Day 14 Salt Lake City to Grand Junction, CO

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Day 14 Salt Lake City to Grand Junction, CO

We took our time getting up today. It was so nice to sleep in a bed and have a hot shower.

Around noon we ventured out into the streets of Salt Lake City, UT. For those of you that don’t know, Salt Lake City is the Holy spot for the Mormons. Brigham Young led a group of followers across the country and brought them to Salt Lake.

The first thing that we noticed was that the streets were so ....HUGE....we read in our handy dandy AAA guide that the streets were designed to be “wide enough for a team of four oxen and a covered wagon to turn around”. We also noticed that the place was empty! Granted it was a Saturday, but....it was spooky empty!

The next thing that was curious was that the downtown area was so very clean....Disney clean! We walked about a block and a half over to the Temple Square. There we saw the outsides of the Mormon Temple, the Tabernacle (where the choir sings), a few interesting buildings, and the convention center. As we were looking at one of the display maps we were approached by two young ladies who wanted to help us find our way. We declined their help, several times, and then decided it was time to move on.

After lunch we strolled up past the “Lion House” and the “Beehive House”. Both were owned and lived in by Brigham Young and his family. The first had a statue of a lion and the second had a beehive on the roof. We then began noticing the Beehive theme throughout the city. Beehives adored many of the buildings, were stamped into the sidewalks, the state road signs had beehives on them, and the local minor league ball team is the Bees. Both homes had beautiful gardens.

Next stop on our tour was the amazing, yet strange.....Eagle archway that sprawls across State St. The wing span of the Eagle was 16 feet, but when it was replaced...they enlarged it to a 20 foot span.

After wondering around downtown SLC for longer than intended, we decided that actually seeing the Salt Lake would have to wait until our next visit.

Back on the road we traveled thru Provo, Helper, and Price, UT on our way to Arches National Park.

Arches NP is a hidden treasure. Although, we did run into our first grumpy Forest Ranger here. Granted, it was just about time for him to lock the doors of the visitors center, but it was still open and a bit of a smile would have been nice.

One of the first sights was the rock formation known as the Three Gossips and then into Park Avenue. The rocks looked as if they were skyscrapers along a busy city street.

We spent 3 hours driving the main road of the park and all of its lookouts. We could have easily hiked for days and one day would like to camp up at the top of the park. We promised ourselves that today would be an easy day and we would do no serious hikes. We couldn’t resist the 1/2 mile trail up the Delicate Arch lookout. It was rather steep, but worth it! The "Delicate Arch" is the symbol of the park.

The contrasting Navaho Sandstone (light) and Entrada Sandstone (dark) was beautiful. Jill’s favorite was the Fiery Furnace lookout area at sunset! It was...Amazing!! Ok...I have to find a new word...but..Amazing is what keeps coming to mind.

With the sunset, it was time to move on. Once again, Don drove us through the pitch black night safely to Grand Junction, CO.

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