We have visited Utah before, but we never toured the state capitol in Salt Lake City. So we made the drive over the mountains to see this good-looking state capitol on this trip.
We had driven through the Ute Reservation earlier, but it never occurred to us that the state was named for these native Americans. A Ute Indian is one of the statues at the Utah state capitol.
Like many of the capitols we have toured, this one featured a high dome over the tall center of the building.
The area between those two displayed some good-looking marble columns and staircases. We always enjoy a good capitol tour guide, who tells us more of the history of the state and its most important building. But coming on a Saturday afternoon, we could only wander the halls on our own and see what we could find.
On the other end of the rotunda, another photographer was positioning a quinceañera and her male companions. That pale blue dress and tiara made her look like a princess, and must have been very heavy for a 15-year-old girl.
The good-looking baby blue entourage was posing at the base of the steps, while a pale purple group was taking pictures at the top of the steps. We saw a bright red quinceañera leaving as we arrived, and a royal blue group appeared later. Color is obviously very important to this coming-of-age celebration as a 15-year-old girl passes into adulthood.
Besides making a nice backdrop for photographs, we assumed some important business takes place here as well. The Utah Supreme Court is on one of the upper floors,
as well as the state Senate.
We noticed that the beehive is incorporated into the decorative touches throughout the building. After all, this is the "beehive state". They adopted this symbol because of the work ethic and community spirit of a hive of bees are similar to the culture this state hopes to emulates.
The beehive has been central to the state flag since they joined the union.
In 2023, a state-wide poll indicated that the people of Utah didn't feel connected to their current flag. So later that year, they decluttered the old flag. They streamlined it into the plainer model on the right this past year. They kept the most important symbols--mountains, the beehive, and a single star, and renamed it the "Beehive Flag."
After seeing all those glamorous photographs on the marble steps, Denisa got to have a picture taken as well.
We exited out the side door of the capitol, since a Palestinian rally was going on at the front entry. The side steps took us down to the river, where we walked through the Memory Garden. This was one of the hottest days of the summer for us.
From the garden, it was a short--but hot--walk to Temple Square. The center of the 35-acre square was the Salt Lake Temple, which was shrouded in scaffolding. An ambassador patrolling the square told us that the temple renovation would be finished in 2027, and the temple would be open to the public for a short time after that. The only times that non-Mormons are allowed inside the temples is when it is first built, or re-opened after renovation.
We couldn't see the outside or the inside of this iconic building, but we could at least see the flowers out front.
The Temple Square was adorned with some good-looking flower gardens!
Some of the other buildings were closed for renovation too, so there really wasn't much to see on this walk. But Denisa enjoyed the carefully-tended flowers anyway.
Just across the street was a cooler place to hang out on a summer afternoon. This shopping mall was wide open at the street level, but was pleasantly air-conditioned for shoppers strolling between stores. We can't even imagine how much it would cost to keep this cool on a day like today.
Between Salt Lake City and our campground was the charming little town of Midway, Utah. A group of Swiss settlers formed this little village, and they have kept remnants of the Swiss architecture throughout town.
We walked a couple streets, looking for more the Swiss-inspired buildings. Then we found our way to a little creamery where we bought dill pickle cheese curds made at a 100-year-old family farm.
We finished the evening with a gourmet meal featuring those dill pickle cheese curds, hot dogs, chili, and corn on the cob. The only problem with this menu was that we discovered that we didn't pack a lighter or matches to get the wood started in the fire pit, or skewers for the hot-dogs. So Mark whittled some branches into a sharp point for skewers. Then he used the flint in his backpack to spark a fire. What a pioneer!
Those skewers also worked nicely for toasting some marshmallows for smores for dessert.
Those were some good-looking embers roasting some good-looking marshmallows after a day exploring some good-looking sights around Salt Lake City.
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