Utah - Salt Lake City

It’s taken me a week or so to post the last leg (Salt Lake City) of our roadtrip out west and some of you avid readers thought we had been kidnapped by the Mormons? Yes they were as persistant as ever in the great Temple but we did escape safely. The final leg of our trip was Salt Lake City in Utah. There are so many great places to see in Utah and we will definitely come back to check out those canyons and desert icons but for now, it was the capital Salt Lake City. If anybody has seen the current Broadway hit ‘Book of Mormon’, you will know what I mean when I say Salt-a-Lake-a-City. This is a great, funny, witty and clever Broadway show so GO SEE IT when it comes your way. The two days here were pretty cool, even cold and bloody windy. So windy that it would blow a dog off a chain (Deb has not heard this saying before and thinks I made it up but I showed here on the internet that it was fair dinkum Aussie slang) !! Apparently, it’s been super hot the past few weeks and going to be again the day we left but for our two days, it was pretty crap weather really.

We visited the Great Salt Lake which is massive. It’s about 1700 square miles in area and is the largest salt lake water in the Western Hemisphere. It’s about 5-27% concentration compared to seawater (at about 3.5%) and is the largest remnant of the prehistoric Lake Bonneville that once covered most of Utah. The high seawater concentration means floating is really easy and many people take a dip, or float, for fun. It was so windy that we couldn’t stay long to admire the size of this great lake. However, in the small visitors center it clicked to me that Lake Bonneville was where they do annual land speed record racing. It’s about 90 minutes away and I wish we had time to visit. The racing is in August. There was a good movie made years ago and here’s the background. I enjoyed this movie so it’s worth watching if you can find it online.

The World's Fastest Indian is a 2005 New Zealand film based on the Invercargill, New Zealand speed bike racer Burt Munro and his highly modified Indian Scout motorcycle. Munro set numerous land speed records for motorcycles with engines less1,000 cc at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah in the late 1950s and into the 1960s. Burt Munro is a sort of folk hero in his home known for his friendly easy-going personality, for having the fastest motorcycle in New Zealand and Australia, and for being featured in Popular Mechanics magazine. However, that recognition is contrasted by his exasperated next-door neighbours, some of whom are fed up with his un-neighbourly habits; such as revving his motorbike early in the morning, urinating on his lemon tree, and not mowing his grass. Burt however has a long-time dream, to travel to the USA and test his motorbike's capabilities at the Bonneville Speedway. Burt is finally able to save enough to travel by cargo ship to Los Angeles but when he arrives, he experiences bureaucracy, skepticism, and the indifference of big city people. It is his blunt but gregarious nature which overcomes each hurdle. He wins over the motel clerk, a transvestite woman named Tina, who assists him in clearing customs and helps him in buying a car. The car salesman allows Burt to use his workshop and junkyard to build a trailer, and later offers him a job after Burt fine-tunes a number of the cars on the lot. Burt declines the offer, however, and shortly afterwards begins his long trip to Utah.

We visited the Mormon Temple Square. It’s not our thing but, we felt like we had to see it. 

The square fills a whole block, maybe two. It contains the temple built back in 1893, the tabernacle (choir sings here), their museum thing, their founders house for him and his MANY wives, and some other family history libraries. We couldn’t go in the temple but had a quick look in the Tabernacle. Everywhere we went, the ladies were there with bible in hand, asking if you had any questions. Given they normally knock on your door, I guess they had a captured audience. Anyway, the grounds were beautiful but we didn’t take too long in the place.

We did a trolley tour of the city on this old restored trolley. It was a roll around the city hearing a few bits of history and a visit to the State Capitol building, which, looks just like all the other State Capitol buildings with the dome shape on top. 

The train station, Union Station, was a stop as its claim to fame is that Walt Disney modeled his train station at Disneyland off this one. Now I googled that station and I think it’s a stretch to see the resemblance, but whatever floats your boat I guess. 

Check out the pics below and make up your own mind. The trolley tour driver had awesome red shoes on so when I asked for a photo, I had to wear the Mickey Mouse ears. No problem for me, I told him I normally wear Batman mask and cape. He was disappointed I didn’t have it my bag that day.

Disneyland

Union Station

In the afternoon we took another tour up the local Wasatch mountains in the big Cottonwood Canyon. There was no one else on the tour so it was nice little private tour for us. Our guide was fantastic, she told us heaps of stuff and generally we had a good chat about all kinds of things. We had hoped to see a moose which are found in the area but no luck again. We did see a fat little marmot - strange creature. It's like a big squirrel really and I think they call it a rock-chuck.

Marmot

Some other interesting facts about Salt Lake City is that Rio Tinto own the worlds largest open-cut mine just outside town (Bingham Canyon or better known as Kennecott Copper Mine). It was massive and has produced more copper than any other mine in the world. It’s about 1km deep and 4km wide.

Utah’s nickname is the beehive state. The beehive is a symbol of hard work and industry and it appears on Utah’s flag and state seal. The state motto is simply, industry. The state insect is naturally the honeybee. All the road signs had beehives on them so that was an early question asked and answered for us.

And Deb learned that the Salt Lake City Mayor, Jackie Biskupski, is gay and married with a wife. Incredible. This was not what we expected in the city of mormons.

So Salt Lake City was good to see, with snowy mountain backdrops, but I'm not sure I'd be rushing there unless you’re a mormom or going there on a business conventions. Apparently this is the city where conventions happen which is why there were stacks of hotels. The local skiing is good apparently and the Winter Olympics seem a distant memory. There were lots of craft breweries and pubs to enjoy and we thought it was quiet sort of place really. We even asked if it was a public holiday but no, it was just the way life is there. Basically I would fly into Salt Lake City and head off to Yellowstone or the other fantastic Utah canyons.