4 June - Temple Square area (Mormon Tabernacle, N Visitor Center, Conference Center)

4 June
Beautiful sunny day in the Salt Lake City area.  We headed south from the campground to central Salt Lake City today and the Temple Square area.  This is the area that includes the Mormon Tabernacle, the Temple, the Assembly Hall, the Latter-day Saints Conference Center and other buildings relating to their faith.  I am glad we went today as we basically owned the place.  We parked west of the area in a huge parking lot.  I know tourism is tourism, but there had to be an alternate use for this lot as it was gigantic.  Yep, is one of the parking lots used for their conference center.  More later on that.

So we were one of about 15 cars in the parking lot.  It probably holds 5000.  We headed towards the tabernacle and walked past a pioneer log cabin that was built back in 1847 when Mormons migrated west to the Salt Lake City area.

The whole area was planted with vegetables as it was back in 1847.  Pea pods shown on the vines and tomato plants are blosseming

We crossed the street to the iconic Mormon Tabernacle, home of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.  Unfortunately they were not performing today, but the pipe organ was in operation and we sat and listened to it for a while.  

The Mormon Tabernacle building

Inside the Tabernacle, with the organ pipes in the background.  Beautiful place,

Ok, once a comm gut, always a comm guy!!  Top notch sound system.  I really wanted to pop the cover off that mixer panel and have a look!!  What I could see was mighty impressive!  

After visiting the Tabernacle we headed next door to the North Visitor Center.  It was a multi-level display of various scenes from the Bible.  The receptionist said they teach the bible and along side the Book of Mormon, in fact they gave us one to read.  The Visitor Center is an education center to help us understand the Mormon faith 

Multimedia, interactive display on Jerusalem. 

The multimedia displays were incredible!

Very impressive!

We then crossed the street and toured the Conference Center.  Ok, we have been in literally hundreds of conference centers over the years but I have NEVER seen anyplace like this.  The engineering must have been eye-watering.  This place holds 21,000 attendees, 7000 per floor.  That's 21000 people in the SAME ROOM.  Unfortunately we could not go inside the conference center because they were recording a new sound track, but we toured around it and above it.  The whole ABOVE it thing is the point I wanted to make with the engineering comment.  The entire auditorium that holds 21,000 attendees stands without columns.  NO COLUMNS, NO SUPPORTS.  OK, fine maybe with an aluminum roof.  No, the roof is covered with thick granite slabs and gardens.  We toured around the lower floors outside the auditorium and admired all the beautiful paintings, and then our tour guide took us to the roof.  

One of the garden areas on the roof.  All of the walkways were slab granite and the other areas covered with pine trees and gardens full of wild flowers

A selfie from the roof of the conference center, looking south with the Mormon temple in the background

We then crossed the street to get some pictures of the outside of the Mormon Temple.  It is closed to visitors so we could not go inside, but it is beautiful from the outside.

Mormon Temple in the background and a reflection in a reflecting pool in the foreground.

Since it was Sunday that was basically all that was open.  I would have like to visit the Family History Library, home of Ancestory.com  but it was not open.  

So we headed back to the campground through both Salt Lake City and North Salt Lake City.  The Chicago Cubs swept the series with the St Louis Cardinals.  We cooked a nice beef roast and vegetables in the Dutch Oven and the only thing missing was the horseradish.  Was 96F today so shde was welcome.  Many rigs leaving the campground today since it was Sunday.  Oh yeah, they have to go to work tomorrow :-)

Tomorrow we will visit the Union Station with museums and shops.