SALT

Salt Lake City - Sept. 20 - 21

DOUBLE TROUBLE
We left Eden and headed south to Tooele (pronounced Too-ELLA), Utah to visit Bob Fuchs, Jim's best friend from high school.  We were invited to Bob and Debbie's home for homemade pizza and a night of the guys reconnecting and reminiscing about who was the biggest troublemaker a hundred years ago.

A lot of salt in the hair of these two.

TEMPLE & TABERNACLE
Tooele is on the shore of The Great Salt Lake and about 30 miles west of Salt Lake City.  Saturday, Jim and I drove to SLC to visit Temple Square; the headquarters for the Church of The Latter-day Saints (LDS).  The LDS complex is in the center of the city on 35 acres.  Beautiful gardens surround the Temple, Tabernacle, visitor's centers, museums and office buildings.


It took 40 years for the Mormon pioneers to build this beautiful granite temple between 1853 and 1893.
Only members "in good standing" are allowed inside the Temple; that left us out. 

We listened to an organ recital in the Tabernacle.  This is the home of the famous Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra.  The pipe organ was originally constructed in the 1860's and has been rebuilt and enlarged through the years.  It has 11,623 pipes.

SNOW & ICE?
Sunday we drove west to Nevada on I-80 and stopped to get a better look at the Bonneville Salt Flats.  This unique natural feature covers 30,000 acres and looks like snow and ice.  The Flats reminded me of January in Wisconsin.  The wind across the salt flats was hideous with wind gust of 50-60 mph.  Jim struggled to keep the RV from blowing off the road.


This is what is left of Lake Bonneville after it dried up thousands of years ago.  That's a lot of salt!

We spent the night a few miles from the Idaho border in Jackpot, NV at a casino RV park.  A visit to the casino and $40 provided us with about 10 minutes of entertainment.  No jackpot for us.