Utah, Salt Lake City: Mormon Capital of the World

Salt Lake Temple within Temple Square was a beautiful piece of architecture but we could only enter by joining the Latter Day Saints, so we walked around the outside instead
see all photos »

One of the few times that it was feasible for Dan to drive during our road trip was in Utah, when we travelled from Wendover to Salt Lake City. The road we were going to take was Interstate 80 and the drive was around 125 miles, which would give Kyle a couple of hours' break from driving and also time to write one of the stories for our travel journal. The traffic on Interstate 80 was not as bad as on other highways we had driven on, mostly because Wendover was located in the middle of nowhere.

The inside of the Tabernacle in Temple Square was enormous and the large organ that is played for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir was impressive
see all photos »

Dan helmed the wheel and was speeding along the highway quite comfortably, even though he was tightly gripping the wheels, since it was his first time driving on a large American highway during our road trip. He had also not driven at all since moving to London ten years ago, where having a car is definitely not a necessity like it is in the US. Doing the drive was good for his confidence, to remind him of all of the things he'd learned in the past, but at one point whilst driving, we both started to panic.

We were surprised to hear British accents amongst the volunteers working inside Temple Square

Bright colourful flowers abounded within Temple Square, giving visitors to the place in downtown Salt Lake City a warm, fuzzy feeling
see all photos »

As soon as Dan mentioned to Kyle that he had driven into the suburbs surrounding Salt Lake City, he headed towards downtown, upon Kyle's suggestion that we check out that part of the city first, and so we could change positions in the vehicle, allowing Kyle to drive. All of a sudden, the interstate opened up to a wide seven lane road, instead of the easier two-lane road that Dan had been driving on for the past couple of hours. Traffic density increased exponentially and the road also started twisting left and right, like spaghetti.

The Joseph Smith Memorial Building had an extremely grand lobby and was striking from a distance
see all photos »

The quick and unexpected change in the road scared the life out of Dan and frightened Kyle just as much, with Dan freaking out in the driver's seat wondering what to do. Once Dan managed to get the vehicle safely into downtown and park it, he was extremely happy to hand over the keys to Kyle to drive around the busy downtown area. We only had an afternoon to explore Salt Lake City before moving south towards Bryce Canyon, and we could have just told you that Kyle took over driving to save us time, but we thought you may enjoy the real story better.

We were surprised at the presence of Latter Day Saints corporation type buildings in Salt Lake City, even though we knew there was a high concentration of members of the religion in the city
see all photos »

Downtown, we first looked for a coffee shop to work on our beloved travel journal. We found a Starbucks after circling around the area a few times. Across the street from Starbucks, we ended up going inside a combination Carl's Jr and Green Burrito fast food chain restaurant, where we shared a chicken asada burrito and a bacon cheeseburger. All of that food, combined with a couple frappucinos from Starbucks and the horrible Mexican food we ate in Wendover on the previous day, at Salt Flats Mexican American Cafe, came rushing out to see the world, if you know what we mean.

The multi-spired Assembly Hall in Temple Square was built in 1882 and was used as a meeting and concert hall
see all photos »

A walk was needed by that point in the afternoon, so we drove our rental SUV a few blocks over to Temple Square, a most important area within downtown Salt Lake City for Mormon followers of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We hadn't started walking yet because our car was in a parking garage that charged by the hour and we were also worried about getting to Temple Square too late in the afternoon. We saved both time and money by taking the SUV a few blocks north.

We quickly found a spot to park at the side of the street and rushed to the gates of Temple Square, where we were greeted by several Mormons of different nationalities. We were surprised to hear British accents amongst the volunteers working inside Temple Square, offering tourists guided tours of the complex. We declined a tour, thinking it would be better to do a brisk walk around, taking things in at our own pace. Plus, we weren't sure if there was going to be any propanganda during a tour and we didn't want to chance having to say no to a conversion opportunity.

Brigham Young is known as the "Great Coloniser of the American West" and was the founder of the Church of Latter Day Saints religion
see all photos »

Temple Square was really nice; you can take a look at our photo album for this journal entry to see all of the beautiful buildings inside, as well as the previous homes of Brigham Young, the great coloniser of the American West who founded the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The entire area was beautifully manicured with large flower gardens of multicoloured arrangements; some of the flowers we saw were of a strange and exotic variety.

After an hour inside Temple Square, we headed back to our SUV and drove towards a dollar movie theatre that we had found out about whilst eating at Carl's Jr and Green Burrito. There was a list of films showing in a local Salt Lake City entertainment guide newspaper; once we spotted the dollar movie theatre, we decided to check it out because it would give us the opportunity to see another area in Salt Lake City, as well as a cheap movie.

Here, you can see the grand lobby inside the Joseph Smith Memorial Building
see all photos »

Sugarmont was a young and trendy area of town. We were there on a Friday night and it was very difficult to find parking near the cinema, with so many people out and about there. After twenty minutes of driving around, we finally managed to park in a large lot behind the cinema, and we bought tickets for a movie that started ten minutes later. The movie ended up finishing just before 10:00pm and, when we got into our rental SUV afterwards, we had a serious driving discussion.

Our road trip itinerary had us exploring Bryce Canyon National Park the next day and we didn't want to fall behind. However, the national park was around 240 miles south of Salt Lake City and it was already dark and pretty late in the day. We decided to set ourselves a goal of driving at least halfway there, but further if it was at all possible. In order to complete such a feat, caffeine was needed, and we also had to fill up the vehicle with petrol.

These strange cabbage-like plants could be seen in the flower gardens all throughout Temple Square
see all photos »

In Sugarmont, we found a nice gas station down the street from the movie theatre, which also had a car wash. After visiting the Bonneville Salt Flats on the previous day, we decided to wash the car to remove any sporadic salt deposits from its underside and wheels. To get a caffeine fix, Kyle decided to invent an iced coffee using the automated coffee machine inside the gas station, but also pouring the hot coffee into a cup of ice. That didn't work at all; the concoction was terrible and Kyle ended up drinking some of Dan's Coke to try and stay awake.

Beehive House was built in 1854 and served as the official residence of Brigham Young
see all photos »

Once we finally got going south onto Interstate 15 in Salt Lake City, another half an hour had passed. At first, we were pretty awake and the drive went by quickly. However, after some time, the dull, flat road in front of us began lulling us to sleep and we needed to make another pit stop somewhere. We refreshed ourselves at that next stop, and bought some postcards, candy (that's the same as sweets for the British people reading this) and another drink. Refueled and recharged, we hit the road again, with the goal of driving as closely to Bryce Canyon as we could that night.

When we first saw this building, which was being torn down, we thought a bomb had exploded
see all photos »

The small town of Panguitch was where we ended up finding a place to stay. It was around 20 miles from the entrance to Bryce Canyon National Park and there were a couple of motels there. Out of the first two we saw on the main street of the small town, Bryce Canyon Motel was the only one whose manager came out (at 2:00am!) to talk to us about getting a room. We explained to her that we were travelling on a budget and looking for a low-cost option for the night; she immediately offered us a room for $25, which needed some renovations. We took it, even though it looked like something straight out of a horror film.