The Iranian

Having spent much of my childhood moving around we always made a point to see the vacation hot spots of the places we've lived. When I came to college in Utah I didn't have a vehicle which made it harder to see the local tourist spots. having lived here, moved away and now moved back I have somehow never made it to the Great Salt Lake (an even more surprising fact seeing as how I have an addiction to the ocean and salt water) so a few weeks ago while driving back from
a quick work trip I found myself driving along the lake and my spontaneous side took over and I decided to go check it out!

The downside to this on the spot swimming trip is that I was wearing dress clothes and dress shoes so I had to improvise a little. Now the thing you need to know is that the walk from the parking lot to the lake is not sandy like the ocean like you might think but rather salt crusted over and very painful to walk on. I kept my shoes on and walked out to the water. The other thing you need to know about the lake is that it is SO salty, the recommendation is that you wear clothes you aren't too attached to since the salt will most likely ruin them. I had on my FAVORITE pants. They are red, bright red. I rolled the legs up to my knees and decided that since there aren't too many waves and I was just planning to put my feet in that would be ok. I was surprised to find the water extremely warm. I went in a little more (don't worry, I didn't ruin my red pants) and then spent a lot longer walking around in the water. I finally realized that my "quick 5 min trip" had turned into a not-so-quick 45 min stop. time to go!

Now as I've discussed earlier I am a cell phone junkie. so this whole time I'd been on the phone. (if you are going to vacation by yourself, even a quick mini-vacation I still think you should tell someone about it) so I get out and realize that I can't put my shoes on. They were cute and black and my salt water soaked and salt/sand covered feet would not mix well. Now at teh lake there had been several groups, families, couples, a tourist groups and a few stragglers like myself who I suspect were also on little spontaneous mini-vacations like mine.

As I'm walking back (and on the phone) a guy from down at the lake stopped me and asked me to take his picture so I hang up. My walk back was a slow process since the ground hurt my bare feet really bad so the idea of stopping was appealing. I took his picture and then he started talking... and talking... and talking. (so much for my phone call) I decided to be nice and ask what brought him to the lake and he told me that he wasn't from here, he'd gone to school here and had never been to the lake so he was there to check it out. he asked me the same question and I told him I had grown up in the military and even though I went to school in the state, I'd never made it to the lake so here I was to check it out. He asked a little about my military family (where they lived, who I knew in Utah, who i lived with here, where my other family members were, etc) some of the questions seemed normal enough, some were a little odd seeming but everything got weird when his next statement was that he was here from Iran where he used to work for the government building missiles. (warning! warning!) and he'd quit cause they weren't paying him enough and then he came to teh states and after 9-11 he wasn't allowed to work in any war related fields. Then he went off again about my military family and who I'd been on the phone with earlier (weird?!) About now another guy went walking by (he had on shoes and went much faster than I did) and he stopped to talk for a few minutes which I was very relieved about but unfortunately my Iranian friend in no uncertain terms told him that I was fine and he'd be sure I got to the parking lot ok and he could go ahead and leave (talk about a let down, Bob* [besides changing his name, I couldn't pronounce his name anyway] was starting to make me uncomfortable) so Bob and I are walking back and I'm trying to leave and he starts talking about how he's going to bring his sail boat out to the lake. (if you didn't already know this; NO ONE sails on the lake, it smells, it has more salt than boats are made to be in, and no one is out there so if you had a problem, you're on your own. No Thank You!) I'm listening to this thinking he's crazy when we finally are back to the parking lot and the rinse off showers. I'm trying to leave as quickly as possible now (besides the crazy guy I'm also running late) Bob starts talking about my military family again and his friends in Iran (not really comments that belong in a sentence together) I'm just about to leave when he tells me he needs my number so we can go boating or I can get his so we can sail to the middle of the lake. I'll be honest, my first thought was I will probably be pushed out and forever live in the middle of the lake, dead and perfectly preserved in the salt water. This had gone from random to weird to actually creepy. I got his number and literally ran to my car. Needless to say, I will not be calling him!

On a side note however, I recommend going to the Great Salt Lake if you haven't been there yet! Just bring some friends!