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From afar, the dry lake bed looks white and featureless; upon closer examination, a surprising variety of half-buried items are discovered.
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A piece of driftwood and... part of an athletic shoe?
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The timber could be from either a sunken boat or from construction. Looks like somebody's tackle box fell overboard, too.
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The receding water reveals more timber previously buried in the mud, now encrusted in salt.
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The lake bed cracks as it dries.
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Cracks in what looks like more pure salt
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On the dried lake bed... a dead seabird. One of a few hundred dotting the shore.
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An avian cholera epidemic (not transmissible to humans) claimed a few thousand waterfowl the previous November. The brine preserved their bodies until they washed ashore. Because of the extreme salinity, they didn't sink, but floated, and the prevailing winds sent most to the southern shore.
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The bleached skull of another victim
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Fresh bird tracks from a survivor
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This looks like a rusted-out water heater.. maybe somebody decided the dump was too far to drive.
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What's left of a mattress box.. a bed on the lake bed
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Nestled among the bones and boards, a wheel from a toy truck
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And.. a tire from a full-size truck? Why is it here?
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View of the tire in the middle of nowhere
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A sawed-off log, on its way to becoming petrified wood
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Part 1: Visiting the southern Salt Lake shore