August 12, 2013 Day –thirty-four

Eden UT,  Topaz Interment Camp,  Great Basin National Park

We left our condo feeling rested and ready to head down the road on our way out of Utah.  Not too much Monday morning rush hour traffic going through Salt Lake City.  Not on our schedule to stop this time, but a very interesting city.

Signs marked the location of former structures

Our next stop was one more of the Japanese internment Camps. This one was called Topaz Relocation Center.  It is, surprise, out in the middle of nowhere.  The nearest town was called Delta, Utah, but from there we drove and drove and drove.  This camp had 11,000 internees.  Although there are plans for a museum and visitors’ center, right now all that is left is really some ruins of buildings, and some signs identifying where things were, thanks for an Eagle Scout project.

One of the parts that made the visit there more poignant, was at the same time arrived there, so did a family whose mother appeared to be Japanese.  Watching them walk around the site, and then later talking with them, especially the adorable 5-year old son, made it more real.  To know that these were the types of people who were locked-up here.  So many small children including babies.  We left feeling like we didn’t get to hear the whole story, but were later able to buy a book, which Patti is reading about this particular camp.  Both of us feel like we really want to honor those people and their experience in our coming to these camps.  Sobering, but a good thing to do.

Then we drove a couple more hours and passed over into Nevada, the next to last state before we are home.  Destination:  Great Basin National Park.  This is a park that Dick has been curious about for many years, but you have to want to get there.  It is also definitely not on the beaten path.  This was the trip to check it out and see what there was to see.  It is between Salt Lake and Vegas, but going across some very open country.

The Great Basin itself is a very large area that stretches from central Utah to the Sierra Nevada mountains.  It is called the Great Basin because the water within this area doesn’t drain to any ocean.  This is why The Great Salt Lake doesn’t go anywhere else, and why Death Valley is so low with water not coming out.

The Park has some wonderful hiking and views. And they also have a most lovely cave, available for public ranger guided tours.  We were able to get on the 2:00 tour with only 9 people, so it was almost a private tour, our favorite kind!  This cave had a lot of beautiful and unique formations.  This included some rare “shields”, as well as many other wonderful things to look at and wonder about.

We took a little rest before dinner, because then we were off to a ranger talk on Bats.  The young ranger was highly enthusiastic about bats, and not only wrote and played a bat song on his guitar, but also had a devise which could be pointed at the sky and could identify the echolocation sounds that the bats make to find their insect food, and make the sound audible to human eats.  Very, very cool. 

Then starting at about 9pm, people began to gather at the visitor centers for a Meteor Watching Party. Each early August, the Earth cross path with a bunch of meteors giving this grand showing for several days. We got to hold a couple of actual meteorites that had landed on Earth.  They were quite heavy, but very cool.  This park happens to be one of the darkest places in the country and so we were not only treated to seeing dozens of meteors, but the Milky Way was so bright and beautiful.   The parking lot was filled with people, rangers with telescopes, whole families, and lone campers all enjoying the show.  It had a bit of the sense of a fireworks display with sometimes loud “Ooohs” and “ahhs” and “did you see that one?”  We were falling asleep around 10:30, (changed time zones again) and so had to go back to our campsite, where we caught a few more.  What a happy and wonderful natural thing to be able to do.

“Roam abroad in the world, and take thy fill of its enjoyments before the day shall come when thou must quit it for good.”
― Saadi