Day 31 - Salt Lake City

Some other church in Temple Square
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Today I embarked on a walking tour of Salt Lake City. The blocks and streets here are really wide, so although my motel is only 6 blocks from Temple Square (which is the centre of everything apparently) it takes about 20 minutes to walk there. One funny thing that the pedestrian crossings have here is are containers which have orange flags in them. When the crossing is green you walk across the road as usual, but also take one of these flags with you too and deposit it in the corresponding bucket on the other side. This is so cars can see you more. This I thought was slightly disturbing as usually it is sufficient for you to be at a pedestrian crossing for cars to notice that you have right of way and are in the middle of the road, but here apparently, they need the extra help of a fluorescent flag to notice you!! It is also really hot here today – back up to the high 30s which is a change from the last couple of weeks where it has been comfortable in the high 20s. After being thrown out of my room at 10.30 by a rather impatient maid who kept coming back every 5 minutes until I got out of my room, I walked up to Temple Square and checked out the Mormons. The Mormons (or members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints – short and snappy) have their home here in Salt Lake City and Temple Square houses their main church and tabernacle. The square is surrounded by 15 ft high walls – presumably to keep us plebs out, as opposed to them in, but you can go in and wander around. I had a look around, but it wasn’t really my kind of thing so I just took the opportunity to relax in the sunshine instead. Salt Lake City is a bit of a strange city. It is very clean but also really empty. There are hardly any shops in the downtown area whatsoever, and there just appears to be one shopping centre further out of town (which is really nicely laid out but not that big). I took a walk down there and grabbed some lunch and had a wander around the shops but restrained myself which I thought was very noble. Otherwise there are just offices and Mormon things in the centre. There wasn’t actually much to do in the city apart from Temple Square so I just walked around for a while and looked at Mormons. They have HUGE families. Most women (who didn’t seem very old) all seemed to have at least 4 children with them and you just know there will be more on their way soon! There is also a great amount of blonde children here – it was a little creepy! Didn’t see too many people in full Mormon dress though which was a little comforting but apparently only 1/2 the population of Salt Lake City are actually Mormons so I’m sure it’ll change as I head further south into Utah. Mormons can’t drink or smoke, or drink tea or coffee either so there aren’t many Starbucks here either (I have only seen one) which is a bit of a novelty as they are usually on every street corner in every other city! The mountains surrounding the city are very pretty however, and I can imagine have good skiing in the winter. Tomorrow I head south to Cedar City before starting my tour around Utah’s national parks.

Temple Square church
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Distance travelled today – 0 miles.

Distance travelled today - 0 miles

Bearwatch – 0, but millions of children instead!