Yesterday, Donna made the two-mile mile trek to rent a car at the Heber City Airport. It wasn’t raining by the time she left at 10:15. We wanted the car so we could go to the Crawfish Festival at the Homestead Resort near Midway, Utah. The weather guessers called for an 80% chance of thundershowers in the afternoon, so we didn’t want to ride the scooter to the event.

Before we left for the festival, I tuned in the Formula One qualifying at Monaco. Monaco is a special race. The course runs through the streets of the principality and is steeped in racing history. The track is so tight and twisty, the drivers have to be very precise. If you don’t qualify on the front two rows, you’re just racing for points, because you won’t be likely to win. Overtaking at Monaco is very difficult.

Around 2:45pm, we drove up highway 113 through Midway and found the Homestead Resort. Going to a crawfish festival in the shadow of the Wasatch Range in Utah seemed a little bit strange to me. They had tents, a stage, serving and dining tables all set up on a large grass lawn, next to the crater. I’ll tell you more about the crater later.

We found a table under cover. It hadn’t rained yet, but we didn’t want to chance sitting at a table without cover. There was a man, sitting alone at the table and he welcomed us to join him. His name was Jeff Bradley. He’s from Boulder, Colorado. Jeff told us he was staying at the resort with his wife, Marta, while she completed her SCUBA certification. He said many people come here to complete the deep-water dive portion of the certification in the crater. Marta would join us later, after her session was finished for the day.

The Homestead Crater is often mistaken for a caldera. It’s a dome 55 feet high and 400 feet across the base. This dome was formed by a geothermal hot spring over the course of 10,000 years. As the hot, mineral-rich water bubbled up through the surface of the earth, it left mineral deposits. Over time, these deposits piled up like an ant hill and created the dome, formed of travertine. Inside the dome, there is a pool of warm water, 65 feet deep. The water temperature stays at 90-96 degrees year ’round, as 135,000 gallons of water flows through the pool inside every day.

Originally, the pool could only be accessed by rappelling down through opening at the top of the 55-foot dome. In the 1990s, a tunnel 110 feet long was blasted through the north side of the dome. A wooden deck was built and the pool was opened to the public 1996.

SCUBA certification has a deep-water requirement. In many areas, people dive in lakes to obtain certification. However, many lakes are frozen or very cold for most of the year. That’s why the 90-degree water of the crater is so appealing for SCUBA certification. People also come just to soak in the warm, mineral-laden water.

Donna and I walked in the tunnel to the deck to look at the pool.

We enjoyed a beer while we talked with Jeff. Beer is a sore subject in Utah. Jeff is used to the micro-brew scene in Boulder. In Utah, there are micro-breweries, but the strange alcohol laws require watered down brew to be served in most places. The beer was what we used to call 3.2 beer. Beer in the US used to state the alcohol content as a percentage of weight (ABW). Nowadays, alcohol content is stated as a percentage of volume (ABV). The Utah beer is 4% ABV, which is equivalent to 3.2% ABW.

A band started playing on the stage as Donna went to fill a couple of plates of food for us.

While we ate, we found out that Jeff is an author. He wrote travel books about his home state of Tennessee. Currently he is a fundraising writer. He and Donna talked about publishing and the state of the industry. Jeff was also interested in hearing about our nomadic lifestyle.

Another couple, Dean and Becky joined our table. They live in Salt Lake City, but also have a house on the ridge above Midway. Dean is originally from Anchorage, Alaska. We exchanged a few Alaskan stories. I used to travel there a couple of times a year for business and fishing in the ’90s. Dean plans to retire next year. He wants to buy an RV, probably a travel trailer, to make trips to Alaska. Dean and Becky are going on a trip to Peru 10 days from now. It sounds like a real adventure. They’ve hired a guide and will climb Machu Picchu.

Becky is a school teacher. Her friend and fellow teacher, Carmen, joined us with her son, Michael. She is from Louisiana and knew how to handle the crawfish. Basically, we pulled the tails off and peeled them. There isn’t much meat there, but it’s fun and they were tasty.

Carmen is a member of a club for Louisianans living in Utah. I wasn’t expecting to hear that! While we were eating, another Louisianan stopped by our table. I didn’t get his name, but he graduated from high school with Carmen. Small world. No one could answer the question – why a crawfish festival in Midway, Utah? We found out this was the third annual event though.

After a couple of hours, the party was going strong. Donna and I went for a walk. We saw a canoe filled with live crawfish crawling around. By the way, Jeff and I both agreed that these were called crawdads when we were kids.

They also had BBQ chicken thighs and andouille sausage on the grill and pots of seafood gumbo and chicken gumbo.

The threat of rain never materialized. By 5pm, the sun was shining and it warmed up nicely.

Donna and I climbed the steep stairway to the top of the crater. The view was great. The pictures from the top of the crater are at the beginning of this post. On the way the back down the steps, I took a picture of the serving tent.

I’m posting this late today, because I watched the Formula One race from Monaco this morning while Donna was out for her bike ride.

Tomorrow we’re moving to the KOA in Salt Lake City. Dean and Becky gave us a few tips on restaurants and entertainment in the area.

*Here’s a link for more information about the Homestead Crater.