Antelope Island, Nov 2015

In November this year we went to one of the islands in our inland sea, the Great Salt Lake. We went in November 2014 for the first time. We enjoyed it even more this year.

A view from the island, looking along the causeway that traverses the inland sea and connects the rest of the valley to the Antelope Island.

We stopped by the visitors center.

A pic of a map of the island. Later you'll see that we took a walk along the shore. Our walk was in the bay at the northwest of the island. (If the top of the island is a seahorse head, our walk was under the seahorse's chin and along its neck.

Oh, here's the walk, which began at sparsely populated parking lot and went into a field of reeds along half-made trails, and took us out onto an extensive beach.

I'm not sure how long we walked on the beach, from the reeds to the shoreline, but it seemed like it was a half mile?

We weren't the first mammals to walk this stretch of beach. A deer had wandered here as well.

We got to the shoreline, and from the very beginning I could see we came on the wrong day. I was trying to get pictures of the water and the sand and my family, but the light on the water made all kinds of reflections (of the mountains and my family and the clouds and the sun) that got in the way, stopping my from getting pictures of what I was trying to photograph, distracting from my artistic vision.

A view toward the far west shore of the Great Salt Lake.

Now the reflections really starting making nuisances of themselves.

At times all nature conspired against me, with even the sand creating distracting reflections.

I found a stick.

Sorry no time to photoshop their reflections out of the water before posting these photos.

Here's another pic of the far west shore of the Great Salt Lake. The mountains over there reminded us of the mountains rising up out of the Komodo Sea as we snorkeled earlier this year.

Sun and clouds and sky and brine and salt crystals and ripples and sand and mountains and waves

NJ

A tumbleweed.

Some of the other islands in the inland sea

I think this was part of a dead bird. There were a lot of dead birds on the beach in places.

We walked back to the reeds and got in the car and went to the visitors center.

W sat on a deer statue

We we were back out on the road we saw an antelope

And then we stopped and pulled off and saw a porcupine in a tree.

The porcupine never did pose all that well but I think this is one of the best shots of her.

This was the porcupine's tree.

We got back in the car and headed for a historical ranch on the island

The ranch has several buildings ope for display, including an old house. In the house, there was a bird flying up against a bedroom window, stuck like a fly trying to get out. I reached out and took it captive for a second in order to release it.

To us, with the spots on its breast it looked like a thrush, but we still haven't been able to figure out what kind it would have been. This pic taken a second before I released it and it flew.

Signs of the way the inland sea played in the lives of the ranchers

A watercolor painting of the ranch from the early 20th century

The window where I captured the bird