UTAH #1 - Salt Lake City!

Friday July 17^th was our travel day to an overnight in Rock Springs, WY, before making our way to Salt Lake City.  We enjoyed beautiful scenery but incredible 35+ MPH winds.  We just felt like the RV was being buffeted and it was not pleasant.  Even after arriving and getting set up (we didn’t have to unhook the car – I just cooked for us in the RV), we still felt the occasional gusts of wind that was downright unnerving!  I had just as soon not repeat that experience!

The picture below shows a type of fencing we saw all over the last couple of states we've been in, known to have brutal winters with a LOT of snow.  These fences help keep the snow from building up quite as much on the highways.

 We began to carefully watch the sky which at one point really looked like it was going to be a "funnel" - yikes.  During this time is when the wind was so high and it was getting very unpleasant, but we made it safely in!

 Saturday – July 18^th - After we got up and were getting ready to leave, I realized I had a FB message from Darrell Tierney, who we knew WAY back 35-40 years ago in Hobe Sound.  We have not seen him for years and years, but reconnected a while back on Facebook, so he was on a cross country long distance haul in his semi truck.  He realized from my posts on FB that we were in Rock Springs, and he was right there!  He even recognized our RV parked near the front of the RV park where we were and asked if I'd heard him blow his horn.  I hadn't of course, but he had to go to WalMart for some things, so we met him in the parking lot of WalMart where we would have space for the RV.  So we met in the parking lot and just chatted for a while. What fun!  Then he showed us his "big rig" and it's amazing how one can live in those things!  Comfortable bed, and he had storage bins and cooking utensils and everything needed to make a meal for himself!  Very cool.  Always interesting to see how another person lives on the road.  We really enjoyed the short time we had together.

 

We enjoyed a beautiful ride to Salt Lake City.  You couldn’t pay me to live here in the winter, but it is certainly beautiful in the summer.  

We have seen thousands of these on our trip, I think the first ones we saw were in TX, but since we've seen them quite frequently.  These were the closest to the road we've seen and I am kind of fascinated by them. I've read conflicting reports on pros and cons of how much energy and savings they actually produce.  There are HUGE up close!  Some were whirling away, and others were barely moving. 

Here we are at a rest stop parked alongside all the semi trucks at the Welcome to Utah area....

Entering Salt Lake City....

And the Temple Square....

 It's hard to tell from this photo, but this is a gorgeous fountain that is several stories high...the sight and the sounds are lovely.

Inside the Visitor Center is the most exquisite art work.... so realistic!

The photo above and below were very impressive works of art.  The entire huge area leaves the illusion of being in "Heaven" and Jesus is there, represented in this bigger than life sculpture of Jesus.

 Life size sculpture of Adam and Eve.

We had intended, primarily out of curiosity, to go to a worship service in the Temple in the morning, only to find out – It’s like an act of Congress to get access to the Temple and NO one who is not Mormon is allowed in!  We were told that they have some weddings there, and baptisms for the dead (!), but no services are ever conducted from there.  We took a lovely self-guided tour through the Visitor Center, although like I said, there were missionaries close by every second to observe and talk with us.   

We did make plans to come to a service in the morning to hear the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and “the spoken word.”  However we passed by a couple of time a line that in the front, had a sign that said “Stand By”.  We had no idea what that was all about and continued wandering over the beautiful grounds.  We spoke to a gentleman about the service in the morning, and he said if you’re primarily wanting to hear the Choir, there is a concert tonight, but you’d have to be in the Stand By line until all the ticket holders have arrived and been seated.  I wasn’t crazy about the idea of standing in that long line – it was only about 6:30 and the concert wasn’t until 8:00. Just at that moment a really nice couple was walking by and handed us two tickets and said, “forget the line,  go and enjoy the concert!+  WOW!!!  How nice was that!  They also told us we must be in our seats no later than 7:00.  We enjoyed a few minutes of listening to this bagpipe player on the street.

 We had had nothing since an early lunch I’d made us while driving down the road!  Oh well…. We couldn’t pass this up so we went straight to the Concert Hall and found out it’s like getting into an airport.  Walking through a metal detector and your purse searched (thoroughly).  Earl, of course had a handgun on him, and I had one in my purse, so we hurriedly went to the car to leave the guns inside there, rushed back, went through their process and hurried to really great seats.  Only disappointment was NO photography was allowed.  The orchestra was warming up, so I did sneak a few photos of that, but there were people in the aisles everywhere to ensure no photography was being taken.  Sheeeesh, what’s the big deal?

 

Since we were there an hour early, we struck up a conversation with the couple next to us, Lance and Laura.  What a delightful Mormon couple with 5 boys!  We chatted about what to expect in a worship service, we asked various questions about their faith.  They asked about ours and when they learned we were two preacher’s kids, they really warmed up to us.  Laura was trying to plan a lunch for us one day this week, but our time is very limited since we’re flying out on Wednesday, so that likely won’t work out. 

The Concert!  In a word, FABulous!!!  You all have heard the Choir, I’m sure, but it’s pretty impressive to see a 370 voice choir come in and below on the main floor is a full orchestra to accompany them.  The guest star of the evening was Laura Osnes, Broadway star of many musicals, one of the most recent was Cinderella.  What an extraordinary voice! The 90 minute concert passed way too fast.  On the way out, the Temple was lit up and I got these photos.

Sunday morning came along and we talked ourselves out of going to the service. Since we'd heard the Choir, we just felt disinclined so we enjoyed a quiet morning at home. The weather was beautiful and we spent all afternoon reading outside.

Monday, July 20th, we were busy all morning going around deciding where we were going to store the RV while we're gone to Florida. We finally decided and made all the arrangements to park the RV and the car.  We're only about 10 minutes from the airport, so it should hopefully all work out smoothly.

This afternoon we decided to go up to Park City for a late lunch. What a beautiful drive (do y'all get tired of me raving about how beautiful our drives are?) Seriously, we ooo and ahh every single day.  When we left Salt Lake City, the weather was a beautiful 86 degrees (that sounds kind of warm, but when you don't have the humidity we're used to and it cools down to the high 50's or low 60's at night, it makes for a very pleasant day.  Well, when we got out of the car to walk down the street in Park City, I was shocked at the difference in temperature. Only 58 degrees!  Brrrrr   Elevation was 10,089, so no wonder it was chilly! We quickly went back and got our jackets and we enjoyed lunch in a quaint little deli and strolling around the streets.

Below - this is what an $800,000 house looks like in Park City!

If you remember Park City was the location for the 2002 Winter Olympics, so we went up to the Olympic Park to look around.  It wasn't until later in a conversation with our friend, Alan Hays that I found out we could have gone on the bobcat course!!  Alan did and said it was awesome but extremely rough and jerky, so Earl wouldn't have been able to go because of his back, but I sure would have jumped at it, had I known.  Next time!!! Or if we have time to come up again while we're here, I'll check that out for sure!

Tuesday, July 21st, we spent most of the day getting everything organized to store the RV, get our bags packed for our trip and cleaning out the refrigerator/freezer, etc.  Very productive day, but at an enjoyable slow pace, even taking a couple hours in the afternoon to sit outside and read.  We have to get up early in the morning to take the RV and car over to be stored and get to the airport!  Can't wait to see our family, especially our little kiddos!

July 22 - August 4th -  FAMILY TIME IN FLORIDA!

Launching the boat..... enjoying a night out with Mark and Lisa....

On Saturday, Mark & Lisa had their big dinner party that was on the calendar for ages, so we took all our Florida grandkids to Disney for the afternoon.

We enjoyed going to church as a family on Sunday and Sunday night we all drove over to Gator Joe's for dinner.  The plan was to let the kids play in the sand and water/beach area, but it was yucky rainy weather, so kind of ruined that plan, but we enjoyed fish and chips!  I can't believe I didn't take a single picture!

Then on Monday morning, we took off to go to Port St. Lucie to see our best friends, Orlan and Sheila Thomas.  Our time was short but really special.  We love them so much.  There is nothing quite like friends you've had for well over 40 years!

After a wonderful dinner, we went over to the beach and then a long drive....so pretty.

Love these kids!

So much family fun..... Ryan, Vicki, and Connor came over on Wednesday night and we ate a yummy dinner together and watched Big Brother.  

Friday, Mark and Lisa had arranged for us to go to the beach for the long weekend....so off to Perry's Ocean Edge Resort in Daytona....

Mark and Lisa took us out to dinner on Saturday for our 45th Anniversary!  Wow, how the years have flown, but so grateful for the many many blessings that have been showered on us.  God is good!

All good things must come to an end.  We loved seeing our family, but early Tuesday morning (4:15 a.m.) we went to the airport and flew home.  Missing the family already, but it's time to continue our adventures.

 Isn't it interesting how like a patchwork quilt the earth looks like from the air?

 I was fascinated by how the mountains surround Salt Lake City!  It clearly looks like a "bowl" from the air.

We arrived about 10:30 SLC time and all went smoothly until the shuttle left us off at our car.  DEAD BATTERY!  ugh.... so the place where we'd parked the car and the RV came and boosted us.  We then drove on over to get the RV.  As soon as we opened the door, we were dismayed to be hit with the most horrible odor!  Something had happened to the refrigerator/freezer! The electrical component that turns the ref on and off even though it runs on propane, had somehow malfunctioned, and there we were with all the meat and frozen items that had sat for who knows how many days?  The smell was overpowering.  We were fighting hurling and retching the whole time getting the freezer emptied!  As soon as that was done, we went on over to park back at the KOA we'd been before.  We love this park.  We'd planned to have a nice relaxing afternoon, but.....best laid plans! After some research and tips from friends, Earl scrubbed the entire ref/freezer with baking soda and vinegar spray.  We then put coffee grounds in containers all over and sprayed the entire surface with Purify essential oil.  And I had my diffuser going with Purify in it. We then went to get all our laundry done, and to eat, since we had not eaten since the night before in Daytona!  We went to a Chinese restaurant and it was delicious.  When we got back to the RV, we were relieved to notice very very little smell at all in the RV itself.  Still some odor inside, so we re-sprayed with Purify again, and shut it up for the night.  We were exhausted as we are still on FL time, and we're 2 hours behind here.  We got up on Wednesday morning and were so relieved, barely ANY smell left!!  YAY!  So we went out to a late breakfast at one of the places Earl found on Trip Advisor -

They specialize in breakfasts, and though it looked like a hole in the wall, it really was good!

Thursday we enjoyed a quiet day relaxing and reading.  We had intended to try to go to the DoTerra headquarters and take a tour, but it didn't work out for today.  So this afternoon, we went back in to the city and enjoyed walking around and seeing some of the beautiful cathedrals here.

Again, thanks to Trip Advisor, we wanted to eat at the Lion House Pantry, home of Brigham Young back in the day..... delicious home cooking style and we enjoyed it immensely.

 Interesting reference here to "all his wives....."

One of the things that has struck me most about Salt Lake City is the abundance of beautiful flowers.  They're just EVERYwhere, and make the city such a lovely place to stroll around.  Tomorrow we leave for our next adventure..... stay tuned!