Salt Lake City, Utah

Welcome to Goforth Explore! I’m Brittany and I’ll be taking you on a trip around the world.

Our first stop will be an overview of our most recent excursion.  We planned an almost two week road trip through a few of the National Parks “out west”.  This was our first experience with National Parks and I went down a bit of a hole while researching for this trip.  

This adventure was at the end of June 2022.  The original plan was to fly in to Jackson Hole airport, and begin our road trip in Grand Teton National Park.  Our first hiccup was when I realized that the airport was going through renovations, so we would not be able to fly in there because it was temporarily closed. So we added a few more days and another state to our trip and flew to Salt Lake City, Utah.

SLC is the epicenter for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints more commonly referred to as Mormons.  There were elders and sisters everywhere we turned and they were always willing to help us or answer any questions we might have.  We found the city and people to be welcoming overall and very safe.  In the downtown area of SLC we visited as many of the Mormon sites as possible.  They were all free!  We went to the LDS Church History Museum and The Beehive House (Brigham Young’s former home) just to name a few. We walked to lunch at The Red Iguana, which has been featured on DDD. We had a sampler platter and shared a variety of the fare that they offered. It was top notch Mexican food and worth a taste.

Possibly my favorite part of the day was the end of the first day when we were able to attend a practice for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They have a full orchestra as well as many, many men and women with such musical talent. I can only imagine how amazing a concert would be. At the beginning of each song I just knew the conductor would have nothing to critique but within 15 minutes they would start the song again from the top using the notes and suggestions given and sounded almost like angels.

Day two started with a hike to Ensign Peak through Ensign Peak Nature Park. It was not an easy hike as it was steadily gaining elevation, but the view at the end is totally worth it.

Next we headed to the Great Salt Lake! I cannot tell you how excited I was for this part. I had it all planned out, I was going to float in the Great Salt Lake. One day I want to float in the Dead Sea, but alas when in Utah…. When we got to the state park we used the bathrooms to change into our swimsuits. Then we made our way toward the water. So let me explain, I’m generally a little uneasy in water. Although I grew up with a pool at my house and have been swimming with family and friends many, many times, I am uncomfortable in the water, especially water in nature. Waves, riptides, animals that kill, the fact that I can’t see what just touched my leg, all of it freaks me out. But I waded in to the water and got a picture snapped, then Bill did the same. Then we decided to try to float. The water was very murky and it was a bit scary going out farther in the water. We made it to where the water was about at our knees and all of a sudden we heard the sound of an air bubble floating up from around our feet. I asked Bill if he did that, he of course had not, I knew I had not and we quickly exited the water. All plans of floating left in the mysterious bubbling water of the Great Salt Lake.

The next part is my absolute favorite part of the Salt Lake City portion of our trip, The Bonneville Salt Flats. We had packed a picnic lunch and my plan was to eat lunch out at the Salt Flats. It was absolutely stunning! We found a quiet spot away from everyone else and enjoyed our lunch.

We made our way back to the downtown area of Salt Lake City. I had exhausted all of my plans for the city except for the dirty soda. Because of the LDS community, the city has become famous for their dirty sodas, which is basically a regular soda with something else added to it. It could be cream, fruit juice, or anything else. We found a place called Swig that sold these and we each tried one. Both of us chose rather fruity drinks, but they were very refreshing and a great way to to end our Salt Lake City, Utah adventure.

Please bear with me as a I’m getting the hang of how everything works in the blogosphere. I’ll be back soon with the details as we Goforth and Explore Soda Springs, Idaho.