Salt Lake City, Utah

We spent one day visiting Salt Lake City and Aggie had a laundry list of points of interest to see.  We were only able to fit in the Mormon Temple and surrounding buildings on the huge compound which was built in the 1800's.  All the buildings were available for viewing; some self tour and others you must have a guide.  The guides were very knowledgeable, informative and friendly, and everything was FREE.  That appealed to me.  This compound was so large they had two extensive visitor centers located on site.  The grounds were absolutely beautiful with water falls, and landscaping which included flowers, plants, and trees imported from around the world.  We attended a free organ recital which lasted about 35 minutes.  This organ has 7708 pipes and is housed in a building which seats 21,000 people.  It was very interesting observing the organist gliding his fingers along the five rows of keyboards on this organ. 

The Mormon's were the first to settle this city and all the streets surrounding the Temple are based upon the direction of the Temple.  For example, there are four streets called Temple St.  North Temple does not run north and south, but is north of the Temple and runs east and west.  There were other streets called 400 South which would presumably be 4 blocks south of the Temple and would run east and west.   Needless to say, it took us over one hour to find our car after touring the Temple grounds.  I had a city map with me which was no help.

There was a large indoor/outdoor mall which had waterfalls and a little brook running through it with live trout swimming.  Cool!

The next day we planned to spend 2 hours at the Great Salt Lake on our way heading west out of town.  It was very disappointing as the water level was low and you had to hike a good 1/4 mile to the water.  We walked about 2/3 of the way till the stench of dead birds overcame us.