The Great Salt Lake Shorelands Preserve

Brian and I bought bikes this year in hopes of going on family bike rides together. Elliott doesn't love riding his bike (he prefers his scooter) and he doesn't go very fast yet, so we have taken turns riding. With a month of having a cold, and morning sickness still bothering me, I don't ride nearly as much as Brian. We live in such a flat area that he has lots of places to ride, including a nice walking trail. His buddy from work lives a few blocks away from us and on Saturday night, Christian showed Brian a new place to ride - The Great Salt Lake Shorelands Preserve is only 3 miles down the road from us and is wonderful! Brian, Elliott and I ventured over for a Sunday stroll. Brian took his binoculars and was able to see lots of birds. Elliott especially enjoyed walking on the boardwalk and sitting on every bench along the 1-mile trail. I appreciated getting out of "the city." You can look all the way to the Great Salt Lake without seeing any buildings or cars, you can hear crickets, birds, frogs and the wind rustling the grasses instead of hearing cars. It's a nice dose of country very close to our home. I can't believe we didn't know it was there. We'll be visiting often, I'm sure. 

Along the boardwalk, there are signs with information on the habitat and the birds that come there. We stopped to sit on the benches as well. Elliott took videos and pictures and snapped this one of Brian and I. (He almost managed to get all of Brian's head in the shot.)

Then I took a picture of Brian with Elliott standing on the bench.

About two-thirds of the way around the loop is this awesome tower! We couldn't resist climbing up to check out the view. 

We saw lots of small birds, some pelicans and maybe some avocets - we have to go back to be sure. But it was fun to be up on the tower. 

Elliott skipped on ahead of us and waited for us at every bench he found. It's the simple things that really make life magical! 

Elliott loves taking videos with the camera and can entertain himself for hours, especially in the past few weeks (months) that I have been feeling sick. I love watching his creations and marveling at his creativity and how funny he is. Most of his videos get deleted, but I have saved quite a few and enjoy seeing things from Elliott's perspective. Here is one of the videos he filmed on our nature walk: