My Canada - US Travels
BC - Winnipeg
Winnipeg - Quebec
Quebec - Winnipeg
Winnipeg - BC
Epilogue
North West Drive
Washington
Oregon
California
Nevada
Utah
Colorado
Utah again
Idaho & Montana
Alberta
BC
Epilogue
BC Interior
Langley Detour
Okanagan
Cariboo
Prince George to Prince Rupert
Return to Vancouver
Epilogue
Utah
Friday 27thToday is 'explore Salt Lake City' day. The focal point of the city is the Church of Latter Day Saints (LDS as they prefer to Mormons we found out) "Complex". Since the LDS founded the city and own downtown Salt Lake City (SLC - they like three letter acronyms here, or TLAs as I call them) almost, you can't miss it.
The main buildings seem to be:
The temple,
which you can't go in unless you're LDS, but can
admire from outside; The conference centre, absolutely humongous. The organ is focal point, with room for the tabernacle choir behind. We listen to one of their daily organ recitals, I'm not into that type of thing, but it is very dramatic;
The genealogy building, if you want to trace your ancestors the LDS website is the worlds' best resource. They have a permanent team working on tracing ancestors - it is important for LDS'ers to understand their genealogy, and they provide their information freely.
Quick LDS summary - they are the majority in Utah, minority in SLC, they seem to own everything, including the main university, they are very keen to show/'educate' you about their city and their beliefs, soft sell at first. A large number of the downtown stores are closed down. LDS are going to build a mega mall, even so, there doesn't seem to be too much downtown. Perhaps the mall is viewed as a revitalisation program. It makes the city seem eerie, particularly in the evening with the streets almost barren of people. However, unlike many empty night time cities, this one feels incredibly safe. There is some nightlife hidden away, though limited, and contrary to our expectations, alcohol. The law allows patrons to serve alcohol to club members only, so as you go into a restaurant you are asked if you will want a drink and then asked to pay a nominal fee to get a 3 week membership to their club - funny, but obviously a necessary evil for the restaurant business.
Let me preface the next part with a reminder about the fact that I
come from the pot smoking, gun averse canadian west coast. While
wandering around downtown, we go into a mega sports store. Besides
the sports goods, there is a large selection of sports guns for
sale, though I can not work out why you need an SLR to hunt deer. In
addition, the ammunition is not behind a counter, it's baby height
on up on racks for anyone to pick up. A substantial amount of
it is armour piercing ammunition. They must be well equipped deer
around here. Then we walk over to a big convention centre across
from this shop, where above every door it says "No weapons allowed",
what a sad indictment. I take a picture of it, I can't believe you
actually have to say this ("Oh, and no shooting up in the
auditorium").
The city seems very organized and serene and as I said, safe.
Getting around downtown, they have a tram system, which is free in
the downtown core. At pedestrian crossings, they have 5 or 6
handhold Clean flourescent orange flags either side of the road, so
when you want to cross, you pick one of these up so the cars can see
you, and then drop the flag off the other side of the road. Can't
say I saw them being used, but very 'community minded' and this is
definitely the feel SLC gave, with the LDS being the paternalistic
'governor'. Where I'm from, the local street people would have found
ways to use these flags for cleaning car windshields at traffic
lights.On the flip side, the city is empty of traffic or pedestrians, particularly in the evening and lacks real character. In fact it is the tourist info centre that brings it to my attention! Even so I'm glad we stayed, but there isn't enough to make me want to return.
If you stay at the Little America Inn, across the road is the Grand America, at 3 times the price (but it certainly looked worth it from the lobby), where you can go for drinks in their great bar before dinner.
For dinner we go to supposedly one of the better restaurants, called
Metropolitan. The food is good, trying a little too
hard, but it is amongst the worst service I've ever had. Their
maitre'd models himself on a pompous european counterpart, but with
none of the charm and, appears oblivious to what is going on in his
restaurant. The busser has more of a clue what is going on than our
waiter. I've never had to ask for a bottle of wine 3 times before.
The food takes for ever to arrive (even by slow european standards)
and each course is brought by a different waiter. No they aren't
that busy, others arriving after us are being served before us. The
staff spend more time folding napkins than serving food. On one
occasion our waiter is busy folding a napkin on a table next to us,
while a busser brings our food. But it is Soooo entertaining to
watch, I would actually go back just for the entertainment value:)Saturday 28th
Breakfast, we go across to the Grand America, and have a great meal
in their dining room before setting off. We need to get to Avon,
Colorado today. We leave Salt Lake City heading south on highway
15. About 45 minutes south of SLC we leave the highway on No.6 to Green River, taking a "Short Cut" around the highways. The scenery is stunning. As we're making better time than we thought, we make a detour south to Moab and the Arches National Park. The scenery changes from sandy green desert to red sandstone with the Lasal snow peaked mountains in the background, it's amazing.
At the Arches National Park visitor centre we buy a week long pass (the minimum they sell) and are given a map. It's a park you have to drive around. We soon realise that there is substantially more to see than we have time for, so after a brief taster of the park we turn back. We decide that we need to come back after Colorado and spend some time here. It is absolutely amazing. I'll explain more when we come back!
There is a road, highway 128, that goes around the other (eastern) side of the national park and brings you back to the highway. It's a long winding, majestic 70 km following the Colorado River with mountains on all sides - imagine you're driving along the bottom of the Grand Canyon, maybe a little narrower :)
So after our brief detour has added 3 hours to the day we continue on for Colorado. It's basically desert with the occasional oasis. It's just straight along the highway, but the scenery is amazing. I'm using this word rather a lot today, but it's apt. Once in Colorado, the majestic mountains off in the distance to the side of the highway start to close in. This creates at times, narrow gorges of only 100 feet. Again, we are slowly climbing, this time from the valley floor of 4,000ft in Moab to 7,500ft in Avon.
We arrive at Avon around 9pm and check into the Sheraton.