Spring Break was early this year! It was the 2nd week in March. We made our annual Spring Break trip back to Utah to keep the tradition alive. We didn't stay as long as we usually do however, because it wasn't Spring Break for all the cousins in Utah so they were all in school and busy with other things. So we split our time between Utah and San Francisco (which is another favorite tradition of places to visit).
We left Friday after school and got to Utah around 11 pm. It was very obvious it wasn't "Spring" in Utah! We woke up the next morning to Grandma and Grandpa's backyard looking like below:
Through out our stay, it was cold almost every day and overcast and snowy sometimes. The snow quickly melted though. The kids liked helping Grandpa feed the horses below (again it's snowing lightly).
Still snowing a little, it wasn't enough to keep the kids inside! Here Caleb Anderson is showing us his strength in giving the kids rides.
On Sunday we attended a baby blessing for Erick and Melissa's baby (Shelley's sister) and Meghan and Marissa showed us a hidden talent they had:
They were Guitar Hero champs! Marissa beat everyone there and went undefeated! She even played on "Medium" and everyone else played on "Easy".
One of our days was devoted to "sightseeing" in Salt Lake. One of Shelley and Doug's co-workers they used to work with at BYU Police was now serving a volunteer mission at the Conference Center as a tour guide/host. She was able to arrange a private extended tour of the Conference Center for us. It was awesome!
We had all been in the Conference Center multiple times, but never when nobody else was in there! And we actually had time to see all the art, the busts of the prophets, and other things that you just walk quickly by when you are there with all the thousands of other people.
The steeple is called President Hinckley's Steeple because it was not originally part of the building. As the building was progressing being built, President Hinckley asked where the steeple was. He was told there is no steeple on the Conference Center. He then said there has to be as it's a house of worship. He then directed them to add a steeple - which of course, they did!
This mural is on the roof and was a "virtual" geo cache as well. For the virtual geo caches, you have to take a photo of the location and then it counts as one of your "finds". The roof was so beautiful! The fountain below is also on the roof top garden.
Again, President Hinckley was a big contributor to the roof area. He didn't want people living in apartments behind and above the Conference Center to look out onto a huge block wide black ugly roof full of vents, heating/ac units and just an eyesore. So he said he wanted a beautiful roof. One the is pleasing to look at.
The roof is actually split up into different sections. It's designed to represent the terrain that the pioneers left, past through, and finally arrived at in the Salt Lake Valley. So there is a section of marsh areas, heavily wooded and shrubbed areas, and finally a desert area which represents what the Salt Lake Valley looked like when the pioneers arrived. Below are two pics of these different areas:
Because normal dirt can be very heavy especially when watered, all the plants are in a synthetic type of dirt that is lightweight and holds moisture, but provides no nutrients at all. Because of that, all the plants have to be fertilized and "fed" nutrients and vitamins.
Of course we couldn't leave without finding some other caches as well. There were several inside Temple Square which we found. As you can see from the above pictures, and the ones below of the Temple, the sun was out!!! Yeah!!
What is that thing in Marissa's hand?
It's a very very small "micro cache". Inside was a very small scroll of paper to log our visit. It's also magnetic. This cache was just outside Temple Square, attached to a light pole, right at the crosswalk where hundreds of people pass by it daily! I'm sure we looked funny as we were looking all over the light pole trying to find it. It took us a few minutes as it blended in! Can you see it in the picture below?
We did one more cache that was hidden in a non descript pole in a parking lot:
It was time to head back home to California! We left Wednesday morning and did the 10 hour trip back to sunny and warm "spring" weather.
We stopped at a few points of interest at the rest stops between Wendover and Salt Lake.
