3 Years Ago...Today

I haven’t posted much about my life recently. I've been busy.

Today I must take pause and remember what happened three years ago today...

Three years ago, I was pregnant with C.

Three years ago, B ( developed bipolar disorder and/or schizophrenia. I’m not sure which. We thought it was bipolar and he was being treated as such, but he started being non-compliant and his illness progressed. It was horrible. He developed his own alphabet and numerical system…

Okay, so that’s the main thing.

Anyway, three years ago today, I witnessed his very first psychosis. We were in the middle of the Nevada/Utah desert. He hadn’t been able to sleep in three days, and finally, as we drove on I-80, he said he felt like he could sleep. It was about 10:30 in the morning, but we stopped in Wendover, Utah and got a hotel room.

Long story short, his mind broke down totally. I don’t know how else to describe it. He broke. He started rambling about being Jesus, and I was Mary Magdalene, my sister was Hitler, 7 = taking on too much, etc. People on the stupid infomercials on television were talking to him. If I let him get close to a halogen light, the world would erupt into flames. If he looked in the mirror, he would kill himself.

Ah yes…these are the memories that haunt me. THIS was what my pregnancy was like: chasing around someone I loved and desperately trying to save his life.

But he died. He died on the Salt Flats. He’s very much alive and breathing. But the person I feel in love with was taken from me there, on the Salt Flats. He recovered, but things were never the same.

For a while, we could joke about Wendover. We shared that experience of going through hell and back and it made us stronger.

But ultimately, his illness was stronger. We are no longer together, and my heart hurts when I think of the mental anguish he must surely be in (given his non-compliance and his family’s enabling).

So anyway…today I am remembering all of this, and I want to share the kinda cool parts of the Salt Flats with you all. At the time this was happening, I couldn’t write about it. It was all I could do to keep myself alive, to keep him alive. But it is a kinda cool place, even though it haunts me.

So here’s a photo from Wikipedia for you, as well as a blurb about this place from another website.

And thank you for seeing me through all of this, even if you didn’t know what was going on at the time (because I didn’t tell anyone, and honestly, this is the first time I’ve been *this* open about it.)

Humans have lived in the Great Basin for thousands of years. Excavations at nearby Danger Cave have proven occupation of the area as early as 10,300 years ago. While Native Americans adapted to the desert environment, more recent arrivals found the area less hospitable.

By 1824, Jim Bridger and other mountain men explored the Great Salt Lake desert region. The first recorded crossing of the desert was made in 1845 by Captain John C. Fremont's survey party, with scouts Kit Carson and Joe Walker. Early the next year, 23 year old Lansford Hastings retraced Fremont's trail across the salt plain. Joe Walker's writings warned emigrants not to attempt the untried route; however, Hastings convinced several emigrant parties to follow him.

Despite Walker's warnings, the Donner-Reed party, seeking a shortcut to California in 1846, attempted the "Hastings Cutoff". They failed to take enough water and lost a critical number of oxen. Four of their wagons were abandoned just 10 miles northeast of the salt flats. Time was lost, and the delay resulted in their late arrival to the Sierra Nevada Mountains and their tragic winter.

Later, in 1910, the first permanent crossing of the Bonneville Salt Flats was completed when the Southern Pacific Railroad was built linking Salt Lake City and San Francisco.

Although he never visited the salt flats, the area is named in honor of Captain B.L.E. Bonneville, whose expeditions in the 1830's proved the area was part of an ancient basin.

During the last Ice Age, about 15,000 years ago, Lake Bonneville was the size of Lake Michigan. It covered one-third of present day Utah and parts of neighboring states. You can see traces of the shorelines, representing different levels of the receding lake, etched into the mountains surrounding the salt flats.

The Bonneville Salt Flats and the Great Salt Lake are remnants of ancient Lake Bonneville. Wind and water combine to create the flat surface of salt. Each winter, a shallow layer of standing water floods the surface of the salt flats. During spring and summer, the water slowly evaporates while winds smooth the surface into a vast, nearly perfect flat plain.

The salt surface contains potassium, magnesium lithium and sodium chloride (common table salt)

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