The Peery Hotel is a historic boutique hotel so it had character compared to the large national chains. A great little find! I went to their gym, Paul used their wireless internet, we showered and then head off to check out the city.
Salt Lake City is home
to the headquarters, known as Temple Square, of the Church of Latter Day Saints, or as they are more commonly known by their nickname, the Mormons. We took a tour of Temple Square lead by two sisters of the church. They pointed out the great temple, which is the largest LDS temple in the world and explai
ned that it was built over 40 years completed in 1893 by the pioneers. Since it is considered such a sacred place, public tours are not offered, but we were able to see the tabernacle, which was completed in 1867. The tabernacle has such great acoustics, you don't need microphones to be heard.Then it was onto the visitor center, with an 11 foot marble statue of Jesus. There the sisters gave us cards we could fill out with suggestions for the tour as well as space to put our information so we could be contacted by LDS missionaries.
I wanted to take pictures before the sun went down, so I left Paul to wander in the visitor center. When I returned, he had engaged in conversation with two Mormons, a middle aged married couple. Paul, who loves small talk and conversations with strangers, was interested in their religion as well. Not much information had been provided on the tour about the history or doctrine of the Church of Ladder Day Saints. I was raised as a Protestant and went through all the sacraments, though I don't practice any more. Paul wasn't raised in any faith, though his parents' families are Christian. The couple explained how Joseph Smith was looking for a religion and was dissatisfied with the Protestant and Catholic interpretations of the Bible. In 1827, he knelt down in prayer and asked for guidance. He believed that Jesus Christ spoke to him and told him start the Church of Latter Day Saints. The movement started on the East Coast, but later, the pioneers moved out West and eventually settled in Salt Lake City. The followers believe they are the true religion of Jesus Christ and they follow their modern day prophets, whom they believe have been spoken to by Jesus Christ. They also use the Book of Mormons as their teachings, in addition to the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. They, like the other Christian traditions, are still waiting for the return of Jesus. There are some differences. For example, the don't believe in the Trinity; they believe the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost are three distinct beings. They also believe that our souls exist for eternity, both before and after our death. When we are born, our soul has been chosen by God to have a human form for this time and after death our souls return to heaven and are reunited with our families.The couple wanted to sit down with us, to discuss more, since they could tell we were searching and had such beautiful hearts. We really were starving and had to get to dinner. They understood and asked us twice for our address, but since we honestly don't have one at the time, we couldn't give them one. They gave us two postcards with the Mormon website though, convinced we would return one day to the Church of Latter Day Saints. They also couldn't let Paul leave without his own copy of the Book of Mormon. Thank you.
We dropped the book off in the car and went to dinner. Salt Lake City had a very walkable downtown, a slathering of interesting restaurants, and nearby great skiing from what we were told, though since it was August, it was hot, near 100ยบ, though cooled down in the evening to a comfortable temperature. Though I'm sure we have all heard the rumors about Salt Lake being a dry city, all the restaurants we saw had bars. An interesting city, all in all.
The last thing we wanted to see was the Great Salt Lake. A remnant of the ancient Bonneville Sea, it was huge and salty. The salt content varied from 4% to 25%, compared to the ocean at 3%. We thought the city bordered it so, the next morning we wanted to drive by, take a look and hit the road.
Two hours later, we still hadn't seen the lake. If we had a map, we may have been able to plan better, since the lake, unlike say Chicago, does not actually border the city. The lake was west, so at one point, after driving north for about 45 minutes on 15 north, Paul decided to get off the highway, and head west, hoping to run into the lake, since it was so huge. Thirty minutes later, no lake. We finally gave in and asked for directions at a 7-11. Three exits north, take a left. We also bought an atlas.
The directions too
k us to Antelope Island State Park, the largest island in the lake. Tired of driving, hot, hungry, annoyed at the $9 entrance fee, we struggled with just taking off or at least sticking our feet in. We choose the latter. The visitor center assured us it was not dead, but alive with brine shrimp and brine flies. Indeed it was. We found lots of shrimp and flies.Below is a picture of the beach from the parking lot. There are no tides, but the level changes with the seasons and we thought that the water must come up higher in the winter.
The high salt content makes it incredible easy to float, however, since we didn't have on our bathing suits, and they were buried somewhere in our bag below a bunch of other stuff, we could only observe other people floating. The salt water did also make it easy to skip rocks. Here you can see how far the rock skips after the first bounce.
Okay, now after 1PM, and still quite a ways from route 80, we split the park. Paul had been proud of us for avoiding fast food so far on the trip, but figured now would be a good time to break the seal and hit the drive thru. Burger King, a shake, 2PM finally on the road to Nebraska, 14 hours of driving.
States visited: 5
Dogs met: 3
Cats met: 7
Necessary urinations in unauthorized locations: 7
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