050922 - SALT LAKE CITY
Salt Lake City 9/22/2005
We arrived at the city in late morning and check-in for most RV parks are noon or later, so we decided to take the Beast for a tour of the downtown area – at least that’s what looked most interesting. The tall buildings, temple spires, trolley cars, and a bit of traffic. It all looked quite clean and organized.
As we headed toward our park, we made mental notes of the locations of restaurants, laundries, and we even noticed that we were not too far from the fair grounds which was hosting its annual state fair that weekend.
The RV park was a KOA – which usually means 2 things – its going to be well organized, with good services, and it’s going to be a little more expensive that the average park. I was right on both counts. To mitigate the cost, we decided to pay the weekly rate - 7 days for the price of 6 – figuring with the cost of gas being what it is – it would be worth not driving for a week.
As we hooked up – we did notice some dripping from our black water tank (the nasty one). It was Friday, so naturally when we called the local Mobile RV repair man he scheduled an appointment for Monday morning. This created a major inconvenience – not being able to use our toilet – having to use the park’s facilities. Of course Peter was delighted, since that meant he got to go for walks more often – even if it meant bathroom duty.
The mechanic came out as planned, sealed the crack in the tank, fixed a few other things on my to-do list and everything was back to normal by the afternoon.
We decided that the damage was probably done on the road to or from the Valley of Rubble. I knew I should have bypassed it.
This park did have everything – from a Mexican restaurant on the corner, to Pizza delivery from down the block, with a small restaurant in the park for breakfast and dinner and even a barber shop. In addition, they arranged tours that picked us up at the park.
One tour we took covered the basic city highlights including the Mormon historical sights, temple, tabernacle, and a general tour of the city and its surroundings. Unfortunately, the capitol building and tabernacle were under construction for earthquake retrofitting, but we did get to attend a beautiful organ recital at one of their other religious centers. The recital hall was immense and awesome. The organ was smaller than the one in the tabernacle but it could have filled my high school gymnasium. I can imagine the size of the other.
The city is well designed, laid out in a sensible grid – numbered by the distance from the temple – center of town. It is said that when it was originally planned, the streets were to be wide enough for a 2 oxen team and wagon to be able to make a U-turn. In fact, even the Beast could make the turn.
Initially, we were told that Peter was not allowed on the bus, but after a short but forceful explanation, he was granted access. Of course he was a perfect gentleman, and everyone on the bus wanted to pet him.
Our next tour was to take us to the 2 most famous non-religious sites of the area … The Salt Lake and The Open Pit Copper Mine ( the largest in the world).
Supposedly, the only site that can be seen from the space shuttle besides the Great Wall Of China.
The lake is about 16 miles out of town and once you describe its size, shape, age and content, there is not too much else to say. Once you see it, there is not too much more to see. There is actually a marina there with about 50 boats, but only about 3 sail boats were out that day. The lake is big, in fact about 40 by 20 miles big) with 11 islands in it – the largest being 11 miles long – but they are all uninhabited except for wild life.
The Copper Mine is a pit … about 3 miles long by two miles wide, and one mile deep. It is basically a hollowed out mountain. Again, a pretty impressive site to see – for about 5 minutes, and then that’s all there is to see. There is a small museum at the site – and a short movie about the history and operations of the mine – pretty impressive.
We never got to the fair, but since it was so close, we got to watch their fireworks show a few nights from the comfort of the chairs in front of our RV.
The weather was pretty nice most of the week, expect for the day before we left – a large rainstorm – mostly late night – early morning – gone by the time we got up, but showers later in the afternoon briefly.
We really enjoyed this area, and once again have changed our itinerary. We had planned on going to Colorado and then to New Mexico, but checking the weather told use that winter temperatures were already appearing – nighttime – 30’s – not our cup of tea – so we’ll head south instead – planning on a week or so at a club park in Pahrump, Nevada that has some good press.
Till next time,
We arrived at the city in late morning and check-in for most RV parks are noon or later, so we decided to take the Beast for a tour of the downtown area – at least that’s what looked most interesting. The tall buildings, temple spires, trolley cars, and a bit of traffic. It all looked quite clean and organized.
As we headed toward our park, we made mental notes of the locations of restaurants, laundries, and we even noticed that we were not too far from the fair grounds which was hosting its annual state fair that weekend.
The RV park was a KOA – which usually means 2 things – its going to be well organized, with good services, and it’s going to be a little more expensive that the average park. I was right on both counts. To mitigate the cost, we decided to pay the weekly rate - 7 days for the price of 6 – figuring with the cost of gas being what it is – it would be worth not driving for a week.
As we hooked up – we did notice some dripping from our black water tank (the nasty one). It was Friday, so naturally when we called the local Mobile RV repair man he scheduled an appointment for Monday morning. This created a major inconvenience – not being able to use our toilet – having to use the park’s facilities. Of course Peter was delighted, since that meant he got to go for walks more often – even if it meant bathroom duty.
The mechanic came out as planned, sealed the crack in the tank, fixed a few other things on my to-do list and everything was back to normal by the afternoon.
We decided that the damage was probably done on the road to or from the Valley of Rubble. I knew I should have bypassed it.
This park did have everything – from a Mexican restaurant on the corner, to Pizza delivery from down the block, with a small restaurant in the park for breakfast and dinner and even a barber shop. In addition, they arranged tours that picked us up at the park.
One tour we took covered the basic city highlights including the Mormon historical sights, temple, tabernacle, and a general tour of the city and its surroundings. Unfortunately, the capitol building and tabernacle were under construction for earthquake retrofitting, but we did get to attend a beautiful organ recital at one of their other religious centers. The recital hall was immense and awesome. The organ was smaller than the one in the tabernacle but it could have filled my high school gymnasium. I can imagine the size of the other.
The city is well designed, laid out in a sensible grid – numbered by the distance from the temple – center of town. It is said that when it was originally planned, the streets were to be wide enough for a 2 oxen team and wagon to be able to make a U-turn. In fact, even the Beast could make the turn.
Initially, we were told that Peter was not allowed on the bus, but after a short but forceful explanation, he was granted access. Of course he was a perfect gentleman, and everyone on the bus wanted to pet him.
Our next tour was to take us to the 2 most famous non-religious sites of the area … The Salt Lake and The Open Pit Copper Mine ( the largest in the world).
Supposedly, the only site that can be seen from the space shuttle besides the Great Wall Of China.
The lake is about 16 miles out of town and once you describe its size, shape, age and content, there is not too much else to say. Once you see it, there is not too much more to see. There is actually a marina there with about 50 boats, but only about 3 sail boats were out that day. The lake is big, in fact about 40 by 20 miles big) with 11 islands in it – the largest being 11 miles long – but they are all uninhabited except for wild life.
The Copper Mine is a pit … about 3 miles long by two miles wide, and one mile deep. It is basically a hollowed out mountain. Again, a pretty impressive site to see – for about 5 minutes, and then that’s all there is to see. There is a small museum at the site – and a short movie about the history and operations of the mine – pretty impressive.
We never got to the fair, but since it was so close, we got to watch their fireworks show a few nights from the comfort of the chairs in front of our RV.
The weather was pretty nice most of the week, expect for the day before we left – a large rainstorm – mostly late night – early morning – gone by the time we got up, but showers later in the afternoon briefly.
We really enjoyed this area, and once again have changed our itinerary. We had planned on going to Colorado and then to New Mexico, but checking the weather told use that winter temperatures were already appearing – nighttime – 30’s – not our cup of tea – so we’ll head south instead – planning on a week or so at a club park in Pahrump, Nevada that has some good press.
Till next time,
posted by The Highway Guys @ 11:11 PM
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