I should really title this “Salt Lake Day” but I thought I’d keep it grouped with the rest of the trip.

We slept in this morning.  Mom and I have enjoyed our time at the Avenues Hostel…
.people have been nice, quiet hours have been followed, and it’s been comfy enough.  Mom and I are in a room with a queen bed and a bunk bed.  We’ve been sharing the queen, but something in the sheet makes me sweat at night.  Last night it was nuts, so I moved to the top bunk and got quite rested.

Our first stop for the morning was Mrs. Backers Pastry Shop – lots of delicious things in there.  We got a few items for a super sweet breakfast and drove to Temple square.  It is empty in this area on a Wednesday at 10am, so we just parked right in front of the temple at a parking meter.  This is the temple for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (the mormons).  They don’t allow non-LDS folks in the temple, but had a very cool cut-away model of it in the south visitor center….there are even touch video screens that give you mini tours and 360 views of some of the important rooms.  It was neato.  We also popped inside the tabernacle where the organ man was practicing a bit…the acoustics were so perfect we could hear him flipping pages from the back!  This is where the mormon tabernacle choir sings.   Our last stop was the Beehive house – its the home of Brigham Young  He is the leader who led the LDS pioneers into the Utah territory to live without religous persecution.  It was actually very ornate and fancy!  This surprised me until we put together that it was decorated simply for a long time, and then slowly became fancier as it was the governors mansion.  The tour was great.  I always quite enjoy learning about other religions – we were offered information about missionary visits and joining the church.  One of the guys in our tour group was a young man on his way to the missionary training center.  He was heading to Costa Rica, lucky guy.

We had wanted to do some more touring in the area, but also wanted to get in some snowshowing.  I drove down to Big Cottonwood canyon with one pit stop at a 7-11 for some lunch of hot dogs and soda.  Health food.  The canyon was gorgeous – the sun was shining, the snow was glistening, and there weren’t very many people.  We parked at Jordan Pines, got our snowpants on, and trudged away.  The smell of pine and coldness filled the air, and the sound of dripping melted snow trickled down the tree branches.  We wandered along the trails in the area at our whim, and eventually made a loop hike out of it.  Both of  had a wonderful time simply being outside.  It has been so fun hanging out with mom, talking about everything, and enjoying each others company.  Our snowshoeing took us over hills, through pine trees, between aspens, and then around to a campground before joining back with the packed snow road leading to our car.  The sun was out sparkling the snow.  We saw a pack of cheepy bird get chased by a grumpy blackbird and we saw lots of rabbit prints in the fresh powder.  Once we returned to the car it hit us that this has truly been an amazing trip.

This evening we returned to the Thrive food distribution center for a food demo and live webcast by their chef.  It was too funny, too, that my friends parents were there!  It was a fun way to see the food and get a free meal.  On the way back to the hostel we also stopped at IKEA where I love to go for space-saving ideas.  Back at the hostel we went threw our stuff, traded pictures, and packed our bags – early flights out tomorrow.