In order to get from Salt Lake City to Utah, you have to go through Nevada.
I spent the night in Salt Lake City and woke up to clear skies, chance of 100 degree weather, and a flat tire on my bike. Aside from the bike, all components seemed perfect for the day's journey:
Nancy Holt's artwork, "Sun Tunnels".
I studied this particular piece while at the University of Vermont and fell in love with her idea of removing artwork from the elitist "white-walled" gallery space, and creating something where the value is in the piece itself as well as the journey and experience getting to it. About this work in particular she also stated, "It's an inversion of the sky/ground relationship-bringing the sky down to the earth". That aspect of the work I never understood while reading about the piece in textbooks. Being at the artwork site, however, puts it all into perspective.
Let me back up a minute... let's talk about getting there.
Exit Utah towards the West side of the Great Salt Lake, where white mounds of salt are piled on either side of the highway. There are shallow pools next to the roads as well for a large portion of the beginning of the drive. These pools seem to behave more like mirrors than liquid, and the reflections in them are remarkable. Too bad there's the whole moving vehicle thing to pay attention to.
Once the Great Salt Lake is far in your rear view mirror, you enter the Salt Flats. I am still jogging my brain for reasons why anyone would want to camp on the Salt Flats, or go there for any extended period of time, but I have yet to come up with one. While they may look like cold, refreshing fields of snow, let me assure you - they are not. Driving through them at 9 am, it was 90 degrees fahrenheit.
Now, I learned the hard way about plugging in GPS coordinates into your Tom Tom that hasn't been updated since, oh let's say, 2003. If, and I should say when, you head to the Sun Tunnels, head towards Lucin, UT, and enter off the highway UT-30.
Or else you will end up here:
Leaving Utah, going into Nevada, to then enter Utah about 20 miles down the road:
Although this route was much longer and way more rugged than the other, the scenery was beautiful and I learned what extended time at 15 mph feels like. Although I was in the middle of the desert, there were a few, seemingly random, farm areas scattered about the drive. Most of the property signs had gun holes in them, so I did not stop to tell them about the Between the Points Project.
One of my favorite signs read "No Hunting, Don't Ask".
After a little over an hour, and about 4 hours from Salt Lake City, I arrived at the Sun Tunnels. Believe it or not, I had the exhibition all to myself.
The concrete tubes, as well as the holes drilled into the sides of all four of them (these holes are in the formation of particular constellations), were much larger than I anticipated. When you walk through the tubes there is an echo from your feet that almost gives you an out of body experience - or maybe that was the heat.
Each time you turn around or venture into a different tunnel you frame a new image. The light changes every time you move around the piece, and no matter how unchanged it seems, everything is different.
You become very aware of how small you are, and how vast the landscape around you is. Every time I moved through the tunnels I felt as though the distance between the earth and sky collapsed. I know she likely did not intend for there to be skateboard tracks twisting through the tunnel, but they add to the feeling that you are in a sort of vortex, spinning and rotating, inverting the sky and the sand.
While I feel I could have spent the whole day there, watching the sun move over the works, I had to press on. Not to mention, my super-gringo skin may not last a full day in the salty Utah desert sun.
Although, let it be known, this is the most color my skin has had in years..
and it's not (completely) pink.
Back in the art mobile, and onto the dusty trail. I ended up taking a different route out, so I had a nice new tour of the desert landscape.
Twin Falls, Idaho was my next stop, and boy, how the landscape did change. I drove through white, salt flats, down red and green grass fields leading into mountains, and into golden and green hay fields at the base of some smaller mountains. Southern Idaho was beautiful - all these ranges of gold and green butting up against crisp blue and white skies. I also loved all the farm equipment, and how the sun reflected off the endless, massive sprinkler systems.
I made great time coming into Twin Falls which was perfect because my bike needed some work, the car was due for an oil change, and quite possibly a serious car wash.
With everything tuned up, I'll be heading to Washington in the morning.
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