Salt Lake City to ????, Nevada (Sun. July 11)

We got up bright and early Sunday morning to get a shuttle to the Mormon Tabernacle Choirs' 30 minute weekly recording. The recording is sent out all over the country and they let anyone who is interested come in and listen for free. Because they have so many people coming in the summer they actual record in the conference center instead of in the Tabernacle. I was amazed that all three boys chose to come willingly with me. It made my day!! And the best part is, they decided it was a good choice to come.


The Choir is spectacular. The organ is unbelievable. Even the crowd was amazing. Over 5,000 people and not one cough, child crying or sneeze the entire 30 minutes. I didn't know so many people could be so quiet for so long. We really enjoyed the music.


After the show one of the missionaries took us on a tour to see the Tabernacle and some of the other buildings on the grounds. There is a lot of interesting history behind them. It was also interesting to hear about the missionaries. There are many of them. Mostly around college age. They commit to 18 months wherever they are sent when they feel they have the calling. We had two girls showing us around. One was from Danbury, CT the other one was oriental, never did find out which country. She was impossible to understand. The one from Danbury was fluent in Spanish so that worked out well for Pedro. We could only stay for a short amount of time since we had to get back on the camp shuttle and get checked out for eleven but were glad we at least got to see a few of the buildings. The most amazing thing on the tour is when they show you how good the acoustics are in the tabernacle (they were amazing in the conference center too). One of the missionaries goes up on the stage and rips a piece of paper and then drops three nails. It is amazing how well you can hear them no matter where you are sitting!

We rushed back to the campground, got the camper down as quickly as we could and then took off to make a quick visit to the Great Salt Lake before hitting the road again. I asked at the campground desk how to get there. She told me that we could go straight up the road about 16 miles but that the lake really smelled on that side so she suggested we go to Antelope Island instead. So, what she sent us to do was, drive an extra 20+ miles in the wrong direction to pay $9 to get on an island, to walk through about 200 yards of extremely hot beach sand while green head flies bit you to finally get attacked by gnats near the water! The gnats were so bad that as you approached the water you could see a 2 -3 foot brown line all along the side of the lake. If you were brave enough to walk through them thousands of them would fly up and then land back down like a wave of brown fog. It was so disgusting!!! There were so many of them you probably could have seen the brown cloud if we had taken a picture. But both Colin and Conor had left their cameras in the car and no one had any intentions of going all the way back to the car to come return to get attacked again. We just got out of there as fast as we could. We decided the one good thing that came out of this experience is now we have something to talk about in the future . . . "do you remember that day we went to the Great Salt Lake and . . . "

"On the Road Again" . . . We knew this was going to be one of the toughest days driving. Our next stop is San Francisco which is about a 12 hour drive from Salt Lake City not including stops. The plan was to go as long as we could and then stop wherever we were. I was really tired and didn't know how long I would be able to go but with the right combination of Mt. Dew, Diet Coke and one of those 5 hour energy shots I managed to make it almost until 11:00. The nice thing about driving through Utah and into Nevada. About half the road is flat and straight with a 75 mile per hour limit. Most people are doing 85. You can get some good miles behind you quickly at that speed. Two things finally stopped us: 1. I could barely see straight anymore I am so tired and 2. The van was yelling at us that it needed an oil change. These darn new cars let you know exactly when they want the oil change and if you don't then it starts keeping track how many miles you have gone since you were told to change it. Sort of had me unnerved so we threw "Jiffy Lube" into the GPS and found a spot south of Reno to spend the night. We decided to just stop at a Comfort Inn instead of trying to find a campground and set up in the dark. It ended up being a nice, clean hotel in a nice location and I am exhausted so good night!!!