Thursday, Melissa decided there wasn’t much at the convention that we’d driven 2200 miles to attend that really interested her, so she and I toured SLC, much like I’d done the day before. Hal took the RV to someplace for something, I forget what it was, exactly. I showed Melissa the City Creek Center, the Convention Center where we got a big tour, again, and the office building 26th floor lookout. We had a nice lunch at o real restaurant. Here are some more images from the gardens, the Convention Center, and the Observation Deck of the LDS office building. We enjoyed all the Sci-Fi paintings, like Jesus’ voyage to the New World, where he discovered Yosemite Valley and preached among the Aztecs in Mexico.
Capital area
After visiting the down-town area Melissa & I drove up the short roadway to the Utah capital building. It was surrounded by nice grounds, but not very many people, the whole place was almost deserted. We walked right into the capitol building, and wandered around a bit. All we saw was an elderly Oriental couple with the wife pestering the old man about something. The bathrooms were quite fancy, though, and I almost was embarrassed to pee in the granite and marble men’s room. By the way, if the building looks familiar, it’s because it’s 9/10ths scale model of the one in Washington, DC.
Ensign Peak
After the capitol, we headed farther up the hill, known as Ensign Peak. Nice area, lots of fancy looking places. Great view, and I made a note to come back later at night. But it was really hot, so I decided not to attempt to scale the mountain.
By Mid-afternoon, we headed back to the KOA. Hal had decided to hang around the RV and take care of some personal business while we were gone, so then he and I took the Crown Vic out to the NAPA store, and stopped at a large Super Wal-mart for some shopping. This was the first Wal-mart I’d ever seen with it’s own multi-level parking garage on site. The size of the place was overwhelming. Our little local store could have fit in one corner of it. We got some nice steak and salads for dinner, and stocked up on other stuff we’d need.
Capitol & Ensign Peak at Night
After our nice dinner of grilled steak and salads, we waited for the sun to go down, and Melissa and I headed back to town for some night shots. First I stopped and took some shots of the Capital building all lit up and bright, flags waving in the breeze. The tabernacle and Temple Square were also lit up quite spectacularly, I suppose.
Next, we drove up into the residential area of Ensign Peak above the capitol area and overlooking the city. At the end of a long cul-de-sac street we found a vacant lot that overlooked the whole valley, and offered a fantastic view of Salt Lake City at night. There were a lot of “No Parking” and “No Trespassing” signs all over, but there were perhaps a dozen or so other people there, mostly kids and young adults taking in the view.
I had just started to set up the camera when a cop car pulled up and began to shoo all the people away. It turns out the lot is owned by one of the people on the street, and they don’t want a bunch of kids running all over it. I guess that’s understandable. I got into a conversation with the cop and asked, “Hey, where can a guy from Jersey get some nice pictures like this?” and he says, “Why didn’t you say you were from Jersey – I’m from East Rutherford! Let me get these kids out of here and then you can take your pictures – just be careful, ok?”. So that was cool. I set up the tripod and took a bunch of shots, holding on to the camera for dear life, as it was quite windy up there as well. The whole Salt Lake City valley spread out before me, from the foothills of the mountains to the west, all the way to the airport and the red ribbon of Interstate 15 to the east.
Thus ended our last full day in SLC – tomorrow would be the final sessions at the Convention for Melissa and Hal, and then we head south to Mona, where the company was having a big ‘family day’ at one of their farms. We’d arranged to park the RV at the farm for a couple of nights, so we’d be ‘boondocking’, with no hookups for water or electric for a few nights. Our trusty generator would provide the electricity, though so we had no worries.
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