The Great Salt Smell

Riding in a car makes me nauseous.

Driving a car isn't a problem. Flying is easy. The tallest, fastest, loopiest roller coaster in the world doesn't faze me for a second. But stick me in the passenger's seat of a Honda Civic for an hour and I turn green.

So when Ron tells me to jump in the car for a trip to the Great Salt Lake, I am not exactly chomping at the bit. It's not that I don't want to see the lake, especially after discovering it houses a locally famous flamingo named Pink Floyd; I just am not a fan of passing out from motion sickness.

As the ride out of town progresses, and my queasiness increases, the visit to the lake seems less and less enticing. Ron is not helping the cause.

"We always take visitors to the lake," he tells me, "because it's something everybody wants to see. But it really isn't much to speak of. It's nice to say you saw the lake, but nobody ever wants to go back a second time."

"Why not?"

"Well, for one thing, it doesn't smell so great."

Ron is not alone in his assessment of the lake's unpleasant odor. When we pull up to the first public access point, the area is bare. A single boat sails on the horizon and the shore sits a mile away from the parking lot, a victim of a receding shoreline. The walk to the lake is about a mile, but Ron and I are game.

Once we get close, I realize that Ron was not joking about the smell. Things that smell better than the Great Salt Lake include but are not limited to:

+ the Paris subway after a rainy afternoon.

+ a frightened skunk that just rolled in a dead badger.

+ Hulk Hogan's unwashed jockstrap after a fight with a grizzly bear in heat.

Please don't ask me about the research that went into this conclusion. Just know that the Great Salt Lake is not a premier vacation spot for anyone who does not care for the smell of rotten eggs on a sunny afternoon.

Other than that, it's a pretty nice lake.