DAY 22 – Park City to Salt Lake City (27 miles driven, 6.96 miles walked)
Our flight back to the UK wasn’t until 21:10 this evening (I am writing this in the lounge as we wait for the flight) so we had a full day to kill. With Salt Lake City being only half an hour from the hotel that seemed the obvious choice.
We drove in to the city mid-morning and the roads were pretty quiet. The car park near Temple Square was nearly empty and free. The shops were pretty much all shut. Welcome to Salt Lake City on a Sunday! This was was very remincient to Belfast on a Sunday for similar reasons I surmise.
Nevertheless, this just meant that the streets were deserted leaving us free to explore without throngs of people getting in the way of my photographs!
Salt Lake City is the home of the Mormons or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a religon I was only familiar with through their geneology work. We started by visiting Temple Square where there is a church and The Tabernacle which looks from the outside like a velodrome. At this point it was empty but there was someone in playing the mighty organ.
We then had a meander through a small park that had a stream running through it. This then opened out on to a larger park called Memory Grove, a really beautiful green space with water features and a replica of the Liberty Bell. It was a great place to relax before going back out in to the sun for our next stop.
At the top of Capitol Hill is the Utah State Capitol looking very much like the Capitol building in Washington DC. It is a huge and imposing place. Somewhat surprisingly it was open but not only that there seemed to be nobody on guard and you could wander round the place on a self guided tour with impunity.
This included a very tall woman dressed as Supergirl and a ballerina doing her releves both, of course, being photographed. No doubt coming to an Instagram near you soon. I can see why these people wanted their pictures taken inside because it was a beautiful interior.
We were able to go to the threshold of both the State House of Representatives and the Supreme Court and again I was surprised at how little security there was stopping us doing untold January 6th style damage.
By now we’d seen all the man made wonders that Salt Lake City had to offer us and it was time to return the hire car and jet back to the UK after a wonderful holiday.