The Grand Theatre

 The Grand Theatre is an auditorium located in an old public high school so it has no business being and grand and opulent as it is! The theater was part of South Highschool built in 1931. The high school was built with many art deco elements. It served as a high school until 1988. In 1989 Salt Lake Community College purchased it to use as city campus called SLCC South City Campus. It went through a year of renovations.

During the renovations Pat Davis, former Executive Director of Promised Valley Playhouse was brought to the auditorium and exclaimed “What a grand theater!” and the name stuck.

The first performance was Promised Valley in 1989, but was out in the football stadium. The first official Grand Theatre performance in the auditorium was Camelot in 1990.

I cannot find anything that explains why the auditorium is so massive and pretty. I mean, other than we just don't build buildings like we used to.

Now I am curious if East and/or West High schools have such amazing auditoriums They are similarly aged. I know East High School was the set of High School Musical. But, I don’t really have much interest in watching that haha. 

Anyway, we were her to see Odyssey Dance Company’s Thriller.

Quick Details:

Length: Depends on how far away you park, but there is a long corridor to get to the auditorium. 
Trail Type: Find your seat.
Difficulty: DR2. It is paved, with ramps.
Elevation Gain: NA
Restroom: Yes
Dogs? No.
Other Info: Generally a fee area depending on what you are seeing.

To Get Here:

Take i80 to State Street head north. Go about 7 blocks and turn right on Kensington Ave (just after 17th south). Immediately turn right again and park.

1575 S State St, Salt Lake City, UT 84115

Fun low hanging clouds (Passenger Seat Photography (PSP)).

Over a canyon (PSP).

The old Ritz Classic sign (PSP).

The old South High School, now SLCC (PSP). The parking is in back.

Better view of the front side found on Wikipedia.

The Adventure:

The back of the old school.

Center for Arts and Media.

Inside there is a sign pointing us to the right.

Doctor Who Call Box.

Old TV art.

Then down this long hallway.

See, this is way more fancy than it has any right to be.

Zoomed out a little.

Fancy opera alcove. I wonder if they ever use those anymore.

The other one, plus one of the many zombies wandering around.

Poster for the show.

Fancy door frame.

The curtain.

Okay, time to put the phone away until the end of the show.

Thriller was amazing! I enjoyed all of it, particularly the aerial dancers, and the Jason Jam tickled me. And of course, Thriller itself. 

Now that the show is over we did a little wandering around the neat old building.

The hallways are soooo long. My high school was circular so the halls didn't seem so long. But, I wonder if they were straitened out if they would have been?

We wandered up to the main balcony. Neat.

The view of the stage from it.

Again.

I wonder how old these clocks are. It appears to be displaying the correct time.

Fancy metal grate.

The back area of the school looks newer.

Fun souvenirs. I just HAD to have the Jason bear. I mean, look how cute he is!

Well that was a very interesting experience. We have some weird theaters in the valley, but this is the fanciest one I have seen in a high school. Aside from the pretty theater it was neat to explore a little bit of the old school. 10 out of 10 squirrels.

Thriller was really neat too! I have been wanting to come check it out for a couple of years now, so I am glad to finally have that crossed off the list! Also 10 squirrels.

As for difficulty, its a modernized building. DR2.

Dogs are not allowed. Be sure to leave Fido home for this.

Dreamscapes

 Dreamscapes is a bizarre and interesting immersive art experience located at the Gateway in Downtown Salt Lake City. It is a long, interactive art piece that features a lot of art within several themes. Provided by the Utah Arts Council. It was built by more than 100 Utah artists, builders, and volunteers using reclaimed materials.

We are dealing with a lot of rain, remnants from Hurricane Rachel, so I wanted to do something indoors. And well, this has been on my radar for a minute so hey, lets do it!

Quick Details:

Length: I didn’t turn my tracker on, but I think it was maybe about a mile.
Trail Type: Meander
Difficulty: Indoor facility, DR2.
Elevation Gain: NA
Restroom: Yes.
Dogs? No.
Other Info: Fee area. as of 2026 it was $16.99 per adult. We just bought our tickets at the front desk and were let right in, but they recommend you buy your tickets online in advance to ensure your time is reserved.

To Get Here:

Take i15 N to 600 N Head east to 400 W. Take that about 1.2 miles to 100 South. Find parking (there are a couple underground parking areas, I recommend the North Garage since it is on the north end, it will be on the right).

Very wet freeway (Passenger Seat Photography (PSP)).

Downtown (PSP).

I feel like that neon sign is new (PSP). Or maybe we just haven’t been through here at night? Lets see…it wasn’t there in 2024, but showed up in 2025. So it is new!

Hardware District Water Tower (PSP). I have been wanting to get a shot of this for a minute now. Even though it is a little dark, I am happy with it.

I LOVE this NEON sign outside of the parking garage. 

Neat clock.

Then we arrived.

The Adventure:

The entrance.

But first you have to watch a short video.

Hello Mr. worm.

The first room.

Unicorn and bizarre archway.

Weird mushrooms.

Little pink house.

“Declaration of Evacuation

Town of New Happyton

Effective immediately due to an immediate threat of the dwindling, all residents and visitors of the town of Happyton are hereby ordered to evacuate the area without delay.”

More characters.

The unicorn again.

Estate Sale.

Into the All Nite Lounge.

Garth the bartender.

Dr. Ladel’s Office.

TVs

Robot.

NEON. We are both a little overstimulated haha. There is just so much to take in.

Ceiling.

Out into a desert.

Bones.

Skull.

This reminds me of the random pillar that showed up in our desert back in 2020. Eventually named the Utah Monolith (outside link).

More desert.

Weird bird thing.

The pillar again.

The other side again.

Weird tunnel.

It took us back to the lounge. I don’t know how I missed this from earlier.

After the desert we had 2 options. We opted to go left.

Weird.

Kind of Beetlejuicy.

Neat.

Oooh!

Well, we ran into another group here, so I decided to double back to make sure we didn’t miss anything. I am glad we did, cause we would have missed a neat section. We’ll come back to this.

Art.

Back to the other direction.

Cute heart that lit up when the crank was turned.

You had to turn both cranks to get it to fully light up.

Disco balls and whatnot.

Its like those glow floors from 70’s disco’s.

Cute winged frog.

Snail.

Cute little nook.

Book art and a gigantic Lite-brite.

Weird eyeball butterfly.

The giant Lite-brite. I spelled out MOO.

The book arch.

Underneath.

Then on to some junk room with a lot of clocks. It slightly reminded me of the junk lady from Labyrinth.

More junk.

Clock with oversized hands.

Whoooooooo are you?

More junk.

Fireplace.

Inside the fireplace.

Trippy.

Lots of eyeballs.

This lead to a central chamber, but there was another group in there, so we doubled back again.

Man in the moon.

More clocks.

Half mannequins in the disco room.

The central room with a directional sign.

There are 2 ways in and out of this room (that we found at least), then there are some smaller rooms off it it as well.

Music room.

Movie posters.

Musicians.

Directional sign again.

Money room.

Fluffy clouds.

Butterflies in a stomach, I assume.

This room is a little ghastly.

Weird.

A gaming room. Complete with a fort. I believe the video game is playable. 

Replace the LCD TV with an old tube TV and this could have been like most rooms I played games in back in the day.

Games.

Blanket fort. I didn’t poke my head inside but wish I had.

TV art.

The base of the directional sign.

“When I am walking ahead, holding the hand of time, I turn my head back ??? To see my shadows of the past.

The music, the memories the struggles, the pain. Everything I cherished for following me until my end.”

A bee room.

Well, this is a little creepy.

Records.

Old organ.

Giant bee.

This room also buzzes.

Okay, I think we have explored the area fully.

Open me.

Trippy.

Hawk head.

Back to the dragon room.

Baby dragons hatching.

There’s momma on the other side.

Ball pit.

Into a little cave.

The other side.

Psychedelic garden.

I realized I probably should have finished exploring the previous room before just jumping into the ball pit. Luckily there is another way back.

The big dragon.

Really big.

The face again.

The baby dragons again.

The room again.

Owl.

Another interactive game. It was basically a Frogger knock off.

The back end of the ball pit.

Big spider.

Sparkly curtain. It kind of looks like a waterfall.

Which led us to an under the sea themed room.

Octopus.

Back towards the door we came in, surrounded by fish.

Lots of fish.

Pile of stuff.

I tried a drawer and found it to be full of treasure. Yay.

Urchins and sea stars.

Ship wreck. It looks like there is another little hidey hole to explore underneath. But, I failed to notice it at the time.

Ghost Ship.

Heading towards the spaceship. Other than the All Nite Lounge that had a big sign, I am just kind of making up names for the areas as we get to them. They didn’t give us a map or anything.

Big polar bear.

Lots of wires and bits.

The cockpit.

Again.

Science facts.

Creepy unicorn person thingy.

Neat glowbug through a window.

Another video game.

Outside of the cockpit. It looks like real plane parts. It probably is actually, they are big on sustainability and reusing discarded materials.

The next room.

Again.

Continuing along.

Statistics.

Neat.

Dante’s Forest.

Mirrored passage way.

Inside.

Balls.

More mirrored halls.

The Dwindling.

This one randomly lights up, and is quite effective at startling you.

Just a mirror.

Peek a boo!

An astronaut.

Creepiness.

Beetlejuicy.

“Magus

It seems like you have faced your fears and caught up with the rest of the citizens of New Happyton follow them through space and time to our new homeland, New New Happyton.

I will return to the Dreamery in case anyone else has lost their way.

Through this journey to find the residents of Happyton I hope you also found yourself.”

Fun lit hallway. You have the option to change the colors.

Again.

Above.

I found a random access back to the All Nite Lounge. I suspect it was actually an employee/emergency access door I wasn’t meant to find. I've worked in Haunted Houses before, the concept is the same.

The final room, or I guess possibly New New Happyton.

Stage.

Wings and a unicorn.

Frames.

The stage again.

Well full of wishes.

Wings.

View from the stage.

Big flower above he couch.

Creepy mannequin.

The other wall.

The unicorn.

And exit through the gift shop.

Random bear.

Utah Arts Alliance.

Frog. He reminds me of something I can’t quite place.

Fun dragon head.

I got a couple little trinkets.

Back out to the Gateway.

Little fountain.

Big fountain.

The Asher Adams hotel. They built this around the old Salt Lake City Union Pacific Depot.

The back of the depot.

Inside with the old time zone clocks.

North end.

South end.

So, they have expanded the bar into the room and I don’t know why I felt a little weird. I spose we could have sat down and had a beer but, we were after some supper. One of these days.

The big fountain again.

Skybridge that appears to lead to a private business of some sort.

I’m not sure if this still counts as a skybridge, with the building to the right, but it does go over the road, so I think it does.

Looking up 100 South.

The Gateway sign on the skybridge.

Another Gateway Sign.

We popped our heads into Dave & Busters and well, it was just too loud for us tonight. So back to find something else.

Back across the bridge over 100 S.

100 S. again.

The private skybridge over Rio Grande Street.

North skybridge over Rio Grande Street.

From the side.

Heading underneath it.

Pretty mural underneath it.

The other side.

Rio Grande Street.

The fun NEON sign again.

The Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church (PSP). And you can see the Walker Center Tower predicting more rain for tomorrow.

Well, that was… interesting and fun. It was nice to have another option on a gross weather day. I am slowly compiling a small list so that we don’t just do the aquarium every time haha. The art was neat, we apparently chose a good day and time, we only passed by 2 other groups (and they might have been that same one twice). I really would not have liked it if it was just a long line of people shuffling through. 9 squirrels today.

As for difficulty, it is flat and modern DR2.

Dogs are not allowed, so be sure to leave Fido home.