Travels with rarecat: Grand Circle Utah

After a year's planning, we finally took off on the Easter weekend for the Grand Circle tour of Utah, a road trip that is also a reunion of old friends. We did part of the Grand Circle in 2022 but missed Zion and Bryce Canyon because of a threatening snowstorm. Determined to complete the circle, we had diligently booked the National Park lodges (at Zion and Bryce) a year ahead as they booked up very fast. This time, with spring, we were on much safer ground in terms of weather. In fact, we only had a brief shower in all of 16 days on the road!

This is our road map for the 16 day trip - a lot of driving but okay when shared and we were able to spend more than one night at most stops to make it palatable, allowing us time to relax and reconnect, Recognizing that we could not see everything there is to see, given various limitations, we gave ourselves permission to skip things on the itinerary and do nothing at times other than just enjoy our surroundings. In that sense, this was a "leisurely" trip. 😅

The Wasatch mountains behind Salt Lake City as seen from the plane as I arrived in the golden hour just before sunset. What a pleasant surprise to see this echoed in the awesome wall sculptures at SLC airport!

While I've heard many recordings by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, this is the first time I have heard them perform in person. It was a remarkable experience - I was so glad we had timed our arrival in Salt Lake City to catch their performance for their Easter Sunday Music and the Spoken Word service. We were also able to tour their Conference Centre the day before and attend an organ recital. All very impressive!

The organ recital on the Schoenstein organ in the Tabernacle - this is one of the largest organs in the world with 11,623 pipes, 147 stops and 206 ranks.

The Mormon LDS Conference Centre - outside and inside

The auditorium with another huge organ and seats for over 21,000 people

The beautiful glass sculpture in the lobby

The Tabernacle where the Mormon Tabernacle Choir sings

The full choir and orchestra on Easter Sunday - all volunteers

When we visited the Conference Centre and the Tabernacle grounds, we were warmly greeted by some of these volunteers, eager to find out where we came from. They seemed a little disappointed that we were from North America. Without getting into too deep a conversation, we did manage to find out that the women are called "sisters" while the men are called "elders", which gave us a rough idea of the social structure.

After the half hour performance, we went on to visit the State Capitol with its impressive marble halls and stairs.

I'm not usually attracted to statues, but this memorial in pink granite on the Capitol grounds was quite striking. It commemorates the sacrifices made by 500 mormon pioneer voluneers who joined the U.S. Army during the Mexican-American war.

The Wasatch Range as seen from the State Capitol

Not a lot of people around for street photography but this beauty was dressed up for what looked like a model shoot under the non-existent cherry blossoms

With a whole afternoon ahead of us, we decided to drive out to the Great Salt Lake which was just a short drive from downtown. But it looked like any other lake so we decided to drive all the way to Bonneville where there are supposed to be salt flats. The salt flats were not easy to find and at the end of the 90 minute drive, we were just happy to see any lake, with a reflection.

Bonneville Salt flats(?) - we didn't get close enough to get some of those shots we got at the Death Valley salt flats but we couldn't wait till sunset when they are more obvious as we didn't want to drive back to the city in the dark. I did venture out onto the salt in our 4 x 4 (all the while with my passengers screaming for me to turn back) just to see what it's like and to be able to say "I drove on the salt flat!" - all I ended up with were salt-rimmed tires...

A must see spot in Salt Lake City is the State Public Library with its stunning architecture, inside and out. It was closed when we visited on Easter Sunday but we made a point of visiting it on our last day in Salt Lake City. With Moshe Safdie as the architect we can only expect to be awed around every corner. Here are a few of those moments as we wandered down the building.

The atrium reminded me of Vancouver Public Library - but of course, it was also designed by Moshe Safdie! This one seemed more flamboyant architecturally but I suppose the one in Vancouver is confined by space where Salt Lake City has plenty of space which allowed the architect to wave a bigger brush.