Grand Circle Utah - Salt Lake City

 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.

An internal staircase between two floors provide an excuse for a design piece

These stairs in the atrium are fascinating

Convergence above the coffee shop - like a glass ship with reminders of sails

Salt Lake City Public Library - this panorama includes both the internal atrium and the external coliseum like structure

The external structure is an extension of the interior

Antarctica - Intercurrence Island, Palaver Point, Drake Passage

Our last day in Antarctica started out with a cruise around Intercurrence Island, one of the largest islands in the Christiania Islands off the northwestern coast of the Antarctica Peninsula.  Apparently the Expedition Team had never been able to visit the island because of weather conditions so this was a first for the ship.  It turned out to be an interesting cruise with lots of neat landforms and icebergs around the island.  The most spectacular was the dome-shaped iceberg we first encountered with penguins sitting on top.  

The zodiac took us through a narrow opening between steep rock faces and there was a more sheltered part of the island.  There were Weddell seals and some penguins.  There were giant icebergs around the island.

After lunch we made a landing at Palaver Point which has many Chinstrap penguins. Palaver Point was so named because of the ceaseless chatter from the penguin rookeries on the site.  It was fascinating watching the penguins who seem to be in conference all the time.  The Chinstrap penguin is so named because of the thin strip of black feathers under its chin from ear to ear.  They nest on rockier and steeper slopes than other penguins and are known to be the most aggressive of the penguins.  They typically lay two eggs in November and both male and female take turns incubating the eggs.  The visit to Palaver Point turned out to be a productive end to the last day with photo ops of the penguins in action.

Dome-shaped iceberg 

This opening took us to a more sheltered part of the island

Weddell seal

Curious where this tunnel leads to

Giant icebergs around the island

Such clowns!

This chick with light grey down is probably less than a couple of weeks old as a second darker grey down appears at two to three weeks.



View of the bay from Palaver Point

The first vegetation I'd seen in four days - Antarctica Pearlwort(?)

That's where all the palaver came from

Penguins in conference

So how is the water condition??

This iceberg reminded me of pigs

Last look at Antarctica before we head into the Drake Passage that evening

 The return crossing of the Drake Passage was uneventful.  We were told that a storm was approaching but we would have made it to Ushuaia before it hit in the following days.  Lucky escape!  There were lots of birds around the ship as we crossed, including the black-browed albatross, blue petrel, Southern giant petrels and blue-eyed shags - all lifers for me!

Black-browed albatross



Southern Giant Petrel

Blue petrel

Blue-eye shag

We disembarked in Ushuaia after two days on the Drake and was sent off by a beautiful rainbow at the airport.  What a great end to an amazing adventure!

This wraps up my posts on Antarctica.  Thank you for joining me on this trip of a lifetime.