Sunday, June 9, 2013

Salt Lake City Adventures

The end has come.  I have only a few worry-free hours left in my life until retirement.

Caitlin and I spent the last couple weeks before I start working exploring Salt Lake City and seeing the touristy sites.  We have had a lot of fun!


We started with downtown Salt Lake City.  There are a lot of cool places to see!


The Salt Lake City Library really is incredible.  It is right downtown and brand new.  The entryway is wide open from the top to the bottom.  The stairways and elevators are all glass.  There are trees and walkways on the roof of the building.  It is a fun building to check out if you ever have time! 










Right across the street from the library is the historic City and County Hall building.  It used to be the state capitol as well before the current capitol building was built.


We also went to Temple Square, of course.


We visited the University of Utah campus as well.  If I end up going back to school for an MBA degree, U of U could be one of the options.  The campus is huge; it is far more spread out than BYU's campus (and has significantly more grass/trees).


Business building.



The Marriott family is trying to please both sides of the rivalry.





Tracy Aviary was another destination we visited.  There were a lot of fun birds to see!




The Andean Condor.  (Basically, a giant vulture-type bird.)


I like this picture because it looks like the condor is swooping down for the kill!  In reality though, this trainer was trying to teach Andy (the Andean Condor) to hop up the rocks by the door to his enclosure, and then fly off of the rocks down to the trainer.


This is Caitlin trying to imitate a condor.


And this is a swan trying to imitate Caitlin.


White-billed duck.



Last, we tried to go to a REAL Salt Lake soccer game (REAL Salt Lake is the professional soccer team in Utah).  It was rainy in the morning, but then cleared up, so we thought it would be alright.  Shortly after finding parking, however, it began pouring like crazy as we ran from the car to the stadium (about 5 blocks).  It turns out the seats aren't covered in the stadium either.  After about a half hour of soccer, we walked our soaked selves back to our car and drove home.  It was an adventure though, and REAL Salt Lake was winning 1-0 when we left, so we'll call it a victory!




Neither of our jackets were even water-resistant.  Mistake.



We won't have as much time to play together in the future (now that work is starting up), but we are glad we had the chance to explore the city and have fun!