Wyoming to Salt Lake City

The drive into Utah was one of the prettiest we've seen so far. Wyoming mountains west of Rock Springs were beautiful. Lots of red rock formations that were more colorful than what we have been seeing.




















When we entered Utah, the scenery got even better. As we got closer to Salt Lake City, the Wasatch Cache mountain range came into view - Wow! They are still snow topped and are certainly beautiful. A bit more vegetation and a lot of interesting rock spires. It was hard to decide which photos to include since there were so many beautiful scenes.













We're still seeing a lot of antelope but the farming changed from beef cattle to sheep. The sheep looked strange till I realized they had been sheared and were not the wooly things I usually see.





































East of Salt Lake City, the road descends into the valley and things get a lot greener. It is certainly easy enough to imagine why the Mormons stopped here. We are staying at an RV park right off of the highway in Ogden (north of Salt Lake City). It is nice but he pull through spots used for transients (like us) are tight. We went away and when we came back we had a neighbor whose one slide is all but touching the awning over our living room.














Our first venture after arriving and settling in was to drive further north to visit Gold Spike Nat'l Historic Site. We're now officially old farts - bought our Golden Passport which allows us to go to all National Parks for a one time fee of $10. What a bargain. We arrived just as they were reinacting the placing of the gold spike so we were able to see the engine in operation. We weren't the only ones there. Gold Spike was a ride for a very large Harley group. They left right after we arrived so we basically had the site to ourselves.

















Our next stop was to go to Antelope Island, which is situated in the Great Salt Lake.










The island is home to several hundred buffalo but they must have been in bunkers. We drove most of the island and only ever saw two. Plenty of antelope and someone told us they saw a coyote earlier but we couldn't find any. It was an interesting place but the odor coming across the causeway reminded us of backwater at the shore.






























On Monday morning, we took off to visit the Bingham Canyon Copper Mine. It is southeast of Salt Lake City and was recommended by the people at the kennel. It was amazing - we drove up up up to near the top of the mountain to the visitors center. They have a very nice visitor center with a film explaining the mining process.





Huge trucks haul the rocks containing low grade copper - it takes about 3 tons of rock to yield 10.6 pounds of copper. This is the largest open pit mine in the world and supposed to be visible from outer space.












After the mine, we headed into Salt Lake City to see Temple Square. We arrived in time for the noon organ recital in the Tabernacle. After the recital, we had to eat so went to the Lion House, one of Brigham Young's residences. Then it was back to the Visitors Center for a movie about the westward trek of the Mormons.






The site is beautifully maintained- flowers everywhere and they were even scrubbing the pavement. The Convention Center auditorium seats 21,000! And there were helpful guides everywhere. A lot of young people leading tours and answering questions.





Assembly Hall was impressive.

We enjoyed the visit to the city but decided to call it a day and get some R&R. Is it possible to need a vacation from your vacation? We did decide to add at least one more day and not make the 500+ mile drive to Reno tomorrow. We have 8 or 9 days extra so not a problem.