The open-top bus tour
The first tour that was offered by the convention was an open-top double-decker bus tour of Salt Lake City. A few days prior to the convention, after on-line registration for extra fare events had ended, an email was sent out explaining that, oops, someone had relayed the wrong number of people that the double-decker bus would hold and they had about 10 more registrations than they had seats in which to put people. Happily, the bus company had a single-decker open-top bus which they would also run and this meant they could sell even more seats!
I signed us up for the tour as soon as we got here Saturday.
So today, after a few changes regarding where the tours were going to gather (the hotel apparently changed it's mind a couple of times on the subject), everyone trooped out and got onto the buses. While we weren't assigned buses, I thought as a latecomer that it was only proper for my wife and I to get on the single-level bus. It also happened to be the first to arrive.
Herding cats is a talent that can take some time to acquire, but Cindy Lund did a pretty good job of it for her first tour.
Caption: Cindy Lund, in charge of General Interest (Non-Rail) at the convention.
After awhile the double-decker bus showed up, got parked, and the remaining people got on board it. It then lead the way out, with our bus following. We headed toward Temple Square, where we saw the Beehive House, the location where Brigham Young raised his 57 biological children (lots of bedrooms, this house) with an unspecified number of wives.
Caption: two views of the Beehive House
I missed the order of things, but apparently he also lived in the house next door, now a very good and very low cost restaurant named The Lion's Pantry:
Caption: The Lion's Pantry
After that we circled around to Temple Square proper, and I grew somewhat frustrated - how was I going to get a decent photo of the Mormon Temple when the area was walled off?
Caption: A smaller building at the back of the Temple Square area
I didn't even bother trying to take photos of most of the buildings that were being pointed out to us - that wall was in the way.
And then we pulled around and the bus driver announced that this was probably the most famous view in Salt Lake City...and kept rolling. This was the best photo I got.
Caption: Salt Lake City main Mormon temple, and much of the surrounding vegetation.
Somewhat surprising, given its reputation as a one-religion town, was seeing all of the other good sized churches in the nearby area.
Caption: St. Mary Magdalene Catholic Church
Caption: Presbyterian Church
There were many others, but they were usually either not all that interesting architecturally, buried in vegetation, or too far away, which was the case of the oldest Greek Orthodox church between St. Louis (the site of next year's convention) and Sacramento.
Continuing on, we entered what was definitely a very nice neighborhood, with houses in a variety of architectural styles.
Caption: Houses in Salt Lake City
There was a Tudor House next to something that looked like it was from France... basically whatever was the first owner's favorite architectural style. About the only thing I didn't see was Craftsman and Ranch.
About that time we started stopping behind the double-decker bus a lot. It was having mechanical issues and leaking fluid. Coolant, we later heard.
Caption: a view we saw a few too many times.
Eventually the other bus had to turn out and try to limp back to the hotel, the tour not even half finished. As my wife said... We got on the right bus. If anyone reading this was on the other bus, I'd be interested in hearing what happened after that.
We then headed up to the University of Utah and Rice-Eccles Stadium (where our driver has had season tickets for over 30 seasons).
Caption: Rice-Eccles Stadium
Pulling around the stadium, we were reminded that it was the site of the opening and closing ceremonies for the 2002 Winter Olympics.
Caption: The Olympic Torch for the 2002 Winter Olympics
From there we went down (some very steep hills) to see what would be a theme we'd see a couple of times - a former rail facility converted into a marketplace/mall. The first one was the Salt Lake City trolley barns, which once contained a hundred miles of track, according to our guide.
Caption: Trolley Square, the former city trolley barns
From there we went to see the relatively unobstructed front of the Salt Lake City Hall, a structure that is deserving a much better photo than this one. Unfortunately I couldn't tell the sun not to sit right above it....
Caption: SLC City Hall
From there we went downtown, back near Temple Square. I got this shot of the Utah State Capitol building at that point, since it was pretty much the closest we got while pointed in the right direction.
Caption: Utah State Capitol Building
From there we wound our way through a couple of shopping malls that used to be other buildings (that's when I learned that this was normally a "hop-on, hop-off" style tour this bus did), but only one of the buildings was going to be of any real interest to us.
Caption: Union Pacific Depot, now part of The Gateway mall.
From there we headed down to the railroad tracks, where there was an assortment of freight cars as well as light rail cars. The new depot was home to them all, as well as any Amtrak or FrontRunner commuter trains. We also ran into a grass fire... we didn't see or hear any fire trucks coming, but the 911 operator assured me they were on their way.
Caption: Small grass fire, that also included the power pole on the left.
This was about as close to the old Rio Grande depot as we got - we thought we were going around to the front, but that never happened.
Caption: The back of the Rio Grande depot
That was pretty much the end of the tour (out of time, which may have explained why we missed the front of the Rio Grande) and so we headed back to Little America.
Caption: Clark Kooning getting off the single-level bus at the end of the tour
