Home Base For Learning: October 2024

We only had 3 days in Salt Lake City and the surrounding area to pack in as much adventure as possible. I'll tell you, that is not enough time to see and do it all. Especially if you're trying to avoid the heaviest traffic times. Some of the the places we did not make it to was the Natural History Museum and Antelope Island.

In the down town area we first went to the state capitol building. It is free for anyone. They do both self guided and guided tours. You can scan a QR code when you walk in for the self guided brochure.

The kids loved riding the glass elevator up and to the 4th floor. It also has a great view.

The visitor center area has a lot of hands on exhibits for the kids.

I will warn you, it is kind of loud. There were lots of field trips when we were there and the noise was a bit much for a couple of my kids. We only stayed about an hour, but might have stayed longer if it was quieter.

We would have loved to go to Ensign Peak as well, but Google Maps was not working too well. A1 said after this trip that Google was invented to torture us. We were lucky to make it to Clark Planetarium after Google tried to tell us to go down a closed road multiple times.

Clark Planetarium is also free except for their Dome and Imax theaters. There is plenty to do besides those to make it worth it. We parked in the under ground parking garage. Take note, parking is free for the first hour, $2 for the second hour, and $4 for up to 3 hours.

There was also a load of field trip kids here, too. But the kids still had a good time. We stayed for about an 1 1/2 hours. Probably could have stayed longer here, too. But we were ready for lunch.

For our picnic lunch we drove to the International Peace Gardens. This was a lot quieter and the grounds are beautiful.

A1 found trash. On his own, he decided to clean it up.
I'm proud of him for keeping our parks beautiful.

On the east side of Salt Lake City, there are places like Hogle Zoo, This is the Place Heritage Park, Utah Natural History Museum, monuments along immigration canyon and hiking trails. We were only able to do Hogle Zoo, using our PBS read-a-thon passes, and This is the Place. The PBS read-a-thon takes place every November. PreK-6th grade students who read for 20 minutes a day can get free tickets to a lot of attractions mainly in the Salt Lake area.

Currently, the zoo has baby snow leopards. They were doing construction right by their exhibit and the animals were both curious and timid around all the noise.

There is also a baby gorilla at the zoo, clinging to their mom.

The kids were able to watch the gorillas get fed lunch.

Got to see the zebras up close, too

On another day, we went to This is the Place Heritage Park. This place is huge. We spent 3 1/2 hours here and still needed more time. They have something for every age. My youngest loved the pony rides, while my oldest enjoyed panning for gold. K loved running around the ship replica and riding the train. They all loved playing at the playground. Out of all the places we went, this is the one we felt we could go back too, since we didn't have time to see it all.

For the month of October their annual family pass is $100. For reference, it was $85 to take my kids once. If we lived closer or planned on doing the park over the course of two days, the annual pass would certainly be the way to go.

We just finished studying the state's history up to the pioneers settling all of Utah and the surrounding area. Fun fact: Brigham Young originally wanted Utah to be a much larger state called Deseret, but it was slowly reduced as states like Nevada were accepted first.

It was fun to go the the monuments and see the people we've studied, like Peter Ogden, Jim Bridger and other trappers, the Donner party, and Father Escalante.