Monday, March 22, 2010

A little SLC

Glen was invited to present a seminar to dentists in Salt Lake City, so I went along. While he and son, David, spent the day with the dentists, I made my way a couple of blocks east to Temple Square and the art museum. Then I ventured a bit further east to the Lion House. It was a gray, cold day with intermittent snow flurries. The west wind blew, so on my journey back to the Radison, sleety snowflakes were in my face.

Glen surprised me with a new camera earlier this month after I expressed my frustration with my old camera which sometimes worked and sometimes didn't. I was really disappointed when it stopped working before I could snap H & J in their white dresses amongst the beautiful flowers at the temple on their special day. May I say that I am really enjoying my new camera.

Weddings go on in spite of the weather. How many brides can you count? I counted seven, but may not have caught them all.


If you want to enjoy a spectacular spring flower display, it's best to come a month later. There were some of these and pansies.


These were the only tulips in bloom. I think there must be some source of heat under this flower bed.

Lunch was a bowl of clam chowder and a roll.

Our room was on the north side of the Radison on the 15th floor overlooking this parking lot. You may notice an unusual number of pick-up trucks.

This is why. Men in orange vests and hard hats drive into the lot early, early in the morning. By mid-afternoon, they begin returning to the lot. There is an amazing amount of construction going on in downtown Salt Lake where the old Crossroads shopping center and ZCMI Center once stood. That is sobering as I can remember shopping in both shopping centers when they were new and I was an intern at Utah Power and Light. Now they have both come down and they were younger than I am!

Later in the day, Glen and I went for a drive. After driving by our old home in Bountiful, we found ourselves up in the Avenues looking at the old houses and the hospital where Glen was born. We soon realized that we were at the back gate of the cemetery. We drove right to the grave site of President Hinckley. That was a pleasant surprise.


We continued to explore and found the markers of several other former presidents. We reminisced about the time we brought the kids years ago to the cemetery to explore.


We also found the marker for James E. Talmage.

As we drove back toward the temple and the setting sun, we were reminded that the next day was the first day of Spring and time for the equinox. The sun was peeking through the spires of the temple.

As we drove closer, my new camera enabled me to capture this shot.

We spent Saturday in Provo. We crashed the very end of Nichelle's baby shower, visited with the Alvords, and had dinner with Brittany and Dane. After a good night's sleep in our home away from home we headed south for church in St. George.

We enjoyed a wonderful Sacrament meeting where Jordan bore strong testimony of the atonement of Jesus Christ and shared the thoughts and feelings of his heart. He gave a wonderful talk, probably my favorite missionary talk ever. I was so thankful to be there. Elder Ika will be a wonderful missionary! It was a very special day for his entire extended family, but most especially for his mother, Glen's sister, Wylene.


As we headed south after the meeting, we had plenty of time to study the road leading to the new bridge as well as the bridge which will cross the Colorado River just south of Hoover Dam. Once we turned left off of Boulder's main drag we were in stop and go traffic for eight miles and it wasn't due to construction. It made our trip one hour longer. We had traveled this route on our way north on Wednesday and spent almost two extra hours getting over the dam, but that was due to blasting for the new road. Our advice is to avoid this route until the bridge is finished.

As you can see, that will not be anytime soon!

4 comments:

Vagabond Mother said...

The temple square pictures remind me of when I took the boys there two years ago for Raymond to see the tabernacle. Where did my baby and my two-year-old go?!?!

larainydays said...

Thanks for the SLC travelogue. We're taking our friends from England there for Conference. I'm so excited. You had some great shots. I love the sunset one.

Lindsay said...

hey laurel!!! yes please send me that letter! i'm anxious to find out about it! friggenpenguin@gmail.com thanks!!

Lindsay said...

also.. i love exploring famous cemeteries. that's so cool that you got to see President Hinckley's grave.