Salt Lake City: Emigration Canyon and the Great Salt Lake:

Klep headed back to the Family History Library and I had a down day in Salt Lake.  I caught up on my exercise in the pool, pushed some photos to Picasa so that we can get them printed, wrote on the blog, explored Western Nut Company across the road, and had a lovely nap.

Late afternoon we headed west to Emigration Canyon in the 104 degree late afternoon

for dinner at Ruth's Diner, a place recommended to us by a young woman working at the visitor's center at Glen Canyon Dam.  We have learned that we often have some of our best meals when we get the ideas of people who are actually from an area.  The diner is a long standing place to eat, first established eighty years ago by a rather colorful woman named Ruth who opened her first place in downtown Salt Lake City and later bought a trolley car and put it in Emigration Canyon where the diner still is.  Ruth died in 1989, but the owners continue to keep the flavor of the place and many of the foods which were Ruth's favorites.  I chose one of Ruth's dishes, having meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and grilled vegetables with a garden salad starter.  It was delicious.
After supper, we drove up the canyon a ways, turned around and headed west to the Great Salt Lake.  It was indeed a large, large lake.  It was also a fairly foul smelling place in the hundred degree temperature, so we did not tarry long to enjoy the view.  Somehow I thought it would be a lovely area much like a small ocean with a beach.  Somehow it didn't quite hit me that way.

We wandered back toward the motel through western and southern Salt Lake City which is pretty much like any other city in America with some industrial areas, houses, chain stores such as Lowe's, Target, Wal-Mart, and all the other things American.  By the time we arrived at the hotel, the temperature had dropped to a balmy 97 degrees.  Forecast is for the temp to be even higher tomorrow.