Salt, Salt, Salt

Salt Lake City

Our main goal after leaving Canyonlands was to find a campsite with a SHOWER.  So we called two friends that we met in Telluride and found out that there were two state campgrounds about an hour outside of Salt Lake.  We chose Utah lake State park in Provo, home of Brigham Young University. Showers were great and the laundromat in Provo was quite fine:  had free wi-fi and very hot dryers.  As you can see, it does not take much to make us happy.

Our campsite was a bit scruffy and by marsh weeds bordering the lake.  I was in Celeste when David called me out to help identify a weird throbbing, humming sound.  I thought it was some kind of pump, but then looked up in the sky.  Hovering over the peak of Celeste was a BALL of gnats numbering in the thousands.  There were so many that we could hear them loud and clear.  Needless to say, we both jumped into Celeste for the rest of the evening. That was quite a good thing, because soon the mosquitoes started to drill themselves into our screens and fling themselves against the skylight.  Right then we decided that first thing in the morning we would leave that place.

We loaded up early and aimed for East Canyon State Park, hoping that even though it was also on a lake that we would fare better  with the bugs.  On the way there we stopped at the Kennicott Copper Mine, the largest open pit mine in the world.   It is one of the few man-made objects the astronauts could see from space!  It was huge and because it was a working mine, we were able to watch the giant trucks trundle along with their loads of ore.

The campgrounds was great, even though there was a huge, double site next to us with about 20 people, who had their site lit up with floodlights when we returned late that evening.  Actually we got locked out of the campgrounds which closed at 10 pm and had to leave our car at the gate and walk to our site.

We spent the day driving in a huge, very long loop first to Promontory Point to see the golden spike, where the transcontinental railroad joined east and west.  That included a demonstration of the two recreated steam engines that actually met on the day the railroad joined.

Near

Near there was a giant company that made rocket guidance systems.  Out in the middle of nowhere!

Then it was off on a very long haul to the Bonneville Salt Flats.  I was driving, for only the second time on the trip, and wouldn’t you know it, we almost had an accident.  Not my fault.  On a completely empty road, a young woman who probably hadn’t seen a car on that road in her lifetime, pulled out across a railroad crossing, causing me to swerve to avoid hitting her.  I have all the luck.  Then we drove on a road through the salt flats.  I kept saying to David that I was experiencing a heat mirage because the road, which was shimmering ahead of me, seemed to disappear.  Well…it did.  All of a sudden, the road ended and we were driving on salt!!  I could not get it through my head that we were not on a lake of thin ice, about to fall through at any moment.  Quite weird.  But David got to drive on the speedway, which was no more that tire tracks on the salt and he was quite happy.

Back to Wendover for dinner.  This happened to be in Nevada, so, of course, we had dinner in one of the casino’s there.  No gambling.  Las Vegas cured me of that.

The next day we reserved for the Mormon experience.  No disrespect to any Mormon readers, but the experience was surreal.  First of all, Salt Lake City is the only capitol we have ever been in with such a religious presence.  All the streets are numbered in relationship to Temple Square where the Tabernacle and Temple are located and which is the only attraction in the city.  As soon as we arrived, we went looking for the organ recital scheduled for noon.  Smiling missionaries, either young, foreign women, (sisters) or older American men (elders) immediately surrounded us, offering help.  Most pleasant, but a bit spooky.  The organ recital, in the Tabernacle, was magnificent , full of great, swelling organ music from a 13,500 pipe organ complete with changing colored lights in the background.

Next, we took a tour of Temple Square led by two young missionaries, one from Australia and one from Spain, which included many murals of bible scenes filled with European looking biblical figures and a visit to the meditation room complete with a 10 foot statue of Jesus and a recording exhorting us to following his teachings.  Whoa.  Everyone was so pleasant, scrubbed and shiny and all were clutching the book of Mormon.  Nobody tried to convert us; no one interrogated us as to our religious beliefs; everyone seemed genuinely pleased that we were there…and it was spooky.

Later that night we went to the giant Convention Center on Temple Square, a 21,000 seat auditorium, where we listened to the Tabernacle choir rehearse.  So impressive.

In between the tour and the rehearsal, we visited with our friends who we had met in Telluride, and had a picnic dinner in a lovely park.  Again, the people part of this trip has been so much fun and visiting new friends was a treat.