Pioneer Day

For Pioneer day, we decided it would be fun to go to Antelope Island as a family.

We finally arrived, after it took us almost 2 1/2 hours due to making stops to give Gavin a break from the car.  A long drive for a busy boy!

We pulled into the park, and stopped at the visitor's center. It talked about the history of the island, and all of the different animals that live there.

Then, we headed down to the beach. We didn't come prepared to swim-it's the great salt lake, not that inviting for swimming activities-and we didn't come prepared for the sun either. I brought sunscreen, but an umbrella or something would have been nice-not a bit of shade in sight in any direction. I was wearing ballet flats, and Spencer was wearing tennis shoes. We expected there would be picnic tables close to the water, but they were not close to the water at all. So, we took the stroller, our chairs, diaper bag, and food down to the water. The first little bit of the walk took a while, because the sand was so soft, and my shoes would fill up with sand with every step I took. It got so bad, I could hardly walk, because my feet were bulging out of my shoes! I would have just taken them off, but the sand was too hot to walk on barefoot. So I would stop, dump the sand out, and two steps later they are filled right back up again.

Eventually the sand hardened and made it easier to walk and carry all of our stuff.  The closer we got to the water, the stinkier it got. We first set up our stuff kind of close to the water.  That didn't last long! Bugs were everywhere! If you stopped moving, they would all land on you, and just sit there.  It was too much. So we moved further back from the water-less bugs, but there was still a ton!

 Do you see those dragging marks in the above picture? That's from me dragging one of our chairs further back from the water. Do you also see how the water is lined with black stuff? That is the bugs! Oh man the bugs were awful. So was the stench.

But the view was incredible!

When someone would approach the water, you could just see a big swarm of bugs fly away.
That pair of flip flops? Looks like they've been sitting there a while right? Well, the person who they belong to just took them off to go walk in the water, and already the bugs were landing on them. They don't bite, thankfully. Just gross! Okay, enough about the bugs.

We decided we at least needed a picture by the water.

Poor Gavin was probably wondering what the heck his parents were putting him through.

Needless to say, the beach stop didn't last long.

Luckily, we found an easier way to walk back to the car.

After we got all loaded up again, we went to spot some animals. Within one minute of being on the road of the island, we saw antelope!

I joined Gav in the backseat to keep him company.

We also saw buffalo right away!

 At the visitor's center, it said there is about 600 buffalo on the island. We believe it. We saw buffalo everywhere. And when you drive up to a higher point, you can just spot random buffalo everywhere you look.

We then stopped at the old ranch they have there. It was really neat to see things from the 1800's, and the buildings and tools they used back then.

Of course Spencer spotted the sheds right away.

A bedroom

Then we headed back on the road again... And Gavin chewed on his toes.

LOTS of buffalo!

I'm squinting really bad in this picture. I was telling Spencer that I couldn't even open my eyes, because I was squinting so bad-and while I was saying that I squinted my eyes more to prove my point-even though he wasn't looking at me. Then he snapped the pic haha.

Despite the bugs at the beach, we had a good time. We laughed about our unpreparedness and how we could relate to the kid who was at the beach crying because there were so many bugs. It was fun to see all of the animals, and learn about the history there. Maybe we'll go back someday.