Utah - Salt Lake City

We left Wyoming and continued west into Utah.  Why Utah?  Several reasons...we had never been there, there is a ton to see and do, and the temps weren't going to be below freezing during our stay.  Sounds good!

We had reservations for a campground on the north side of Salt Lake City.  To get from Rawlins to SLC, you travel west on I-80 for 300 or so miles.  It is such a strange drive, 3 out of 4 vehicles on the road are semis.  The terrain is mostly flat until you get into Utah.  You drive through Park City and on across the Wasatch Mountains.  The road is pretty steep and curvy...all those semis I mentioned?  They were going verrrry slow with their flashers on for as far as you could see.  You come down off the mountains into the valley where SLC is.  I didn't realize that the city is completely surrounded with mountains (very pretty!).  The rest of the drive to the campground was a bit scary for me.  The roads are like a bowl of spaghetti noodles...roads going over, under, right, left, curving, straight...and all on the very busy interstate with many (many!) lanes of traffic going in each direction.  Whew!  I haven't mentioned it before, but we drive 2 vehicles.  Dan pulls the camper with his truck and I follow in my suv with all the kiddos.  It would be great to all ride in the truck and only have 1 vehicle, but it doesn't seat all of us.  Oh well, this way we have my suv for sight seeing, etc...much cheaper on gas (the truck is a diesel).

We made it to the campground and got set up with no problems.
 

the view from our campsite...the campground clubhouse and city

 We were anxious to get out and see the city, so we drove around downtown until dark.  One of the first things we saw was the Mormon temple.  You couldn't miss it.  The kids thought it looked like Cinderella's castle at Disney World.  It kinda did.  Then we drove over to the Utah State Capitol.  The kids thought it looked like The White House.  Again, it kinda did :).

Utah State Capitol

 Everyone was hungry, so we went looking for somewhere to eat.  We found a Firehouse Subs!!!  We love that place and haven't eaten at one since we lived in Florida (4 years ago).  We didn't know it, but it was kids eat free day, so double yay!

We were all tired, so we went back to the camper so the kids could go to bed.  Dan and I stayed up to get ready to celebrate Ashlyn's birthday the next day.  He headed back to town to pick up her cake and gifts while I finished putting everything away in the camper and decorated a little bit for the birthday girl.  With that done, we called it a night.

That was our 1st day in Utah!

Salt Lake City on Dwellable