sandwich my family made for me with a dash of salt I grabed from the ground, (THAT IS SOME POTENT SALT FOLKS!!!)...oh yea, and I collected all my samples.  The following day, I boxed and mailed my samples back home then made my way up to Jackson, WY.  While Boulder is my favorite city, Wyoming is, without a doubt, my favorite state, no state I've been through has such a combination of natural beauty and genuinely, unmistakeably, "Western" people.  Because the state of Wyoming has about 25% of the population of the city of Chicago, the people have an understanding of respect, dignity, and brotherhood the likes of which I've never experienced anywhere else.  My adventures through Grand Teton, Yellowstone, and Big Horn National Forests amazed me almost as much as they froze me.  Evidently, early summer is a bad time of year to ride a motorcycle through these mountains as temperatures aren't able to get very high when the landscape still has a few feet, (yes feet), of snow, and all the lakes are still about 80% covered in ice.  I never thought I'd be happy to get out of the mountains, driving around them is beautiful and warm, driving through them is more beautiful but bitterly cold and windy, especially at almost 2 miles above sea level, (Chicago is about 650ft).  It's a tough trade off between comfort and scenic beauty.

          From there, sadly, I had to make my way back home to a state almost entirely devoid of any form of natural beauty...(unless you absolutely love corn fields).  Finally, I made it safely home and was relieved when two days later, my salt samples arrived perfectly intact.  I recently brought my samples to the Krohler Science Building and handed them off to faculty and I can't wait to analyze them.

           Thanks for reading!

JD