One of the places we've always wanted to visit...well, actually I've always to visit....is the Bonneville Salt Flats on the Great Salt Lake outside of Salt Lake City, Utah. We'll get to our visit in a bit, but first....
This is where the world land speed records are set for vehicles. The current speed record is 763.035 mph (1227.986 km/h (the record-breaking speed averaged over the 2 runs of the measured mile). This one was run at Black Rock Desert in Nevada which is west of Winnemucca, Nevada.
Just so you can see what are the fastest ones out there, here's a few of the upcoming challengers...these are cool looking!
...and some past record holders....
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Thrust 2 - 633.468 mph (1019.468 km/h)
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| The Blue Flame - 622.407 mph (1,001.667 km/h) |
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| The Green Monster - 576.553 mph (927.847 km/h). Green? |
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| Wingfoot Express - 413.199 mph (664.963 km/h) |
So, we drove out on a paved road to the end, where I was really disappointed as I thought we would be able to go way out on the flats. But then, off in the distance, we saw, what we thought were small ATV-type vehicles coming towards us. As they got closer, we realized that they were CARS! We spotted them first about 10 miles out!
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| See the "dots" out to the left of the island? |
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| Closer now |
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| Even closer |
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| And almost here... |
Once that lead car got onto the pavement, I went over and asked if it was okay to drive out there...was it soggy or wet or do I need 4-wheel drive? They said, "No", it's fine. We went out about 20 miles".
Well, that settled it for us. Off we went!
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| This is about 5 miles from the paved road. |
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| Waaaay out there now. |
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| Mom and son out biking....3 miles from the road! |
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| You cannot tell, but that is a family of six getting out of their car. |
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| Kim and Katie....obviously ! |
One last set of photos to show some perspective on how large this salt flat lake is...
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| Overall aerial to show the star where we started. |
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| Then we drove off the highway to the "launch point". |
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| This is where we saw the "dots" on the horizon looking to the upper right. |
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...and where we drove out onto the flats and where we ended up. HUGE !
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Oh, one more thing...check out what the truck looked like after we got back to the car wash...
This was a pretty neat adventure and one that we'll remember for a long time. Thanks for viewing!
steve/kim/katie
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| Kim with here sleeping dog, Katie, and some desert rat she picked up ! |
