We also stopped in Salt Lake at the Mormon Tabernacle, which, if you know anything about the Mormons, is one of the most iconic images of the church over the past century.  The pipes from the organ have been on the front of the church hymnbooks for the past fifty years and I have spent endless hours tracing and drawing this picture above during sacrament meetings talks that went on way too long for a kid to bear.  So I just had to grab a shot when we were there.

The building has great acoustics, thanks to its uniquely-shaped roof,


and I was telling The KingofHearts, who had never been there, how they used to give tours of the place and put a tour guide up on the stand who would turn off all the microphones and then drop a pin onto the lectern and you could hear it in the back of the hall.  

Then he quickly learned that the tour hasn't changed in at least twenty-five years.

Here's the organ, which as an adult, I lust after:

And here are the two main organ pipe sets, which as a kid, I always thought looked like a couple of sleepy old men:


A couple of other details I've always loved are the lights,


the faux marble columns, which are hand painted to look like marble, but I believe are actually wood,


and two little girls who were pretty excited to see it all, one of whom looks decidedly crazy.