The day before, after we’d arrived at the KOA, it was decided that we’d rent a car for a couple of days to make it easier to get around. After we got the RV settled in and all, I contacted the local Enterprise location, which was out at the SLC International Airport just a few miles away. And since we had no other way to get there, I called a cab to come get me and take me to Enterprise. Yeah. They don’t always deliver. . . I got the only Nigerian cab driver in all of Utah, who’d been hired about forty minutes earlier in the day. He told me I was his second fare ever, and the poor chap had no idea where the airport was. I had to get out my tourist map and show him. It was literally VISIBLE from the KOA, but it still took him half an hour to go three miles. And then we couldn’t find the Enterprise location. Finally, embarrassment aside, we pulled into the Hertz office, and asked them where Enterprise was. Dropped off, license and credit card shown, keys handed over, and I was off. On my way out, I saw the cab driver, still stuck in the loop around the airport incoming passenger drop off. He may still be there, for all I know.
Next morning we got up around 7:30 or so, had a leisurely breakfast, and plotted out our day. I would drop Melissa and Hal off at the fancy Salt Palace for their Young Living jamboree, and then I would play tourista and just wander around SLC. It was just a few blocks up into the city, and I dropped the kids off at the Salt Palace, parked a few blocks away, and headed into the downtown area.
City Creek Center
The City Creek Center was a new retail destination in the middle of downtown. For thousands of years , a small creek had burbled its way across three or four blocks of the city, and they decided what better way to honor, celebrate and protect a tiny little watercourse than to build a shopping mall over top of it. So they did – complete with a retractable roof that would keep the snow and rain off the bargain hunters. It was all very clean and bright, almost antiseptic compared with similar places back East. Not a cigarette butt, coffee cup or discarded syringe to be found for miles. Pairs of uniformed security guards walked around, virtually arm in arm. The women all wore long ankle length skirts, and the men long sleeve white shirts. There was not an African-American to be seen. Not even my cab driver.
Temple Square
Once I’d exhausted the scenic possibilities of the City Creek Center, I wandered across the street to the edges of the Temple Square area. With about a dozen other Caucasians, I came to the intersection of two of the main streets, and there was not a car to be seen for a block in any direction. I picked one foot up and was almost ready to dash across, against the light, but then noticed that every one, and I mean EVERYONE, was waiting patiently for the Pedestrian Cross signal. I’m used to ped crossings in Philly and NYC, where, if there was a three-second interval between vehicles, you WENT for it.
I feared legal action might ensue if I stepped off the curb, so I waited with the rest. For a very long twenty-five seconds before the lights turned and we got the pedestrian crossing OK. Temple Square itself is a four or five block section bounded on one end by the famous Tabernacle, and on the other end the not so famous Beehive house, summer home of B. Young and various other Mormon Mullahs over the years.
In between were meticulously tended gardens with flowers profuse, a statue or two of old man Young, and other sights. Volunteers were scurrying round with brooms and trash shovels and various gardening tools. It was explained to me that the fountains went off every couple of minutes, except when it was windy, so as not to inadvertently soak the visitors. It was windy, but I hoped they’d set the things off anyway. The helpful garden tender told me the fountains went off in the shape of the tabernacle, and I just had to see that. Sure enough, after a few minutes, the big thing spouted off, and I tried to match it to the Tabernacle. Well, sort of.
The new Conference Center
After I was done wandering around the garden area, I decided to see the highly touted new LDS Conference Center across the street. This was a huge auditorium, just recently constructed, where the church held their twice-annual all-hands-on-deck gatherings, and where famous recording artists the Mormon Tabernacle Choir gathered to rehearse and belt out a new show tune every now and then. It was a rather interesting tour. As you walk in, a docent grabs you like the Ancient Mariner and herds you into a small group of people who’ve been gathering dust for a while, until there are enough of you to take on a guided tour. Guided only, mind you. There will be no unauthorized wandering around this place by heathens. I managed to get into a fairly small group, and wandered away after a while anyway, because the docent was busy rhapsodizing over the LDS and all its goodies. I peeked into the auditorium, and heard the spiel from another tour group leader. No columns, every seat sees the stage, there are about 22,000 seats all told. The big ass pipe organ in the back was impressive, I’ll say that.
There was one area of the place that was set aside as a sort of “Hall of History”, and it was filled with rather garish and pulp-fiction-y looking paintings of Great Events In Mormon History, such as when Jesus preached to the Aztecs and when the Vikings Discovered Yosemite National Park.
Finally they led us up to the roof. As it was explained, when the place was proposed, residents of the fancy condo building just behind it complained that the roof would spoil their view somehow (of the other roofs in the area…) so the architects designed the roof to look like . . . the ground.
A young Mormon gal in hip waders was dredging in the goldfish pond and I tried to flirt with her but she would have none of my nonsense. There were some nice views of the Tabernacle and the surrounding area from the roof here, but I was told that the best spot to take pictures was on the observation deck of the 30-story LDS Office Building across the street, so that became my next destination.
From up there, you had a pretty good view north up towards where the state capital building stood, called Ensign Peak. The hills to the east held the University of Utah campus and the west, well the west was dusty and full of the Salt Lake and Bonneville desert. It was also possible to look down on the Conference Center roof where I’d just been.
Once safely back on the Promised Land, I took some more shots of the gardens and buildings of Temple Square. It was all very clean and bright and sunny and clean. After a quick lunch, I took in the Joseph Smith office building, just another adminstrative ediface. It had a small observatory area on the 10th floor which offered a somewhat different perspective than the 26th floor of the other building, plus it was a better shot of the Tabernacle. Downstairs, the lobby sported some pretty neat looking green marble columns all over the place, but the light was not really great. Sorry for the lack of quality here.
Down at the other end of the square, behind the Tabernacle proper, was another small garden area, and the Assembly Hall, which they built with stuff left over from the big Tabernacle. It’s also the only church where heathens can visit – we’re not allowed in the Tabernacle. Nice gardens again, people very clean and bright and polite all over, and then one last look up and down the avenue, and I headed over to get Hal and Melissa at the convention, and head back to the KOA.
