Day 12 -- Rest Day in Salt Lake City, UT

We definitely needed this day to rest up our legs, and our butt. We woke up nice and late around 8:30, and we headed down to continental breakfast. Wade ate a bunch so that we wouldn't have to eat as much throughout the day... We had to pay for food today. Anyway, we got with Rand, one of the riders, who's from Ohio, and we rode a taxi to a Specialized bike shop in downtown Salt Lake City. I needed to get to a bike shop that knew how to deal with my spokes because our mechanic on the trip didn't have the right tool to tighten my spoke. We brought my wheel into the shop, told them what needed to be done, and headed out to see the city while they worked on my spoke.

First off, we went to the visitor center and got information on a walking tour through the city. They gave us iPods with a playlist...good thing Wade was along because I don't know how to use an iPod or a playlist. They iPods had information on a bunch of key parts of Salt Lake City. On the tour, we first went and saw a log cabin where some of the first Mormons lived. Next, we went into the historical museum, but we've both seen a lot of pioneer stuff, so it wasn't anything special... we both looked at each other and said, "What are we doing in a museum, we don't like this stuff," so we exited immediately. Then, we got to the good part. The next stop on our walking tour was Temple Square. It had the Mormon Chapel, Mormon Temple, and a few other buildings. We first went into the Tabernacle, and it was awesome. The organ has 11,623 pipes, and the acoustics in there are awesome. They did a demonstration where someone would stand behind the podium up front, and they would tear a piece of paper, drop a pin, and all of it without a microphone. We were in the back, and it seemed like it was happening right next to us.

After the Tabernacle, we went right next door to the Mormon Temple. It was large and beautiful, but we weren't allowed inside because we weren't Mormon. We took a few pictures, then we ran into some Mormon sisters that were working on tours around there. We talked to them for awhile, but we had to move on to see more of Salt Lake City. Right behind the temple was a really cool fountain, so we had to take a picture.

Wade got a text this morning from Cara saying that her friend Jenna, who's been to Salt Lake City, said that the Mormon Office building is very tall and has great views from the top. So, we went inside the building, and immediately a lady asked if we wanted to go to the top. She gave a us old lady as our tour guide, and we went up. It was amazing up there. We had great views of the city, the capital building, the snow capped mountains, and the Great Salt Lake. The tour guide was also great, so we learned a lot too. We went down the elevator, out the building, and up a hill to the capital building. We got a really cool picture near that, then we headed down hill to see Bringham Young's grave site. After that, we walked around and took pictures next to Olympics monuments. Then, we walked to the Verizon store so that I could get another charger... I lost the other one, but I blame that on Wade. Then, we went back to the bike shop, picked up my wheel, and went back to the Temple Square to pick up a shuttle to our hotel. When we were about 100 yards from the shuttle, we saw the driver get in and start to pull away, so I told Wade, "Go run and catch it." Of course I wasn't going to run and get it. Wade did catch it, and we got on. We got back to the hotel around 3:00, I washed the bikes, then I headed down to happy hour in the hotel... Who could pass up on free beer. Anyway, tomorrow we start riding again, and after the rest day, we're ready!