Salt Lake City - let it snow!

We are sitting up in front of the fire & Christmas tree & lights in the Sheraton foyer after returning from a 20 min trip around Temple Square in the Jingle bus.  Joshua & Ellie-Rose would have loved it - it is free but you have to sing Christmas songs all the way!

Christmas here is incredible. Temple Square is ALL lit up  with trees - all colours; big pond with coloured candle-lights floating in it. White Christmas/ Nativity statues among trees &  the Christmas story told & sung in big fenced off area! So many families & people around! 

Right opposite is City Creek shopping centre - with walk overs between the level blocks of shops, all open & all lit up!!! The free TRAX (heated) light rail trains run for a mile around Temple Square - come every few minutes. There is a station a block and a half from our hotel.

On the second day we hired a Dodge Dart silver car & drove out to the BIG salt lake (about 30 mins away from the city). We drove the 7 mile road causeway from Syracuse (town where we left the freeway) to Antelope Island in the Salt Lake. The causeway divides two salt lakes - one is twice as salty as the ocean and the other 6 - 8 times as salty! The island is 17 x 4 miles - 550 buffalo roam free; as well as deer but we didn't see any of the latter (it's a statue!). Nor the bird life there. We didn't try floating in the salt lake either. There is a ranch on the island - original settlers and Mormons farmed there until 1981, now kept as it was as historic site. Loved the shepherd's caravan!

 COLD change arrived late over night & SNOW all day. Denver was 61 today (13 above normal) and to be 12 tomorrow (35 below!). 6" by end of the day - fun at first 'walking in a winter wonderland' but by end of day everywhere was icy and VERY slippery! Poor Warren found out - his video camera hitting the ground and smashing the screen! He was ok, thankfully.