To get ahead of the Winter blues and stave off as much as possible the building fears we had about an impending pandemic, we took a day trip to explore one of the Great Salt Lake’s many wonders, the Spiral Jetty, located beyond Corinne and the Golden Spike National Historical Park on the Rozel Point peninsula of the northeastern shore of the lake. We took the Nomad for its last adventure, at least with us, though we didn’t know that at the time.

The jetty is what owner and curator Dia Artwork Foundation calls an earthwork. Created by Robert Smithson in 1970, he formed this 1500 ft. coil from six thousand tons of black basalt. Back in the day the Spiral Jetty left the shore into the Great Salt Lake’s shallow water, but the lake’s current diminishing has left the earthwork sur terre, but it is no less striking to see and experience.

It’s open (wide open) to the public with the intent of leave no trace other than footprints, which which most seem to comply. We walked to the north of the structure, but couldn’t resist the allure of the spiral’s center, rumored to have certain special ethereal stuff, of which we did not experience, but it was cool to be at its center and appreciate the work that went into it.

We then walked Ginger and Maryann further out to the receding shoreline or at least to an invisible boundary between terra firma and terra sinka and released a shutter a few times.

I’ve been making a photographic record lately of the Great Salt Lake. I’ve been to her shores often for photo ops with motorcycles and rig builds, but have been focusing more lately on the lake itself. It’s one of the few places I’ve been where one can see the actual curvature of the earth, like in the image above, and besides frustrating flat-earthers, there’s something gained in this perspective, that puny human thing again.

The girls seemed a bit baffled by the ground beneath their feet.

We made our way back to the Nomad and fixed a hot lunch that we enjoyed in the wind-break of the truck after which we drove back to the Golden Spike National Park and took a favorite trail that was once the original bed of the Union Pacific Grade.

The Nomad was turning into a luxury that served a very narrow purpose, overlanding and at fourteen miles per gallon it was an expensive one. We had the Silverado which we used for road trips and towing the trailer and we decided what we really needed was a vehicle that would take care of all our adventure needs.

I posted it for sale online where it sold in less than 45 minutes. The Silverado sold in two days.