Antelope Island and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir

This morning we got up early and closed up the rig and hitched up to go to our appointment to have our trailer brakes looked at. It was another pretty disappointing experience. The mechanic basically said that it would be expensive to take everything apart, he wouldn't know if he'd fixed anything, and he didn't have the computerized diagnostic equipment that might pinpoint any electrical problem. He did crawl under the trailer and say that the wiring looked solid. He talked about the possibility of brakes getting hot and "chattering," but we're not at all sure that the problem occurs only when we've been using the brakes a lot. We've decided to keep a log of problems to help document what's going on.

So we turned around and drove back to the campground and set up again (this is getting tedious). After lunch we drove out to Antelope Island State Park. Antelope Island is the largest island in the Great Salt Lake. It has the largest free roaming publicly owned bison herd in the US. We hoped we would see some of them, and we did--two large groups and some others. We also saw some American Barn Swallows nesting in the Visitor Center building.

After leaving Antelope Island, we went to Bountiful, UT, and picked up our forwarded mail at the post office. Then we walked over to the Farmers Market. We got some cabbage and broccoli and raspberries, but there wasn't a lot of produce available. Then we hit a Deseret Industries Thrift Store. "Deseret" is a word for honeybee in the Book of Mormon. It stands for industriousness and teamwork. We found some things we had been looking for, including a denim shirt with snaps and some Columbia convertible hiking pants/shorts. Success!

This evening we went down to Temple Square again, this time to attend the open rehearsal of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. It was quite an experience. The rehearsal was held in the Conference Center in an auditorium that seats 21,000 in comfort, with a giant pipe organ and choir seating similar to those in the Tabernacle.

In addition to the choir, a large orchestra was also involved in the rehearsal. The choir director encouraged, admonished, cajoled, and urged the choir into more and more perfect renditions. At one point he asked that a note be sung 1/4 step sharp--and evidently the singers complied.

In addition to some religious pieces for the next Sunday's broadcast, the choir rehearsed some patriotic songs for their Fourth of July concert. We especially enjoyed Seventy-Six Trombones.

Afterward we walked out into the Temple Square and viewed the Temple lit up against the night sky--quite a sight.

As we walked back to our truck, we passed the symphony hall, featuring a very eye-catching glass sculpture by Dale Chihuly.



My replacement Droid was delivered, but I didn't have time to get it activated. It does come on and it's on the charger, so I expect that all will be well tomorrow.