Salt Lake City Tours and Drive to Jackson, WY

Arrived at the Pony Express RV Resort (which was very nice) in SL City on Sunday, May 2nd after braving the early morning snow from Bryce Valley. It was just a little snow but the wind that came with it for awhile was pretty gusty so we didn’t hook up the tow until we got through the Dixie Forest. The weather did a huge turn around and was quite nice so we were able to get out & about during the evenings and on Friday/Saturday to do our touring. Salt Lake is a difficult city to travel in as all the streets are numbered such as W 2600 S. The Historic Temple Square is the city’s most important block and everything is numbered from that point and the 6-spired SL Temple is the centerpiece of this beautifully landscaped 10-acre plot in the heart of downtown. Thank goodness for GPS! SL City was founded on July 24, 1847 by a group of Mormon pioneers traveling what is now known as the Mormon trail after being run out of Nauvoo, IA. Yes, boys and girls, we all have our dirty laundry… (Mormons are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). They came with 138 men, 3 women and two children….(poor women)!!! Someone early on asked us if we were “LDS” and we thought they were asking if we had some disease or something…. apparently that is what they refer to themselves as rather than Mormon, at least here. It is interesting that only about 24% live here whereas most of them are overseas doing missionary work. SL was named for the salty inland lake that dominated the West many years ago. It covered most of Western Utah and small parts of Idaho and Nevada during the ice age but has receded and is now called the Great Salt Lake now 75 miles long & 30 miles wide with a surface area of 1500 sq miles and a depth of 40 ft. What is really amazing is that the total amount of salt dissolved is about 4.5 to 4.9 billion tons. At times the salinity is at 28% (beyond which water cannot hold salt). This is 3-5 times greater than sea water! We took two tours one of which was to the Salt Lake and what’s left of the old Saltair Resort from the 30’s, and to Temple Square where we got to hear the Mormon Tabernacle Choir which was quite impressive and the highlight of our touring. On that tour, we ate in Brigham Young’s house which is now called the Lion House restaurant run, of course, by the Mormons. We also toured Utah’s very impressive State Capital Bldg. This is a pretty diverse city with lots to do and see. Interestingly enough, there are a lot of immigrants here as Utah allows them to come here and settle rather easily. That said, there is talk in the legislature to stop that as there is a concern Utah will get too many folk from Arizona as a result of Arizona’s recent crackdown on illegal immigration. There has also been a large influx of people from California after the housing market went bust and a lot from Louisiana after Katrina, making Utah the nation’s fastest growing state (per capita). Another interesting tidbit is that Utah is the SECOND most arrid state, behind Nevada and BEFORE Arizona! That was a surprise to us! We also drove to Park City which is where part of the 2002 Winter Olympics were held. Salt Lake reigns as the Hqs for top athletes and training facilities and is where the US Ski, Snowboarding, and Speed Skating teams train. Lindsey Vaughn lives here. Another of our highlights was a tour to the Kennecott Utah Copper’s Bingham Canyon Mine open pit mine, the largest and richest mine on Earth!! It is 2 1/4 miles across at the top and ¾ of a mile deep. You could stack two Sears Towers on top of each other and still not reach the top. By 2015 it will be 500 ft deeper than it is now. It has produced more copper than any mine in history—about 18.1 tons! It is so big it can be seen by the space shuttle as they pass the U.S. The only other place that can be seen is the Great China Wall. Kennecott mines about 55,000,000 tons of copper per year and meets about 17% of the world’s copper demand. Think about everything we use that has copper in it. The equipment is extremely expensive….for instance the newest electric shovel costs about $3.5 million. Their profit runs however about $50 mil a day!! We took some photos for you to look at….it was very impressive. And no Karen. We didn't make it to Hill AFB and didn't see the neat restuarant you referred us to...Lord knows we looked as restaurants are more than a hobby in this household! :-) We left Salt Lake to head to Jackson, WY and Grand Teton. We’ve added a couple of pics of the drive so you could get an idea of the landscape. Our apologies for the delay in updating the blog but Jackson was super slow with the internet. Now that we’re in Gardiner, MT and up on a hill and just a mile from the north gate of Yellowstone, we will be able to catch up!