Salt Lake City, Utah and a drive into the Wasatch Mts…

The next day the forecast was 94 degrees so we decided to take a morning drive over to Salt Lake City and then up into the mountains for the afternoon. Our first stop on our 127 loop drive was a visit to Temple Square, home of the Church of Latter Day Saints. I read that up to 5 million visitors a year visit Temple Square making it the most popular tourist attraction in Utah with more visitors than the Grand Canyon or Yellowstone National Parks…. amazing! We enjoyed touring the LDS facilities and enlightened ourselves a bit as to their teachings and beliefs. The choir was not in the tabernacle but we were invited inside to listen to a recital of the massive pipe organ inside.Wonderful acoustics and glad the recital was taking place.

After touring the Temple Square we walked up the hill several blocks away and visited the state capitol. A very neat building perched up on top of Capitol Hill overlooking the city below. Lots of cool murals in this naturally lit building. Built built between 1912 and 1916 the capitol is decorated with many paintings and sculptures depicting Utah's history and heritage. The center rotunda has exquisite art work detailing many Utah events and it is flanked to the east and west sides by two very photogenic atria.

From Salt Lake City we drove up into the mountains to our next stop at Park City, Utah. I always heard about the great skiing  in the mountains near Park City but was surprised to find that there were no real tall mountains as trees grew atop all the skiable peaks nearby. We did stop by and stroll around the town (it reminded me a lot of Breckenridge Colorado) and even had a cold beverage at the Wasatch Brewery. Sharon tried the Polygamy Porter… you have yo love the name of this one! Park City is nice but a bit too touristy for us…

Leaving Park City we drove through Heber City and we finally saw the mountains we were expecting to see as there was still a bit of snow on top of the craggy peaks just west of Heber City, Utah. We stopped just outside Provo to take in the beauty of Bridal Veil Falls. One can never tire of watching water falling down a mountainous slope… As we got back to Utah Lakes State Park we began to pack up as we were heading north about 80 miles to Ogden, Utah the next morning…