First, on our way down I-15 we could see the town (or city?) of North Salt Lake climbing the hillsides. My first impression upon coming into the area a few days ago was that there wasn't much building going up the hillsides but that obviously isn't the case.
Our destination was the Tracy Aviary which is located in what appears to be SLC's largest park. The Aviary has 400 birds and 175 species, many of which are in uncovered areas. Perhaps all the ducks and pelicans like being there enough they don't leave.
Golden Eagle
Bald Eagle
There's one pair each of golden and bald eagles. All four birds were permanently injured and cannot fly so their areas aren't covered. (One golden eagle is missing a wing.)
Anyone who saw The Dark Crystal will recognize this bird as being the model for the skeksis.
This is the Andean Condor, Andy, the most interesting bird in the aviary. He was hatched at a bird facility in San Diego 59 years ago, has a wing-span of ten feet and weighs 30 pounds. These condors live to around 50 years in the wild but the oldest one in captivity lived 79 years so Andy might live another 20 years. They are intelligent and curious birds. Andy has been trained to walk around the grounds of the aviary (undoubtedly supervised by a human). People can meet him up close and it makes his days more interesting. Unfortunately, he wasn't out while we were there. These birds are so big it takes a lot of effort for them to get off the ground so Andy much prefers to walk. In the wild they land on cliffs so they can take off by soaring off a cliff edge.
The very colorful King Vulture from South America. Our turkey vultures are put to shame by this handsome guy! He even looked like he thought he was royalty.
After we left the Aviary (and had a great lunch nearby) we drove through the center of SLC. We couldn't come to SLC without seeing the Salt Lake City Temple and Temple Square. Traffic wasn't too bad but there was no place to park so our sight-seeing was limited to what we could see as we drove around.
The Temple doesn't look nearly as big when you can see it next to the multi-story buildings nearby (like the one behind it here), but there's no way to get a picture of them all together. It is certainly an impressive building, just not as big as pictures make it look. Every picture of it excludes the surrounding buildings.
We couldn't get a picture of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building (which used to be the Utah Hotel but was renovated and renamed) but did get a picture of its top. You don't see many buildings with beehives on top. Utah is the Beehive State, symbolizing industry and the pioneer virtues of thrift and perseverance.
This is the LDS (Mormon) Conference Center, a huge building which takes up an entire block. The LDS Church has spared no expense with their buildings.
One end of the conference center where you can see the open hills beyond it (barely). The hills are part of Salt Lake City's Open Space Lands Program which protects native vegetation, water quality, and wildlife habitat. It prevents many of the mountainsides from being overrun by development unlike the area around Asheville.
After making a circle around Temple Square for pictures we headed for home. Don't have tomorrow planned yet, but just found out two of the places on our list are closed so I'll have to do some investigating.
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