Salt Lake City, Utah

Wednesday 8/6/08

We left Grand Junction, Co heading for Salt Lake City, Utah but we are staying in Park City, Utah. Park City is where the 2002 Olympics were held. Because we are high in the mountains, we have found the weather much cooler here than in Salt Lake City.
We felt we had time on the afternoon of our arrival to go down to SLC to look around the Temple Square. It was very hot in the city so it felt good to go in and out of the buildings. We had a tour of the Visitor’s Center, the Tabernacle and their new Salt Palace Convention Center. We wanted to see the Great Salt Lake and had been told Antelope Island was a good place to go. It has good, clean beaches and access to the water. We decided to go that night just to see how far it was and then go back the next day. We were about half way there when we got bogged down in traffic so we decided to turn around and come back the next day. We were hoping to ride our bikes across the causeway to the island.
The next morning we were going to go to Olympic Village. We wanted to ride the bobsled ride. After thinking about it we decided we should go to Antelope Island in the morning so we could ride bikes in the cooler temperatures. We packed up our bikes and headed for the island. Upon arriving there, we found that it was seven miles to the island so we decided to ride over. The ride was great and we made it with no problems. We stopped at the Visitors Center and then went on to the beach. It was about a quarter mile walk down to the water. The water was very warm and very clear. It felt good to be in the water even if we only got up to our ankles. Since there wasn’t a tree in sight or any shade, we left the beach and started our ride back. We got back to the truck about 2, stopped for a Frappuchino and headed back so we could go to Olympic Stadium.
We made it to Olympic Stadium about 3:30 expecting to get tickets for the rides. They stay open until 8 so we figured we had plenty of time. The first problem was they were on a rain delay. The rides were not open! What a disappointment! It had to stop raining for 10 minutes, then they had to do some trial rides and then they could open again. It was not looking good because we also found out that that night they were having a special event and everything would close at 6. We were very disappointed because this is one place we had planned to visit from the beginning of our trip. While we were there we watched some athletes practice their jumps and twists, landing into a pool of water. This was an unexpected treat. We talked it over and decided we would stay one more night and go back to the Stadium the next day.