Travels with Debbie and Vince: Salt Lake City, Utah

July 27-31. On our first full day we visited the Utah Capitol and the Governor’s Mansion. The second day we went to the Kennecott Copper’s Utah Bingham Mine. This is an open pit mine on a large scale. Every year the average take is 275,000 tons of copper, 400,000 ounces of gold, 4 million ounces of silver, and 25 million pounds of molybdenum. Using 7 shovels, each scoop of stone weights 98 tons. Using 80 monster trucks, each can carry 328 tons per trip. This mine produces 25% of the U.S. copper needs. From the top of the mine, looking down, 30 foot tall trucks look like ants. This is an amazing operation.

When visiting Salt Lake, you have to go to Mormon Square, no matter what religion you are. 35 acres include the Tabernacle, Temple, Conference center, Brigham Young’s home, two visitors centers, Assembly Hall, a hotel, 4 restaurants, an office building, Genealogy library, and so much more. Some interesting information: The Mormon Tabernacle (the original church) seats 4,000. As the church grew, the Tabernacle was too small, so they built the Mormon Temple, which holds 9,700. Of course, that became too small, so church services are now held in the conference center, which holds 21,000 people. Yes, 21,000! Yesterday was an amazing day at the Temple. Sixty-four (64) weddings were held there in one Saturday. There are 7 separate chapels of various sizes inside the temple to hold these weddings. It is a sacred place for Mormons, and if possible, they want to get married there.

We also visited Antelope Island in the Great Salt Lake, and of course, being race fans, we went to the races at Rocky Mountain Raceway. (when you look at the race pictures, notice the snow capped mountains in the background) We are at 4700' feet and the temperatures have been in the high 80’s during the day and upper 60’s overnight.