Utah: Day 2

Ahhh, school is completely overwhelming me! In fact, I should be grading right now but I'll get around to it later tonight. :D Thus, you see my problem, huh? Anyways, 3 days til I leave for Alabama!! But, for now, here is Day 2 of my Salt Lake City tour with Kristi...
We knew we had to see the great Salt Lake so one of the flyers talked about the best view being from Ensign Peak. So we went INTO town (the lake is outside of town) following the GPS to this peak. Boy, did it get steep while driving up!

This would be Ensign Peak. "That's a long way up there." Luckily, Kristi and I were just fine with climbing to The Lookout/View about half way up. A bit of oxygen depletion was evident, lol. I have a video of us huffing and puffing like oldies in a Walmart parking lot.

Walking up to Ensign Park...

Each plaque had history of the area.

Historical marker :)

The amazing view JUST from the parking lot! And it just got better from there...

Beginning to walk up the Peak...

Salt Lake City from the View...

Amazing! Great way to spend the morning!! I have amazing pictures of this view over and over again... I never get tired of the view of mountains :)

We took another road down into town and stopped by the beautiful state capitol.

Side view... I like how the sky was the same color as the building lol.

Postcard :) Well, with a little editing/Photoshop to go.

Then we took off to the real, up close and personal view of Salt Lake City. I had read about this beef jerky place in a book I got called 500 Places to Eat at Before They Die. The guy was super nice. I talked to him about Texas and the SLC area. He gave me samples of all the jerky. I ended up paying $9 for some spicy beef jerky and $13 for the elk jerky. But it was super good. Plus, it doubled as a gift for my dad.

The great Salt Lake...ok and half of it is the pavement...but there was a gate right there, not letting us in. That was Antelope Island in the background. We wanted to go there but just ran out of time.

So we went to the Harbor and paid the $2 (honor system) fee to park. We walked out on the ragged rocks to take some fun pictures.This was the view behind us... Very pretty!

Then we headed to The Gateway for some shopping for Kristi! I LOVED the tulips and the outdoor, two-story mall. Very neat.

Got my souvenirs here. The SL,UT t-shirts threw us off a bit, but definitely caught our eye. Although we both thought it was clever (Salt Lake, UTah?!?) but thought we wouldn't really have an opportunity to wear ouor SLUT shirts too often so we passed. I ended up getting my souvenirs here (ornaments, postcards, patch, t-shirt, etc). Super sweet lady worked here.

Then we had to see what the Big Ben building was. We had seen it the night before as we were driving around looking for Crown Burgers. So, we followed the skyline and finally found it. Such a beautiful building. Was called the County Building...

Then we ended up heading back to the hotel to change for the Easter Tabernacle Choir concert. We found an amazing parking lot, then found someone who gave us two tickets to the concert right out in front (was totally grateful for the blessings that happened with our good fortune!).

The Temple in the daylight. The Tabernacle right right to the left of this picture.

The Tabernacle in the daylight...

Inside the Tabernacle...We could sit anywhere we wanted. We were really overwhelmed at our good fortune of asking a member for tickets outside and having someone just give us two extra tickets they had. The place was very full. The travel gods are good to me!!!!

In a darker light setting on the camera.

The historical plaque :) There were some amazing songs that were performed. Definitely going to download some of them on iTunes.

After the concert we were blessed AGAIN with short bathroom lines (absolutely amazing). Small things in life, I know, but STILL. So we walked around Temple Square looking at the church, temple, tabernacle and all the statues and sculptures. This was the Pioneer memorial. Up close to the Temple in the dark. The Tabernacle in the dark...

Another fun shot of the Temple :)

The church where Sunday services are given.

After the concert we had enough time to get to Target to get a few odds and ends we had meant to get throughout the busy day. As we were leaving an area in front of us started shooting off these AMAZING fireworks. So, I used the fireworks setting on my camera to get these fun shots. Kristi and I just stood there in the parking lot feeling amazingly blessed to have the travel gods shine down on us for such a great spur of the moment trip!

Weeeeeeeeeeee! I love this shot.... Day 3 is coming next. We pushed every last minute out of our trip!