It was the 56th anniversary of the Apollo 11 astronauts landing and walking on the Moon, and there was no better way for me to celebrate that historic event than to stand on a destitute, other-worldly surface as well. That meant one thing – our first stop of the day was slated to be the Bonneville Salt Flats in Northwestern Utah.
After Tom’s alarm went off at the usual time, the three of us left “the surly bonds” of our fleabag motel in Winnemucca, Nevada at 8:20am and were “launched” into a mind-numbing 233-mile drive across what seemed like the void of space, which was actually the desolate Northern section of the Silver State. Not only did we lose an hour when we crossed into the Mountain Time Zone at the Utah border, but the landscape had changed dramatically as well. Gone were the sagebrush plains and the mountains of the Great Basin Range. That terrain was replaced by the vast, flat, baren wasteland known as the Bonneville Salt Flats.
Roughly three miles after we crossed the border into Utah, Vicki engaged the Jeep’s “retrorockets” as she exited Interstate 80. When we finally “touched down” five miles later in what seemed to be in the middle of nowhere, I saw a large sign that read ‘Bonneville Salt Flats’. A few seconds after my photographer’s wife shut off the engine, I thought to myself, “Houston, Tranquility Base here, the Cherokee has landed.” The strange, desolate world outside our vehicle definitely reminded me of photos I’d seen of the lunar surface, only with a blue sky instead of blackness above the horizon.
Before we exited the Jeep, I heard Tom say how lucky we were to have the site nearly all to ourselves. And that was great because his wife wanted to pose for a photo next to the Bonneville Salt Flats sign. Those words were no more out of his mouth when a large van arrived, and the driver parked close to the large sign. The next thing I saw nearly caused me fall out of the camera case. Over a dozen people, all Asian, popped out of the van, and each had a camera in hand. I couldn’t believe how many humans were crammed inside that vehicle – they must’ve been packed in there like sardines.
While my photographer’s wife waited in the Jeep, primarily because she wanted to get a photo of the sign without anyone clinging from it, Tom carried me several hundred yards out onto the flat, salt-crusted terrain. When the moment arrived and my photographer set me down on the hard-packed surface, I said to myself, “That’s one small step for a bobble head, one giant leap for everyone else.”
My first step onto the surface of that “alien world” came at 12:37pm MDT on July 20, 2025. Ironically, Neil Armstrong’s first step onto the surface of the Moon came at 8:56pm MDT on July 20, 1969. Fifty-six years had gone by since Apollo 11’s mission to the Moon, but on that hot day in Utah, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin’s historic moment in time came to life before my eyes; eyes that struggled to see because of the Sun’s bright glare reflecting off the white, crystalized salt deposits.
After our initial photos had been recorded, Tom telephoned his wife and axed her to drive past us to the North. He said he wanted to snap an image of the Jeep with the distant mountains in the background, all with the hope of capturing the enormity of the baren landscape of our surroundings. When Vicki had driven over a half mile beyond us, a sudden sense of eerie uneasiness filled my entire resin body. That vehicle was our lifeline; it contained everything we needed for survival and was paramount for our safe return trip home. In my mind, I knew that must’ve been how some of the later Apollo astronauts felt when they ventured a long way from the Lunar Module aboard their LRV, also known as the Lunar Roving Vehicle.
Once I had grown accustomed to my surroundings on the Bonneville Salt Flats, and Vicki returned in the Jeep to pick us up, I stopped comparing our visit with the Apollo missions to the Moon. But when I looked at the distant mountains, along with the desert-like salt flats, I realized another alien encounter had taken place on that 12 by 5-mile-wide ancient wasteland.
During a scene in the 1996 film Independence Day, actor Will Smith’s character, Captain Steve Hiller, wrapped an unconscious alien being in his parachute and dragged the creature across the desert, which was likely close to the same area of the Bonneville Salt Flats where we were positioned. In fact, that scene was so embedded into my memory, it was as though I could still hear Captain Hiller’s rant during the scene.
“You know, this was supposed to be my weekend off. But noooo, you got me out here draggin’ your heavy ass through the burning desert with your dreadlocks sticking outta the back of my parachute. You gotta come down here with an attitude, actin’ all big and bad. And what the hell is that smell.”
The funny thing about Will Smith’s rant was the part about the “smell”, which was not in the original script. The actor had ad-libbed that line because he caught a whiff of some foul-smelling air during the scene. It turned out that anaerobic bacteria in the salt water decompose organic matter, which releases a strong, briny, sometimes sulfurous odor, particularly when exposed to heat or when the ground is disturbed – like when someone drags a heavy alien in a parachute across the surface. During our visit, however, I didn’t smell anything out of the ordinary, even though my nose was only eight inches above the surface.
It felt great to get back inside our vehicle where the air conditioning helped us escape the high-80s temperatures Tom and I had been exposed to during our lengthy “extravehicular activity” on the alien surface. Once my photographer cooled off and rehydrated with a bottle of water, I heard him say to his wife, “The Bonneville Salt Flats are where land speed records have been attempted and achieved over the years. If my memory serves me correctly, the fastest land speed ever recorded here was over 600 miles per hour and that happened in the early ’70s.”
But my camera guy didn’t stop with regurgitating historical facts, and I nearly laughed out loud with what had come out of his mouth next. “Vick, it’s your turn to break the land speed record. I want to see how fast you can drive the Jeep and I’ll send the video to Earl. Since Earl’s a long-time car enthusiast and a race fan, I’m sure he’ll be interested in seeing you drive on the Bonneville Salt Flats.”
With the camera rolling, Vicki hit the gas, and she began her quest to break the land speed record. But as I watched the digital display on the dashboard’s speedometer, my photographer’s wife seemed to be overly cautious and never exceeded 60 miles per hour. During the two-minute Northward drive, I heard Tom as he verbally heckled his wife, “C’mon grandma, you can drive faster than sixty! See if you can get it over a hundred – there’s nothing to worry about, there’s nobody else out here. There’s not a f***ing cop; there’s not any pedestrians – even those mountains are about ten miles away.”
Although Vicki was forced to laugh at her husband’s sarcasm, she came up with a variety of excuses for her lack of speed. She mentioned being worried about the mountains, which were miles off in the distance. Vicki also said she wasn’t sure what hazards were in our path, and she didn’t want to hit anything – there wasn’t anything except flat ground as far as the eye could see. Then, as a last-ditch effort, she said it was hard for her to distinguish the sky from the ground, which made it difficult for her to drive.
Seconds after Tom sent the video to his buddy Earl McCartney back in Michigan, my photographer’s phone rang – it was Earl calling via FaceTime. After McCartney was connected with my camera guy, he had plenty to say about Vicki’s speed on the salt flats.
“Thank you for sending me that video, the Bonneville Salt Flats are a place I’ve always wanted to visit. But Vick; c’mon girl, you can drive faster than that. I think the record for speed on the salt flats is something like 630 miles per hour. While I’m on the phone with you guys, I want to see Vicki hit a hundred. C’mon girl, show me some speed – get that Jeep up to one hundred and impress this old guy. I know you can do it!”
My photographer’s wife heard the challenge, then looked into the phone and said with grit in her voice, “Earl, put on your seatbelt – you’re about to go for a ride.”
Vicki punched the gas pedal to the floor with her right foot, and we were off in a flash. We headed further North from our original starting point, which was where the Asian tourists were likely still in the middle of their photoshoot around the Bonneville Salt Flats sign. Faster and faster the Jeep flew along the hard-packed surface of salt – the bright white and light gray terrain looked like a blur as it whizzed past the passenger-side window.
Suddenly, my quit-witted photographer said, “When this baby hits 88 miles per hour, you’re gonna see some serious shit!” I heard Earl laugh over the phone, but I didn’t think it was very funny. I wondered to myself what was going to happen when we hit that magic number – would we be hurdled through time and space and into the future? Or better yet, into the past? When I saw the number ’88’ on the speedometer, and then it went into the 90s, I realized at that moment I watch way too many movies on TV.
Applause erupted over the phone when Vicki reached 100 miles per hour, which was the moment she took her foot off the gas pedal and began to slow down. Earl was ecstatic and verbally praised my photographer’s wife on her achievement.
“Way to go, Vick. That was so incredibly awesome to see.” Then McCartney added, “Thank you both for taking me on that ride – that was one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen over the phone.”
Vicki’s moment to bask in the glory was short-lived, however, when I heard my photographer say he not only wanted to drive the Jeep on the salt flats, but he wanted to exceed his wife’s speed record at the same time. I thought to myself, “She’s driven nearly every mile of the trip so far and now you want to get behind the wheel just to steal her thunder.”
I was miffed, even though I understood Tom wanting to drive on the salt flats just to say he did it. But I also thought he should take his foot off the gas when the Jeep reached 99 miles per hour. Let Vicki have her moment in the Sun – it’s not always about being the best. That’s the moment I realized my chunky photographer was wired exactly like his grandson Bo. Their motto is: if you’re not first, you’re last; and there’s no participation trophies in life.
A few seconds after I watched my companions complete a “Chinese Fire Drill” exercise out in the middle of nowhere, my photographer took his place in the driver’s seat and immediately put the “pedal to the metal”. It didn’t take long before the flat terrain once again looked like a blur outside of the passenger-side window as the Jeep accelerated towards triple digits. Vicki was a good sport and recorded a video of her husband’s antics, even though I knew in my heart she hoped he wouldn’t surpass the one hundred mark.
I heard the Jeep’s automatic transmission shift gears a couple of times as Tom approached the century mark on the speedometer. Would he go where no man has gone before him, at least in our Jeep? I listened intently as my camera guy verbally read out loud the numbers on the speedometer, “Ninety; Ninety-five; One hundred miles per hour!”
Did my photographer’s foot come off the gas pedal when he tied his wife’s speed record? Oh, hell to the no it didn’t. Only after Tom reached 102 miles per hour did he begin to decelerate; although I heard him say he briefly thought about going faster. “I thought about trying to go over one-twenty, but since this Jeep has never hit one hundred until today, I didn’t want to take the chance of blowing the engine out in the middle of nowhere.”
When the Jeep finally came to a stop and Tom got out of the driver’s seat, he looked happier than a tick on a fat dog. As a matter of fact, I figured he might need a plastic surgeon to remove the daggum smile off his face.
But seconds after my photographer posed with me for a celebratory photo, his Cheshire Cat grin was gone, and I noticed a concerned look had filled his face. When I looked at the horizon towards what I believed was South, I realized why Tom was suddenly worried. We had driven so fast and far out onto the Bonneville Salt Flats, we could no longer see where we had come from. As hard as we tried, my photographer and I couldn’t see any other cars, nor the large sign, nor any Asians posing around the large sign. The three of us were all alone on that flat, baren terrain. It felt as though we were marooned on another planet; in other words, lost in space.
Suddenly, an idea popped into my camera man’s head – an idea I imagined sounded something like, “Ground Control to Major Tom. Ground Control to Major Tom. Turn your ship around and head to where you came from. You’ll rendezvous with the launch site, as long as you don’t veer off course. God speed, Major Tom.” Sometimes I have a very vivid imagination!
With Vicki once again behind the wheel of our craft, my photographer set the course for his wife to follow. At the speed of sound, or at least at the speed of 40 miles per hour, we slowly and methodically headed on a Southern trajectory. After what seemed to be an eternity, I heard ‘Major Tom’ say out loud as he looked through his camera’s telephoto lens, “I think I see it. I think that dark speck on the horizon is the large sign in the parking area. And guess what – I think the Asians are gone; I don’t see any people anywhere.”
Roughly 45 minutes or so after I had taken my first steps on the crusty, alien-like surface, we were back in the parking area and with no one around the Bonneville Salt Flats sign. Like I always have said, “When in Rome, do as the Asians do” – which was exactly what happened next. First, Vicki posed on the sign; then it was Tom’s turn; then finally, when my companions were done, I stood on the sign and posed for one final photo at the Bonneville Salt Flats.
Our mission was deemed a complete success when we “blasted off” from the surface of the alien world at a few minutes before two o’clock. During the entire time I stood on the five-foot-thick, hard-packed salt surface, I never found a rock to collect, nor did I grab a sample of crystalized salt to bring back home. The only memento we had from our time at the Bonneville Salt Flats was discovered in the wheel wells of our Jeep, which were coated with a layer of white salt that was deposited during our high-speed excursion.
After lift-off, the 100-mile journey to our next destination was slated to take us to a place we had missed during our first visit to Salt Lake City nearly two weeks earlier. The three of us were scheduled to “splash down” in the Great Salt Lake, the largest saltwater lake in the Western Hemisphere, at 3:30pm.
As we neared the last part of our lengthy drive, which took us past the Cargill Salt Plant near Grantsville, Utah, our Jeep became filled with the smell of rotten eggs. At first, I thought my photographer may have “sharted” in his boxers, but I soon realized the odor was from the surrounding salt fields and reservoirs. Thankfully that horrid sulphur smell didn’t last long, and we completed the rest of the journey in a relatively odor-free environment.
Roughly ten minutes before we reached our destination, which was the Visitor Center located in the Great Salt Lake State Park, I got my first look at the large lake from Interstate 80. My first impression was one of surprise and dismay, all at the same time. At 950 square miles in size, I figured the eighth largest lake in the entire country might remind me of Lake Huron, which is only twenty miles North of where I live. But that wasn’t the case. Instead, the Great Salt Lake reminded me of a shallow swamp. I wasn’t about to give up hope; perhaps the lake would look better once we reached the tourist-friendly Visitor Center.
After my photographer’s wife exited I-80, she took a narrow, two-lane road into the Great Salt Lake State Park, which was located near Magna, Utah – an average-sized town just West of downtown Salt Lake City. Once Vicki found a parking spot, Tom carried me into the building, which looked like a revamped mobile home. Needless to say, I was underwhelmed. While the place featured the usual tee shirts and other touristy souvenirs, the only thing of interest I saw was a large tank filled with the one species of marine life that can survive in the dense salinity of the lake – brine shrimp, or what some folks call “sea monkeys”.
But we didn’t make the journey to the Southern shore of the Great Salt Lake to see an aquarium filled with sea monkeys. Instead, the three of us were there because my photographer knew the Visitor Center offered public access to the water’s edge where he could have me pose in the 70-degree salt water.
I was anxious as we left the building and headed down a rugged, uneven pathway towards the water. The temperature was near 90 degrees, but the slight breeze made our hike tolerable.
Then, just as Tom left the path and we headed on foot along the dark brown, wet sand towards the water’s edge, I caught a whiff of something horrendous. It wasn’t the rotten egg fumes I had smelled earlier; this was worse. It was hard to describe, but I thought the odor smelled like rotting organic matter mixed with an intense, nauseating, stagnant ocean smell. I’ve stood on the shores of both the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean, and neither smelled like the Great Salt Lake. Immediately, I wondered to myself why that lake, which was filled with stinking salt water, was called “Great” in the first place. It was far from great. Perhaps it should be renamed the ‘Lake of Death’ or ‘Lake Stink’ instead.
Not deterred by the horrible stench, mainly because he chose to breathe through his mouth and not his nose, Tom carried me to a remote area of the beach where he placed me down in the shallow water. Splashdown for our mission to the alien world of Western Utah came at 3:23pm – we were seven minutes ahead of schedule.
While the intense stink in the air made me nauseous, what happened next nearly made me pass out. As my photographer snapped a handful of images while I posed in the salt water, a countless number of winged creatures rose up from the shallow water and congregated on my legs, crotch, and base. Those small, dark flying bugs turned out to be brine flies, who’s only purpose in their short adult life is to breed and be eaten by something larger – like birds. As a matter of fact, Tom and I saw nearly a dozen California gulls, the state bird of Utah, as they ran along the shore and gobbled up as many of the low-flying insects as they could catch.
At this time, please snap a clothes pin onto your nose and enjoy the odor-free images my photographer captured during our visit to Lake Stink.
Our visit along the shore of the Great Salt Lake lasted less than fifteen minutes, which was all my two companions and I could endure because of the intense stench. As a matter of fact, I laughed during our return hike to the Visitor Center when I heard my photographer say to another tourist, “I live near Lake Huron, and the Great Lakes don’t smell like this. This entire area smells horrible!” The guy sniffed the air and said, “I came from New Jersey, and everything in that state stinks. But even Jersey doesn’t smell this bad!”
Back at the Jeep, where some of the foul odor had followed us inside, we began the 23-mile drive to a site we had missed two weeks earlier during our time in Salt Lake City. The site that had eluded us was a baseball field featured in the 1993 movie The Sandlot, but it wasn’t the vacant sandlot used by the main characters in the film. Instead, this was the home field of the arch-rival Little League team known in the film as the Tigers.
It was nearly 4:30pm when the three of us arrived at Riverside Park on the North side of Salt Lake City. The 21-acre park was established just three months after Titanic sunk in 1912, but the place didn’t become immortal until 1993 when Benny, Squints, Ham, and Scotty Smalls each circled the bases in the movie The Sandlot when the kids from the sandlot defeated their nemesis and established Little League team, the Tigers.
There were two baseball diamonds within the confines of the large park, which forced my photographer to examine a photo from the movie to determine which field was used in the film. Once the film-used field was established, Vicki stayed with the Jeep as Tom carried me to an area outside of the centerfield fence. Unfortunately, we were unable to access the field as each of the entrance gates were locked and my “larger-than-life” photographer was too big and clumsy to climb over the chain link fence. In my mind, I knew for a fact if Bob Moldenhauer had been with us, I’d be standing on the pitcher’s mound before I could utter the name “Wendy Peffercorn”.
I posed for several images around the famous ballpark, and although the field’s appearance had changed over the past 32 years, it was still an awesome experience for me to be there. In fact, at one point when Tom hung me by my ponytail from the backstop, it seemed as though I could hear catcher Ham Porter as he talked ‘smack’ and harassed each of the Tigers’ hitters.
“Hurry up batter, it’s gonna be a short game and I got to get home for lunch.”
“You know, if my dog was as ugly as you, I’d shave its butt and tell him to walk backwards.”
“Is that your sister out there in left field – naked? Think she’d go out with me?”
For nearly two weeks after our first visit to Salt Lake City, Tom and I had been bothered by the fact we had missed one of the film locations on our agenda that was associated with the movie, The Sandlot. But thankfully, our route home took us through Northern Utah, and I was lucky for the opportunity to visit that famous baseball field. It was unfortunate the gates were locked, however, and we couldn’t access the field and circle the bases in the footsteps of Benny the Jet.
It was a few minutes past five o’clock when my photographer and I hiked back to the Jeep where Vicki waited for us. Since my two companions hadn’t eaten much all day, which was mainly due to the fact there weren’t many restaurants out in the middle of the plains of Eastern Nevada nor in the salt flats of Western Utah, Tom and Vicki were in need of something more than the snacks they had packed away in one of the totes.
From the parking lot near the Northern side of Riverside Park, Vicki scoured her phone apps for reasonably priced hotels along I-80 and East of Salt Lake City. Because of her inability to decide on which hotel was the best, however, Tom verbally accused his wife of having the same decision-making abilities as a squirrel trying to cross the road in front of a speeding car. When the sarcastic remarks died down, my travel companions chose the Holiday Inn Express, which was located just North of Park City and was only a 30-mile drive from the baseball field.
Although Park City, Utah was home to only 8,400 residents, its main claim-to-fame was the town’s connection with the 2002 Winter Olympics. Roughly one dozen of the Olympic events were held in the Park City area that year, including the bobsled, luge, and ski jumping events. As a matter of fact, as we approached our hotel, we saw the pair of Olympic ski jump ramps situated on the side of a nearby hill.
Tom unloaded their belongings onto a luggage cart while Vicki registered in the hotel’s lobby. Once inside the room, my photographer placed me alongside the television set while Tom and his wife headed for the border to pick up dinner. No, they didn’t drive to Mexico for food because that country was over 600 miles to the South. Instead, their meal of authentic Mexican food came from the local Taco Bell, which they brought back to their authentic Holiday Inn room.
While my photographer put hard-shelled tacos on the endangered species list, the two of us watched the Detroit Tigers luckily defeat the Texas Rangers 2-1 on Sunday Night Baseball. At one point during the seventh inning, Tom verbally lashed out at the TV set when Detroit manager A.J. Hinch removed starting pitcher Tarik Skubal from the game with two outs, runners on second and third, and the team nursing a 1-0 lead. Seconds after relief pitcher Tyler Holton unleashed a wild pitch that plated the tying run, I heard my photographer yell out loud at the television set – “Hinch, you suck. You’re the worst manager in baseball and should be fired right now!”
But after the Tigers squeaked out a second run in the top of the eighth inning and eventually won the game, Tom turned off the lights and tried to relax from a full day of travel. I heard my photographer as he tossed and turned in the darkness. At first, I thought his restlessness was due to the baseball game, but it was more likely from the five tacos he had eaten. It quickly became evident to me the Great Salt Lake wasn’t the only thing in Utah that emitted a foul odor.
Suddenly, as Tom began to snore, I thought about Will Smith, the Independence Day actor who owns a luxury chalet in a celebrity-friendly ski resort not too far from our Park City hotel. As our room filled with the noxious fumes of freshly eaten tacos, I yelled out the famous Will Smith quote from the movie – and those words couldn’t have been more fitting for the occasion.
