Day 12 - 14 June 2009

This being a Sunday, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir performed and we had gotten reservations to see the performance through our campground. The Tabernacle is a large theater which holds several thousand people. Because in the summertime many tourists want to see and hear the choir, the performances are moved to the Congress Center which holds more than 20,000 people. We were lucky because this was the last performance in the Tabernacle before the choir went on a 13 day tour and after that would perform in the Congress Center for the rest of the summer.

It was an impressive experience. The choir has its dress rehearsal during which time the audience is let in, then follows the performance which is taped and then broadcast by radio and television stations around the world. Everything has to be very precise, the timing, the camera shots, and the silence by the audience.

The sounds produced by the orchestra and the choir are fantastic and to experience them live makes it even more enjoyable. Needless to say, there were herds of ushers and guides who helped prevent chaos when people entered and left the Tabernacle. Again the free shuttle service transported us both ways.

We had originally booked the RV site for two nights, which we had already had. So we extended our stay one more night so that we could spend the rest of the day in and around Salt Lake City without having to look for another campground. The reasons for the stay were a shopping trip to Hill AFB and a visit to Antelope Island for which we had great expectations. The trip to Hill AFB got us some groceries, a laptop computer, and a navigator. The reason for the groceries is obvious, for the laptop not so (our old one keeps skipping letters and freezes up), and for the navigator there is hardly a reason except that I was in a "buying frenzy" by that time.

Antelope Island was a disappointment. We had a hard time finding the causeway that leads to the island (the navigator was still in the box, I thought it would require extensive study before installation). We saw no antelopes, just more deer, bison, and insects. Originally we had hoped to go swimming in the Great Salt Lake because one can float almost completely on top of the water (well, 25% of the body is still in the water) because it has 16 timed the salinity of the ocean, only the Dead Sea has more. However, the water is brackish and stinks, not smells, stinks. The beach, if you can call it that, is covered with little bugs. In short, not conducive to swimming. There is a visitor center on the island that is built like a bunker and a coffee shop that didn't have any coffee.

At that point I decided to unpack my new navigator and much to my surprise got it working right away and it guided us back to our campground expeditiously. Unpacking the computer and trying it out concluded day 12.