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Our first visit to Salt Lake City was in 1978, almost 40 years ago. We revisited in 2009 on our motorbike trip and now we find ourselves here again.
This time it is to visit with Terry and Shirley Parker, friends from Australia, who are staying here with locals for a week. The locals are Lyn and Val Hooper who have had a long association with the Qld POlice Service through Hilton Buckley and Gabe Jose - police friends from back home.
Our first stop after checking in to our hotel was to find Terry and Shirley. We had the address and Terry's phone number but it took us quite a while to find them as the GPS didn't like the way we put the address in. Streets here are named and numbered by north, south, east and west as well as numbers, a little confusing for us who are accustomed to street names such as Brisbane Road! After two phone calls and asking Terry to stand out the front of the house we finally found him.
Terry and Shirley were supposed to attend Shayne and Elizabeth's wedding with us last weekend but Terry has had some medical problems since arriving here and therefore missed the wedding, he has been in quite a bit of pain but is now on the mend. We visited Terry and Shirley for a couple of hours and met their host Lyn. We even scored an invitation to dinner at Lyn and Val's for Thursday night.
Our day in Salt Lake City was spent visiting some of the spots we had been to before. This city is the world headquarters of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints (mormons) and has quite a religious presence. We visited Temple Square to see the Church and also the Tabernacle. The church is massive and is surrounded by beautifully maintained gardens. The Tabernacle is a domed shaped building where performances are held - the acoustics are amazing with no microphones needed to get the sound to the audience. The huge, golden, ornate organ dominates the stage.
After taking photos of the church from every possible angle we wandered off to City Creek Shopping Center, it wasn't even built last time we were in town. This shopping mall is huge with two levels of shops. The floor is heated and the roof opens and closes depending on the weather. A creek flows through the center of the building complete with waterfalls and trout in the water. We wandered around for an hour before returning to our car.
We decided to find a high point to see if we could get a good view of the city, we did, but were a little disappointed that we could not see much of the Great Salt Lake from up there.
Our next point of interest was the "This is the Place" Heritage Park. The location of the park is where in 1847 Brigham Young first saw the Salt Lake Valley and decided that this would be the place where the Mormon pioneers would settle, hence the name. The area is adorned with monuments relating the history of the settlement and a heritage display has been developed there since our last visit.
We returned to our hotel to get ready for our dinner with Terry, Shirley, Lyn and Val - we have been promised smoked ribs, a few drinks and good company.
On arriving at Lyn and Vals we were greeted warmly and introduced to the 3 grandchildren who were also there. Greg retreated out the back with the Lyn and Terry to supervise the cooking of the ribs while Shrley, Val and I enjoyed a drink inside - where it was warm.
Dinner was delicious - smoked ribs and pasta salad followed by apple pie. We washed it all down with a few wines and many stories. The grandchildren were collected after Kerrie had given them some Australian coins to remember us by. Later on another couple of Lyn's friends, Bonnie and Gary arrived to meet the Aussies.
We have really enjoyed our visit to Salt Lake City and have been invited back by Lyn and Val any time we can make it.
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