Wayfaring Day 140 - SLC Day 3

November 17, 2025 Sunday

This morning we slept in and lounged around still with no plan for the day which is a nice thing to be able to say. Chance of thunderstorms from 2:00 to 4:00 and 90% chances of rain throughout the day.

At around 11:30 we set our sights on doing some canyon drives into the mountains. We picked up some Jersey Mikes on the way so that we could do a little picnic along Mill Creek. Mill Creek Canyon Road was our first drive and the closest to our Vrbo. We drove through this tight canyon until it ended at the barricades where the road is closed. We drove back down to a picnic area and began to have our lunch when the rain started to interfere. We picked up our food and ate the rest in the car. We sat in the car for a little bit before driving back down the canyon and paying our five dollars.

From there we drove to our next canyon and drove the Big Cottonwood Canyon Road. This road was completely different from the first drive. This drive had many hiking trails and places to stop at along the way. This is a good moose area but we didn’t see one today. The road ends at Brighton which is a cute little ski town with plenty of places to stay and lifts right in town. The rain changed to a mix of snow and rain here and there were traces of previous snow as well. But, they need some real snow here and soon! We stopped at the little store for a few things and a restroom break and headed back down the mountain. We took our time going down, stopping several times and looking for moose. We saw a couple of beaver dams but no beavers. We always enjoy looking for and photographing wildlife but today we had only seen one wild turkey on the Mill Creek Road.

Our third drive was up the Little Cottonwood Canyon Road. This drive was different from the other two and began with some amazing grey granite. Like Big Cottonwood there were several big ski resorts along the way to the end of the road. This highway ends at Snowpine Lodge in Alta. Here there was snow falling but still too light to help them begin ski season. There were some “kids” doing some snowboarding and skiing on the only patch of snow with enough room for them to do anything at all. Most of the snow there was probably from the snow making machines. It was 33 degrees here which was the coldest we had seen during our three canyon excursion. We made a couple of stops on the way down and then headed back north toward SLC.

A friend who lives here told us that the lights at the temple might be lit up for Christmas. We drove downtown and saw the lights and some of the buildings downtown. We were here in October of 2024 so we had seen most everything in downtown under much better weather conditions though the rain was very light when we were downtown. Driving in front of the two old railroad stations was David’s favorite part of downtown. Heading the car back south we stopped at a Maceys food store on the way back to the condo and picked up a few items to go with the food we have remaining. We made a meal of turkey, cheese, crackers and chips and dips. We watched some tv, lounged around and talked on the phone with family members including a face time with our grandson.

Tomorrow is a travel day so we will include some of our travel plans and developments that have happened over the past week. All is good but there were some connections and some changes.