Salt Lake City

Next stop was Salt Lake City - In the morning we toured the city on a climate controlled bus.  It is a very beautiful city, the mormons have a very strong influence throughout the city.  Temple Square is 35 Acres large, in the center of down town.  It is adorned with beautiful flowers everywhere, marble buildings, water fountains and the gorgeous Salt Lake Temple.  The center has a reflection pool that has a fountain that goes into a program about every 30 minutes.  It is much like the one in front of Caesars Palaces  in Vegas without music.  Before the fountains turns on one can take a picture from the edge and get the reflection of the temple in the calm water.  

The pool was completely level and ran evenly over the free edge on all sides.  

This is a favorite place for a Kodak Moment and one that is used most often by brides and photographers.  You can sure see why. 

We missed the Tabernacle Choir rehearsal and broadcast which is open to the public but we did go to an Organ Recital on Temple Square.  It was very beautiful.  All pictures had to be taken before the start of the recital.   

This is the Capital Building . In side and out. This is not used much more than ours is.  We were there on a Monday and none of the offices were being used.  The statistics of the marble and pillars in this Capital Building were astounding.  

Our lunch was at "The Lion House" this was once the residence of Brigham Young. The State symbol is the Bee Hive and this was Brigham Young's request because he wanted everyone working and his interpretation was to be " Busy As A Bee."  

The afternoon tour was to Great Salt Lake and the Kennecott Copper Mine. The first stop was the Great Salt Lake. It is exactly that.  The lake is very low right now and the salt is plentiful around the area. This took us in a 14 passenger van, and travels up steep mountain roads to an elevation of 9 thousand feet.

Most of the route we took on the way up was a bumpy dirt road.  The warning said, if steep mountain roads or heights make you nervous then this tour may not be for you.  

We did go to the top edge of the mountain which shows the open-pit and the operations of the mine. They take gold, silver and copper from this mine. We could only see the mine from the top of the mountain because they had a major land slide in April, 2013 which made it unsafe for visitors.