Road Trip to Nowhere

Nancy was sick most of last week, and I spent most of the week with middle schoolers. So we definitely needed to get out of the house. Conclusion: It was time for a good, long drive.

So after getting some household things done Saturday morning, we got in the car and headed down 2100 South. After a quick stop for beverages, we go onto SR 201 and continued west. I was driving, and when Nancy asked where we were going, I told her it was a surprise. We got off at 5600 West and headed south. A couple of turns later, we found ourselves at Not-So-Scary West Side Junior High School. She'd heard so many stories about the place (as have all of you readers, I suppose) that I figured it was time for her to see it. Ah, memories.

From there, we got onto 6000 West and headed south, into an area I'd never seen before. (That was the theme for the rest of the afternoon, by the way.) We had gone a couple of miles when we were faced with the end of the road. To turn right, or to turn left? We went right, that is to say, west, to explore further the west side of town. We made it only a mile or so in that direction before we came across a new-looking townhouse community. And that was it. The road ended there, going abruptly from fresh asphalt to dirt to nothing at all in less than a city block. We wound our way through the development, got back on the road headed east, and turned south again at 4800 West, the next major intersection.

We came across something interesting as we drove this section. On the left side of the road were homes that were probably 20 years or so old. On the right side were masses of cookie-cutter houses that looked like they'd been built last week. On both sides, the houses were packed in as close together as possible. I wondered aloud at the property value differential between these two sides of the same street. I'm guessing it was at least $50,000-$100,000 per house. I didn't think I'd care to live on either side of that street. I need space.

As we continued south, we began to notice that the west side of the road became more and more empty. Large fields—honest to goodness fields where they grew corn or alfalfa or beans or heaven knows what—stretched as far as we could see. I had no idea there was still agrarian land left in Salt Lake County, but there is. And we would find more of it as we went along.

In the fullness of time we came to the New Bingham Highway and headed southwest. We passed Copper Hills High School, a hulking monstrosity of a building that otherwise looked like a fairly nice school. We continued on, eventually making our way into the tiny hamlet of Copperton, Utah. It was isolated, sitting by itself at the base of the Oquirrh mountains in southwestern Salt Lake County. And it was small—smaller than the town I grew up in, if you can believe it. (My graduating class in high school had 55 people, to give you some idea.) The highway skirted the north side of town, with less an half a mile of civilization on the south side of the road at any point. We made our way through the town proper and to the end of the road, where the copper mine property began. We turned around in the parking lot of the Ore House Saloon, self-described as "The best little 'ore house' in Utah". We drove through town a little bit, then headed back towards the city.

We turned south again at the intersection of Highway 111. This took us past the Old Bingham Highway, past 11800 South, and west into the foothills at the far southwest corner of the valley. We crossed a set of railroad tracks and found a herd of deer, probably six or eight of them, watching us drive by. The hills, the narrow, winding road, and the general lack of people made me think of places I'd been in the mountains of rural Montana. It was hard to believe we were still only a few miles from the largest population center between Denver and Vegas.

We came out of the hills into Herriman and made our way along 12600 South to the Bangerter Highway—the most misnamed road in Salt Lake, if you ask me. The 'highway' is broken up by traffic lights every mile or so along its distance; but it is 3-4 lanes wide, so it's marginally better than taking the surface streets. We turned north here and made our way to The District at 11400 south. Then we turned into the new Daybreak community, where the Oquirrh Mountain LDS Temple is being built. It's a beautiful community with a lake right in the middle of it. I'll never, ever be able to afford to live there, I fear, but it was fun to visit. We drove around and looked at the sights for a while, then headed east.

We turned left on Redwood road and headed north past the Jordan River LDS Temple, then turned back west at 9000 South. We turned north again on Bangerter, then entered the Jordan Landing complex at 7800 South to do a little needed shopping. While we were there we picked up (among other things) four DVDs from the $5.50 bin: Sneakers, Connie and Carla, Wayne's World, and Wayne's World 2. The first was my suggestion, the other three were (mostly) Nancy's. She was a little bummed that Connie and Carla was only available on full screen, but before Saturday night she'd never been able to find it at all, so it was still a good acquisition.

With our shopping now done and late evening starting to creep up on us, we began to make our way home. We took Bangerter up to 3500 South and turned east past Scary West Side High School. I was hoping to find something to eat—it was after 9:00 p.m. by now—but nothing jumped out at me. Nancy recommended Rumbi, which sounded like just the thing. We have a history with Rumbi; back when I was still at the U of U during the day and working most nights, we would meet for lunch at the Gateway once a week. Most of the time, we ate at Rumbi. So the food brings with it fond memories. We turned right on State Street and made our way south to the Murray location. We had our usual favorites, the rice bowls. She had the Jamaican jerk steak and chicken combo bowl, and I had the steak teriyaki bowl with brown rice. Good eats!

And that's pretty much where the interesting stuff ends. From there Nancy drove us back home and we called it a night. All told, we were out for something like eight hours and put more than 60 miles on the car.

And we never left Salt Lake.