Skip to main content

Salt Lake City, UT

Image
By


We left Jackson on a crisp but cold Thursday morning. We headed south on what would be a long drive - 280 miles - to Salt Lake City. When starting out, little did we realise that the scenic route road we were taking would deteriorate to an earth road for about five miles. It was a bumpy and extremely slow phase of the journey! 

5 miles of earth road!
Then the road (much improved) took us through a breathtaking area surrounded by the majestic Tetons and the Snake River. 



We stopped for coffee in the Yankee Doodle Cafe in Alpine, WY. The inside was covered with God Bless America memorabilia, the amount of which we had never seen before. 




The inside of the Yankee Doodle cafe

As we went further south it became much more autumnal and the colours on the mountains were beautiful - yellows, oranges and reds. 


Fall colours are beginning!

As we got closer to Salt Lake City,  Interstates merged and divided which made it challenging to reach our hotel but we did without too much trouble. We took the tram into the city centre and went to hear the Mormon Tabernacle Choir rehearse in the massive Conference Centre (seats 21,000). 



The Tabernacle Choir at rehearsal 

Salt Lake Temple at night

 On Friday we went into Temple Square (the city's most famous sight) and walked around the various buildings there. They are quite impressive. 



Looking down on Salt Lake Temple


The lobby in The Joseph Smith Memorial Building


We were very fortunate to hear an organ recital in the Tabernacle. The domed 1867 auditorium with a 11,623 pipe organ has impressive acoustics - a pin dropped on the stage can be heard clearly 170 feet at the back. This was demonstrated by Richard L. Elliott, principal organist of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. 

The organ in the Tabernacle 

Comments

  1. Bernadette3 October 2017 at 16:10

    Must have been great to hear the choir & organ recital!
    Great photos-----love the Autumn colours .
    Bernadette

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Holbrook, AZ to Peach Springs, AZ

By
We left Holbrook in bright sunshine and continued our drive along Rte 66 which once again had us driving on the Interstate at times. Our first stop was in Winslow made famous when The Eagles recorded "Take It Easy" whose second verse starts with "Standin' on a corner in Winslow Arizona". We then drove on to Flagstaff but didn't stop in the city. Flagstaff has a beautiful forested location high up on the Colorado Plateau and it was a change to be driving on roads lined with tall ponderosa pine trees. We had a picnic lunch off the beaten track in Buckskinner Park, Williams, AZ. We followed a dirt trail to the picnic area which really tested our car's tyres.  They survived, thankfully. We soon found ourselves in Seligman (pronounced Sligman), a sleepy town which maintains a lot of its historic character together with a few unexpected twists - eg Santa in a Chevvy outside the wacky Snow Cap Drive-in. Our destination for the night was th
2 comments
Read more

Seattle, WA

By
  We left Everett on Sunday morning and headed south to Seattle, our final stop on this trip. We drove to our hotel and dropped off our cases before we headed to SeaTac to return our car.  After the brief stop at the hotel we drove to Kubota Garden, a 20-acre Japanese garden in one of Seattle’s southern neighbourhoods. It was started in 1927 by Fijitaro Kubota, a Japanese immigrant. It is an urban oasis  with Japanese and native trees and plants, ponds and waterfalls. It was beautiful with its fall colours.  The following morning we headed down to the waterfront to the historic Pike Place Market where Starbucks first opened its doors to the public in 1971.  Then we wandered through the market which opened in 1907 and strolled by the numerous stalls of seafood, fresh produce, crafts and flowers.  On Tuesday we took the monorail, which was the first commercial monorail in the USA and built in 1962 as an attraction for the 1962 World’s Fair. It still uses the original cars.  The monorail
3 comments
Read more

Volcanic Country

By
  On Wednesday morning after breakfast, we headed back to the airport to pick up our car. We got a very nice car, a Ford Edge, fairly large for what is described as a small SUV. Then it was off on the road trip part of the holiday. Our first stop was in a cabin in Ashford, a very small town near the entrance to the Mount Rainier National Park.  Thursday morning saw us head to Mount Rainier NP. Mount Rainier at 14,410 ft is the tallest mountain in Washington State. It is an active volcano and is the most glaciated peak in the lower 48 states. We drove up to Paradise which at an elevation of 5,420 ft. is famous for its stunning views.  We then walked to Myrtle Falls and the views all round us were just stunning.  After lunch we drove to Reflection Lakes along a road with hairpin bends and precipitous drops to the side.  While in Ashford, we ate at the quaint Copper Creek Restaurant which opened in 1946 and is the oldest, continuously operating restaurant in Washington State. 
9 comments
Read more