1982 Salt Lake City (8/17-18/1982)

Tuesday, August 17, 1982 (continued)

We drove into Salt Lake City and started looking for a AAA motel, but discovered it was way out of the way. We decided to splurge and stay at a Howard Johnson’s right in the center of the city next to Temple Square. Kathy had dozens of $10 discount coupons for the Holiday Inn hotel chain which Howard Johnson’s would honor. Thus we paid about $36 for the room. We were able to park in the garage and use the room key to enter the hotel. Took the elevator to the 12th floor, where our room was next to the elevator. It was a nice room with sliding doors that did not open onto the foot-wide balcony looking north towards the capitol building.

After settling in the room, we went out for a walk to the wall-enclosed Temple Square. It is considered sacred by the Church of Latter Day Saints, or Mormons as we know them. The grounds were nicely landscaped and in the evening all the plants were being automatically sprayed with water. An older man came up and asked if this was our first time in Salt Lake City, and since it was he said we could join a tour that just left. But we planned to come back the next day.

We peeked in the Tabernacle of choir fame, and saw the main visitors center with the giant statue of Christ in a sky-like dome area. We entered the smaller visitors center, where a couple with a child were asking some serious religious questions. The Temple itself was lighted.

Across the street was the Crossroads Center, a large shopping mall. We bought some Mrs. Field’s Chocolate Chip cookies. Outside the streets were spic and span, and there were trees and small fountains along Main Street. We returned to the hotel and asked at the restaurant about getting milk to go; not possible. We ran down the block to the Greyhound Bus Terminal where there was a Burger King, but they had just locked their doors. Hurried over to the Trailways Terminal where a family diner was still open, and were able to get a couple cups of milk to go. Returned to the hotel for milk and cookies before bed. Once on the elevator, we were going up and after stopping to let two kids off at one floor, the elevator bounced violently a couple times before going all the way to the top. Were the kids hitting buttons as soon as they got off the elevator?

Wednesday, August 18, 1982

Shortly after 8:00 we put our things in the car, and walked over to Temple square to wait at the Seagull Monument for a tour to begin. A church elder came over to make conversation. He was amazed that we changed our camera lenses, and was glad we were from New York since he was from Philadelphia, and wanted to know about our trip.

The Seagull Monument (1913 by sculptor Mahonri M Young) commemorates a locust plague of 1848 where the seagulls came in answer to prayers to eat up all the pests. The Larus californicus/California Gull is Utah’s state bird!

Seagull Monument in front of Salt Lake Assembly Hall

The Handcart Monument (1926 by Torlief Soviren Knaphus) depicts how the Mormons left after persecution and walked a thousand miles until Brigham Young said, “This is it.”

We went to sit in the Tabernacle while they played a tape of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing with organ accompaniment. They gave us a demonstration of the acoustics where a lady down in the front ripped a piece of paper, dropped pins and a nail, and spoke without using a microphone. The Temple (1853-1892) and the Tabernacle (1864-1867) were built from local materials.

The Salt Lake Temple

The Tabernacle was mostly pine, but was painted to look like marble and oak. The roof was constructed by the bridge builder Henry Grow.

We were taken to the North Visitors Center to see the paintings of prophets, scenes from the Bible, and scenes from the life of Christ. We got a closer look at the huge statue called Christus, a replica of one done in 1838 by Bertel Thorvaldsen in Denmark. This statue was erected here in 1966, and is meant to show that Mormons are Christians.

We were given a brief history of the religion; how Joseph Smith questioned which religion was the real one, and how God restored Christ’s teachings through him. God showed him where to find the gold plates of the Book of Mormon (a latter day prophet/saint), and he translated it. He gathered believers together, then was murdered. Brigham Young was the next prophet who led the Mormons to Utah.

We saw a multi-media presentation which states that after Christ died and rose, he went to the New World, and there is evidence of the coming of a benevolent white god. One of the tribes of Israel had also come to the New World, and they were the ones Christ was coming to see. One of the Israelites was Mormon who wrote down everything on gold plates. We were encouraged to purchase a copy of the Book of Mormon to read, and given cards to fill out if we wished someone to visit us.

Kathy and I had already seen the South Visitor Center the night before, with its dioramas of the early history of Mormons in Utah. We walked to the east side of the square with the church office building, the tallest building in the city, to see pictures of the Temple. In salt Lake City, like several other cities we have been in, they have the audio traffic signals for the blind (cuckoos for east-west, and chirps for north-south). We passed the statue of Brigham Young again as we walked down Main Street. We soon realized how long the blocks were, and that it would be too far to walk to our destination. We returned to the hotel to get the car, and drove past the Eagle Gate soaring over the intersection of State Street and South Temple. Both the north-south and east-west streets are numbered, and we wanted the corner of 5th and 6th, specifically East 5th Street South, and South 6th Street East! We found Trolley Square, an innovative shopping mall in renovated trolley car barns. We wandered a bit munching on popcorn.

We drove to Interstate 80 westward to the Great Salt Lake State Park/South Shore. We soon left the city and passed the airport. Next we were driving through salt flats. The Morton Salt Company was on one side. The hazy lake came into view on our right with a promontory of mountains jutting up the middle. We came to what will be known as the Saltair Resort, where they were beginning to build an entertainment complex. You could see a couple golden domes sitting in the sand and there was a waterslide. Here we got out of the car and the stench hit us. Whew! It was an awful indescribable smell and we wouldn’t even think of eating at their refreshment stand! We braced ourselves and started walking across the black-streaked sand. The sand was salty and clay-like and yucky in itself.

The Great Salt Lake

We discovered the black streaks were made up of dead bugs! Ugh! So we had to brace ourselves again to crunch across to the water. The edge of the water was filled with dead bugs, but we could see the tiny orange brine shrimp. We dipped our toes in the lukewarm and buoyant water. We didn’t go out far enough to float in the water. There were few people on the beach, most were wading, and only a couple were swimming far out. We hurried back across the beach, rinsed off our feet in the shower, and drove back I-80 to I-15 to head north. Up past Ogden, UT we cut over to US 89 and wound into the mountains through Cache National Forest. Many of the national forests have short tress set far apart! Pretty sparse forests.

We spotted some animals that turned out to be sheep. We descended down towards a beautiful blue lake, Bear Lake, and followed its shore up into Idaho. US 89 cut across a corner of Idaho, and took us into Wyoming, with a small sign letting us know we were now in cowboy country! We followed the Salt River, passing pleasant rolling hills with more “normal” forests and wide open cattle ranches. One ranch had been turned into a residential development.
Next: Wyoming National Parks.