Sadie's corneal graft surgery was successful and we were able to take her home the same day. Her eye is sewn half closed and is red over the graft. Although she resembles Rosemary’s baby, the red is good – means the graft is establishing blood flow. Her follow-up appointment is in a week, so our stay in Salt Lake is going to be a bit longer than planned.
We love Salt Lake and have often thought of moving to the area. Since we’re still considering where to retire, we spent time looking at houses. Needless to say we want both mountain and valley (city) views. We found the perfect house, which wasn’t at a perfect price, but saw enough to make us confident we could find a place we’d love if we decided to move.
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| Great house - two story w/ basement |
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| View of Salt Lake from Wasatch Mountains |
While in Salt Lake we visited many of our favorite places. Conni lived in Salt Lake for 6-7 months when on a TDY (Temporary Duty Assignment in EDS speak) seventeen years ago. She knows a lot of the best places for site seeing. We visited Temple Square, Trolley Square (shops, museums, restaurants), Kennecott Utah Copper’s Bingham Canyon Mine, and had dinner with a friend, Maralyn, from Conni’s TDY days. Maralyn also treated us to a fabulous home cooked meal and we learned about a great drink combining Fresca and Ocean Spray cranberry/pomegranate juice. Yum!
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| Trolley Square |
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| Maralyn - great friend, wonderful company and awesome cook. |
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| Copper Mine |
Temple Square, 35 acres in downtown Salt Lake City, is the literal center of Salt Lake City and symbolic heart of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. On July 24, 1847, after being driven beyond the U.S. boundaries for their religious beliefs, the Mormons arrived in the Salt Lake Valley. The church’s president, Brigham Young, declared “This is the place,” and within four days had chosen the site for the Salt Lake Temple and designed the city’s grid layout, which is fabulous. The temple construction began in 1853 and was completed in 1893. The walls are 9 ft. thick at the base and narrowing to 6 ft. thick at the top.
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| SLC Temple |
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| Beautiful flowers and gardens throughout Temple Square |
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| Meeting Hall in Temple Square |
Temple Square is also home to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra, where you can hear a pin dropped on the stage from any seat; the Family History Library, the largest genealogy library of its kind in the world; the Conference Center, which seats 21,000 people and has an expansive roof planted with four acres of trees and flowers; a 26-story church office building; and many other church buildings.
Kennecott Utah Copper’s Mine is the world’s first open-pit copper mine. Since 1903, enough material has been removed to create a pit that is more than three quarters of a mile deep and two-and-a-half miles wide. It has yielded more than 19 million tons of copper, as well as gold, silver and molybdenum. The mine was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1966.
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| Kennecott Utah Copper's Mine |
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| Conni next to a haulage truck tire |
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| Statistics of hauling truck tires |
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| Hauling truck dwarfs a regular pick-up |
We also took a drive into the Wasatch Mountains and beyond, home to many ski resorts near Salt Lake – Park City, home of the 2002 Winter Olympics, Snowbird, Alta, Solitude and Brighton to name a few. Beautiful country.
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| Rocky Mountain Choclate store - favorite place in Park City |
Next stop is Moab in southeastern Utah.
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