Salt Lake City

After a truly spectacular drive up the center of Utah, we arrived in Salt Lake City, starving as usual.  We found a dog friendly place called The Garage on Beck.  On Beck Street.  How hard could that be?  For those of you who have never journeyed in Utah and Salt Lake City, know that the streets are set up on grid system.  GPS won’t work because all of the streets start with a cardinal point letter (i.e. S for south) then a number in the 100’s followed by another cardinal point letter.  These numbers can go into the 1000s.  GPS freaks out and can’t manage it.  Also, most have a street name in tiny, tiny print that is cute, but useless.  The moral to this shaggy dog story is that it took forever to find the restaurant (which was really a bar that serves food as opposed to a restaurant that serves alcohol).  We barely recognized it as it was located pretty much at a refining plant.  The food was fine, drinks helped.  

Wait!  All I got was water.  Where was my special drink?

Eddie, you don’t drink.  Quiet please, we’re blogging.

Anyway, we finally squirrelled our way back to our Airbnb and crashed.  Actually, we watched a bit of Batwoman first.  

All of the next day was wonderful.  After a quick breakfast of granola we left the confusion of the SLC streets and headed out to the Great Salt Lake itself.  It is huge, much larger than expected and really, really salty.  Only the Dead Sea is saltier.  This doesn’t surprise anyone, but it’s fascinating still.  A visitor center tour helped us learn all about the lake, and how it was formed from a much, much larger lake in the past.  Most of the fresh water left but valuable minerals were left in abundance.  They continue to mine there reaping tons and tons of copper, gold, molybdenum and silver.  The smelter there is almost as tall as the Empire State Building.

We continued on our tour of the Great Salt Lake to Antelope Island, a referral from our recent chat with Colby and Hunter.  This is a huge island in the Lake connected to the mainland by a very long causeway.  Incredible numbers and varieties of birds are there.  The island is also home to antelope (of course), bison and big horned sheep.  We saw all but the sheep.  

I saw a sheep.  

Where?

On the island with those giant black dogs.  

Those were bison, Eddie, not dogs.  Also, are you sure you saw sheep?

Pretty sure.  Maybe.  Maybe.

Anyway, we stayed most of the day there, then headed back for salads at Firehouse Subs and home.  More Batwoman.  

Thursday, and our final full day in SLC, started with breakfast at Café on 1^st where we three could eat.  By the way, “first” actually means “100” according to the locals.  Even they don’t follow the actual signs.  Regardless, breakfast was a local’s place and Michelle loved her Matcha Latte.  We rested some of the remaining afternoon catching up on laundry and packing a bit.  Our real day began later.  

About 4pm we were at the Radisson Hotel (1 mile and fourteen turns later) to meet for a bus tour of SLC and the opportunity to watch the rehearsal of the Tabernacle Choir.  Before we began, we noticed people in unusual attire.  Apparently, it was the beginning of FanX, a science fiction convention.  Ewoks, Captain America, Princesses, Swords people and more crowded the hotel and the streets.  Thousands and thousands of them.  It was fabulous!  Young and old.  All were there.

Our bus tour slowly eased around all of these fictional characters come to life, while Todd, our tour guide, regaled us with information on the history, geology, and growth of the city.  We went up to Heritage Park, the University, the Medical centers, the old Fort.  Fascinating.  We ended at the hall where the Tabernacle Choir practices every Thursday evening for their performance on Sunday.  We watched for nearly an hour and listened to their beautiful voices while watching the conductor adjust the performance.  A true delight to see and hear such harmony and beauty. 

A quick meal back at the hotel, a picture with Slime from Ghostbusters and then home to bed.  Tomorrow, on to Cheyenne.