Our Big Utah Adventure: Installment 4

By Wednesday morning of our vacation, a cold front had settled in. It was quite chilly and I had no desire to do anything that required me to be outside. We headed up to Salt Lake City with hopes of touring a candy factory, but alas, instead all we had time to do was tour the LDS Welfare Square.

The tour was given by two sweet sister missionaries, one of whom was from Fiji and tried to get in with Sam by talking to him about rugby, but he never would engage her during the whole hour we were there. Oh well, she'll be blessed for her efforts:-).

The purposes of the welfare program of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are to care for the poor and needy, help members of the church to become self-reliant, and to give service.

We got to see the whole system at work, from the employment services, to the on-site bishop's storehouse, to the area where we could watch workers making cheese, bread, and even the canning area. The highlight of the tour was at the very end when we were able to sample the delicious cheese, chocolate milk, bread, jam, and peanut butter. All very tasty, quality items. Sam said it was the best little snack he had ever had.
After Welfare Square, we headed over to check out the new Church-owned mall, the City Creek Center. We were short on time and weren't really there to shop, although I did see lots of places that would have been fun to check out. The mall is beautiful and has several cool water fountains that could have entertained the boys all afternoon. Also, there is a man-made creek running through with fish that the boys enjoyed watching. But the highlight of Nathanael's day was simply the 2-minute ride on the downtown light rail that we indulged him in. Sometimes he's so easy to please.

Thursday was warmer, but the early morning was still quite chilly. We had planned on going to Timpanogos Cave, a long-held point-of-interest for me. However, when we arrived and realized that the inside temperature of the cave was only 45 degrees and we were in shorts and light jackets and the temperature outside wasn't a whole lot better, we started to question our plan. What sealed the deal was learning of the strenuous 1.5 mile hike to the cave. So, we decided to just settle for a picture showing we'd been there and leaving it on a future to-do list. Besides, we've got to have something new to do next time we come back.

Instead, we headed over to spend more time on the BYU campus. I'm not sure what we did there to fill our time, other than Nathanael harassing the poor ducks, pretending he had food for them when he really was just tossing them dirt and leaves.

After Sam's final soccer camp, we ended our evening with a trip up to Squaw Peak. The views up there are some of the best and the boys really enjoyed hiking along the ridgeline. They found lots of unusual plants to inspect and after our little hike, we were in for a special treat as some paragliders were just getting ready to run off the side of the mountain.