Peach City: Brigham City

Driving towards the Spiral Jetty is movement into more and more nothing. First, the busyness of the interstate drops away as you head west and with it, the building wave of developments, strip malls, churches, and gas stations. Then, the farms with their horse paddocks and garages for boats and tractors fade out and with them the pavement. The last outpost you leave behind is the Golden Spike Historic Site. Erected in 1957, the site commemorates the 1869 joining of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads. A celebration of potential motion on a grand scale in the middle of a vast desert plain where hardly anything moves. And even though the site now receives upwards of 50, 000 visitors a year, my own progress still feels conspicuous.

I stopped at the Historic Site’s visitors’ center once about twelve years ago on a long drive after a particularly vicious argument with my then boyfriend. In response to the fear brought on by our fight, I chose flight. I wanted new territory, uncrowded by people and their baggage and my baggage and by sweetheart’s baggage. Somewhere to which I had no attachments and to which there was really nothing to attach to. Perusing the book shelves at the visitor’s center, I noticed that of the nine or so volumes stocked by the Golden Spike’s Historic Site, three of them were books on railroads and ghost towns published by my boyfriend’s father.

But today, nothing so heavy drives me out to visit this relatively empty shore. Winter is just barely receding and after a season of intense hibernation, I want to fling out my arms, free-up my concave-feeling chest, and feel just how open I can be to the gentling elements. I’ve been sitting on my squashy couch, staring intently west to where the city gives way, to where the light recedes and the mountains bear themselves with simplicity, just blue grey lines from my window. Now, I want an adventure, but a certain kind of adventure. Rather than test myself against the element in order to feel alive, I need to feel brought back to life by them. Today I need beauty. Not quite ready for the clasping walls of a canyon (gas is too expensive to afford a trip south right now anyway), I look to this open plane to remind me that there is light.

The area around the north shore of the Great Salt Lake—the area where the Spiral Jetty coils out to meet the lake’s briny waters—is 95 square miles of BLM land. There are a few dispersed ranches, most of the Promontory mountains jutting into the north east arc of the lake are owned by Promontory Ranch and therefore (damn them…those are some lovely mountains with great views) inaccessible. But mostly there is the just space. The terrain here is a unique contradiction of land so flat you can lie down and feel the curve of the globe arcing against your spine and erupting rocky escarpments folded and eroded and folded again, evidencing remains. Everything here reads of prehistoric Lake Bonneville. When the lake still lapped at the flanks of these hills, each range was 8 or so miles further east than they are now. Creaking slowly apart at the seams, tectonic plates shuffling, the mountains moved.

The west and north-west deserts of Utah offer all the tantalizing appeal of the “other.” These are the empty stretches that have been written off. These are the miles of basin and range where the Mormons sent their lepers, where Dugway showered the salt flats with nuclear waste, where scientists looked to break sound. These are the stumbling miles where the Donner party first lost their way, followed bad directions, and spent seven days on the flats south and west of the Great Salt Lake—no water, dropping furniture and clothes and babies, mouths becoming black— before reaching the Pilot Range and what is now called “Donner Spring.” And on the edge of these miles, hovering between relatively green, black-boulder strewn hills, a gentle country compared to the saline flats to come, Robert Smithson constructed the Spiral Getty—by the people, for the people.

I have been a hypocrite. For two years now, I have been wrapping up my Humanities 1010 lecture on the various ways humans relate to nature with a slide show showing off the Jetty and a note of encouragement to my student to go and visit this often forgotten earth-work. “It was submerged for three decades!” I tell them, “You have a chance to see something hardly anyone has seen since it was made!” The slides are stock photos. I have, until today, never been here. Confession made.

When Smithson first flew over this spot, looking for a site to leave his giant homage to primordial ooze, the lake was red. It does that every year in autumn, the residue of a massive die-off of brine shrimp. When the art piece first emerged in 2002 from its long watery entombment, newspaper headlines ran, “Pink Water, White Salt Crystals, Black Boulders and the Return of the Spiral Jetty!” Today, the edge of the lake is several yards from the end of the Spiral and a pale shimmering blue. The lake bed surrounding the piece is white and equally shimmery so that in all this new Spring sun, the Spiral looks as though it hovers, a mirage rippling in the heat waves radiating just above the ground.

When ATV’ers and salt collectors first came upon the Donner Party’s cast-offs, they were perfectly preserved and white, crystalline shapes looking as though they were made from the salt that preserved them. Black igneous rock taken from the surrounding hills—carried back and forth over the course of six days by a bulldozer procured in Ogden and now forming the Jetty—has likewise turned white. In the expanse between the Jetty and the shore, everything that has left remains, remains. Seagulls blown against rocks or caught by some larger predator lie sprawled mid-fall. Socks and sandals left behind so that some tourist could walk barefoot out into the sludgy squishy lake, now tip stiffly upright in the sand. Ovaline trails sparkle, remains of salt pools now evaporated.

Today the tourists consist of a group of art students, dutifully walking the length of the Spiral Jetty looking contemplative and making notes in little spiral notebooks, the requisite family with screaming children and a group of people whom I am initially puzzled by. When we first arrive at the site, they are trailing massive white balloons up from the Jetty. They are a strange conglomeration of gracefully aging women wearing sleek black capris with a sateen finish and movie star sunglasses, dapper looking men in loose white linen shirts and expensive leather sandals, and a single woman wearing REI SPF pants, long sleeved shirt, and topped by a safari-style wide brimmed hat. After some time spent shamelessly staring and eavesdropping, I figure out that they are photographers. The balloons are similar to weather balloons and carry a camera up into the air above the Jetty. The woman in safari gear holds a remote control with which she controls the camera. They are waiting for the wind to die down.

Walking out onto the salt flats west of the Spiral Jetty, I feel like I could continue walking all afternoon and into the evening. There is nothing to stop me. No physical barriers. Nothing is in my way. The landscape is merely peripherally limited by a distant line of mountains to the west. The Lake Side Mountains, the Stansburys, the Pilot Range, Grouse Greek, their distance relieves the long straight shore line and does nothing to impede the sense of space. With the gleam of white from the sand and salt pools catching my eyes and nothing to get between me and the sky, I finally begin to feel the light—not just see it—in me. I bare as much skin as possible, given the babies and the families and the photographers, and feel significantly more beautiful.

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Driving back towards town the long way—always go the long way—we pass by a fence separating some grazing ground belonging to Promontory Ranch (what in the hell are these cows supposed to be eating?) and BLM land. The fence is unrecognizable behind a sea of tumble weeds. The sea stretches on for another quarter mile and pools out across the road, forcing us up out of the dirt trench we are driving in and onto the range. The predominant direction of wind is clear.

Reluctant to plunge right back into the heat and chaos of the city (even though Salt Lake is relatively mild as far as these things go) we decide to take a back road through Brigham City and check out a little place I noticed on a drive back from Crystal Hot Springs last winter. Coming into town from the north, the open rolling foothills of the Wellsville Mountains slowly transition into neighborhoods of little brick houses, stucco bungalows and tree lined avenues. The trees are tall, evenly spaced, running the length of the old part of town and reaching towards each other across Main Street. The bark is marbled white and grayish green, looking fleshy and almost toothsome.

Framed by two of these trees is Peach City, the little burger place I remember. Peach City has all the ear marks of a late 1940’s early 1950’s small town burger shop, enough to satisfy any nostalgia junky…like me…even though I’m nostalgic for a past I never remotely experienced—it’s all Norman Rockwell—and though I realize that what he painted was the height of a sort of idealism that could easily be accused of glazing over—and therefore over simplifying—what was actually a painful and complex age, I still love…I don’t know, just the way it looks. Maybe it is an entirely aesthetic fetish, maybe I long for the sort of sweet stability recalled by these places….whatever, I like it.

It has a parking lot all marked out in numbered stalls and car hops running to and fro. Inside, there are mini juke boxes on the table of every booth and a stainless steel ice-cream counter. What makes this all great is that nothing here is a reproduction, manipulating us into nostalgic longing for the past evoked so clearly by the particular lettering on the sign outside, all these tables and signs and jukeboxes were here when my dad came here as a kid, visiting his Grandparents out west.
We sit outside on a metal table in the shade of a newly leafed out tree and peruse the huge menu. I think it’s funny that the menu is so huge—in addition to burgers, burgers with cheese, burgers with bacon, etc. they have steak sandwiches and Coney Island hot dogs (with or without chili and cheese), fish and chips and patty melts— because I am positive most people only come here for the ice cream. That is the next best thing—next to the car hops and juke boxes—about Peach City. They make their own. So when you order a shake, you can get it made with home made on the premises hard pack ice cream or soft serve from the machine (who knows where they get that). This is a sign of great things. This could be a sign of impending trifecta…

Sadly, no. The burger is totally mediocre. It barely deserves a description. It isn’t out right bad—it isn’t squashed flat with a no-flavor patty and mealy bun, it isn’t over cooked and dry—it just isn’t interesting. It is fat which is good since 1) I’m really hungry and
2) Adam and I are sharing. The fries however bring a fun twist. You can get normal old fries (pass) or waffle fries. Waffle fries are oval shaped and cut like….a waffle and dusted with Cajun seasoning. Yum and yum. They taste golden and slightly spicy. The oil used to cook them was fresh and quality so you get the good fried taste that makes you keep eating even when you are full and they let them drain long enough that you aren’t wiping oil off your lips after every fry. They make their own fry sauce, which is just Thousand Island Dressing but, when it comes to fry sause, I’m easy—unless it’s baaaad.

Then for the ice cream…..its fine. Fine! Kind of disappointing. Maybe I was expecting too much what with the made on the premises and everything. I got blackberry ripple and Adam got butter brickle and they were both….fine. On one hand, the ice cream tasted like milk—always a plus—and did not taste sicky sweet with corn syrup and preservatives. On the other hand, the primary taste was simply sweet, not berryish or bricklish. Perhaps other flavors would be better? During the summer they use local fruit (like peaches) in their ice cream so perhaps if you can catch that ideal window?

All in all…if I was hungry and happened to be in the area I would stop. But not go out of my way. I do love driving by though, just to look at the sign.

A little bit of useful info...

Region: North Western Utah

Contact Info:
306 North Main StreetBrigham City, Utah 84302-1808
ph: 435.723.3923

Rating (out of 5):

Burger ☼☼1/2 Fries ☼☼☼☼ Shake ☼☼☼☼

You May Want to Visit Peach City if You Are:

* Coming back from Crystal Hot Springs

* Coming back from or going to Bear Lake

* Fishing or running the Bear River

* Visiting the Bear River Bird Refuge

* On your way to climb City of Rocks

* On your way to or coming from the Spiral Jetty

* horse back riding in the Wellsvilles

*On your way to Lava Hot Springs or Downata Hot Springs