On our way back from Salt Lake City, we pulled off at the Bonneville Salt Flats to stretch our legs. To our delight it was Hellfire Week, hosted by the Utah Rocketeers. These rockets flew anywhere from 5ooo ft to 25,000 ft into the big blue yonder. When they come down a parachute is deployed to lessen the impact. There were a few occasion when the launching director would call out, “heads up, failure to deploy, heads up, failure to deploy”. The rockets are so high up you lose visual contact with them. Herb and I start looking for cover, as you can see from the pictures below, there is no cover. Then we notice everyone is staring at us and our panic. A kindly gentleman sporting a bucket hat, knee socks, and a pencil protector approaches us and says, “you folks aren’t rocketeers, feel free to grab any of us if you have questions, we love new comers.”
We ended spending 2 or 3 hours, taking pictures and talking with the rocketeers. It was so much fun and everyone in Rocket City was very hospitable. I ended up sending images to the rocketeer magazine.
A few years before this Bonneville adventure we happened upon Speed Week. To all my friends that frequent this stretch of I80, do not pass up the Bonneville Salt Flats, it is always an interesting stop.
Keeping the precious Salt Flats free of do-do.
Some of these rockets shoot 25,000 feet into the atmosphere, yes air clearance is required.
Rocket City, a few hundred rocket enthusiast with several thousand pounds of rocket fuel. Where would we Americans be without a few eccentrics?
It took me awhile to get my trigger finger timing down, these vessels are rocket fast.
The rocket men, fun loving nerds, certain that someday they will land on the moon.