Salt Lake City, UT May 30 - June 2

We arrived at SLC Wednesday afternoon after fighting 35 mph winds on I-80 between Cheyenne, WY and SLC.   It was a relief to get off the road!   The check in here was a real hoot.   The young woman who registered us was fun.   Our campsite was shady and grassy and on a asphalt pad.   Nice!  We decided to take a city tour on Thursday afternoon, and spent the morning in camp.

The tour on Thursday was definitely a challenge.   The shuttlebus was full with KOA campers and tourists from various hotels in the area.    As we pulled out of the campground, the lady ahead of me and I noticed very warm air pouring out of a vent along the floor.   Only our side of the bus was affected.   Jack and the man ahead of us notified the the driver, as we drove down the street.   By the time we had been riding for several minutes we were roasting!   He said he'd see to it at the first stop.....20 MINUTES LATER!   When we got off to see the "This is the Place" monument commemorating where the Mormon pioneers came into the valley and Brigham Young said "this is the place", our driver spoke with a van driver behind us (same company), and so several of us piled into the van to continue our tour.   We stopped at the State Capitol and toured the building -- beautiful!   Several brides were there having their wedding portraits done in the polished granite atrium.   When we came out, our new driver, Andrea, offered to pull the van around so we wouldn't have to walk too far, and when she jumped out to open the doors, she had locked the keys in the van!   Our next stop was to be the Lion's House on Temple Square for dinner, so the shuttlebus (which had been fixed while we toured the Capitol) took the others to dinner and returned for us.   Andrea had to wait for an extra set of keys to be brought to her.   Unfortunately, our jackets, sweaters, etc. were now locked in the van!   She appeared after dinner and escorted us to the Conference Center to hear the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's rehearsal from 8-9.   It was wonderful!  
On the way back to camp (all of us back in our shuttlebus), we learned that the choir has 300 members and they may only serve for three years.  

Friday we drove 30 miles to the Kennecott Copper Mine which is the biggest copper pit mine in the world!   It is the ONLY ONE OF TWO man-made structures  that can be seen from the space station.   From the visitor's center we could watch the trucks hauling the ore out of the pit.   There was a museum in the visitor's center so we spent an hour or two viewing videos and learning about the site.   We came back to camp to park the truck, and then took the free shuttle to Temple Square.   We saw a 90 minute movie about Joseph Smith, and toured the conference center rooftop garden and the other areas of the building we hadn't seen the evening before.   We also toured the Beehive house, the home of Brigham Young.  We had heard that there was an observation deck on floor 26 of the Church Office Building so we were escorted up and the guide pointed out various sites.

We went back on Saturday and spent a great deal of time in the Family History Center looking for information on our ancestors.   We were hooked!   Both of us had fun searching for information.   I found the ship roster showing my great-great grandmother emigrating to the US.   Also found my mom's parents wedding information.   Can't wait to continue the search.

Today we pulled out of SLC and drove into Nevada to Ely, a town of about 6000 people.   We plan to stay four days, so will add info as we discover the area.