Road Trip with God: Day Six - Cheyenne to Salt Lake City

I woke up this morning a little more slowly than normal. I suppose that this is a direct consequence of the fun that we had last night, karaokeing the night away in Cheyenne. I had fallen asleep last night with the TV on and tuned to the Cartoon Network. I love watching cartoons, my favorites being South Park and the Simpsons, but I also like watching others and every day from 9-12 Cartoon Network air two episodes of King of the Hill, American Dad, and Family Guy. I usually only watch them when there is nothing else on, but last night I wanted to watch something familiar, since I haven't watched much TV since we left. However I awoke to some Japanimation cartoon that made no sense and was going to give me a seizure if I watched any more of it, so I turned it off, packed up my room and I was out into the warm morning sunshine ready for the next leg.

Cheyenne in the distance looking from the McDonald's parking lot

For the matter of time and cost effectiveness we decided on McDonald's for breakfast. I must note now, that this is the first time that we have subjected ourselves to McDonald's on our journey. We fueled up on unhealthy breakfast items and coffee, and set out on our way to conquer the rest of WY. The road through WY was very much the same through out. It was wide open, with what looked like plateaus or mesas littering the horizon. We ascended and descended many of the plateaus through out the day. As we continued towards the Utah border the contours of the landscaped changed. What once was grassy rolling lands were replaced with gorges cut through the landscape over time as the highway led us through the countryside of WY. We could see the snow capped Rockies in the distance off to the south of where we were. I had thought that we were actually going to navigate through the mountains but I believe that we were too far north to actually drive amidst the mighty peaks. Had we driven through Denver and Colorado then I think we would have been smack dab in the mountainous terrain that we all had expected, but we did encounter a bit of it once we crossed into Utah.

WY was almost three hundred and fifty miles wide, which we covered by 2:00-2:30. We began to climb in elevation as we approached the border and the scenery changed yet again. Instead of the brown grass there was green everywhere, on the hillsides and in the trees. What was really interesting was to see the brown and grey gravel that made up most of the scenery gave way to orange dirt and rock. It was cool. We continued to go up and down, sometimes reach heights of eight thousand feet and descend back down to five or six thousand and we weaved in and out of canyons. When we were about twenty minutes outside of Salt Lake City, we really climbed and then for the next 10-15 miles we went straight down. I didn't have to use the gas pedal once as the sheer weight of the car and trailer and the steep grade of the winding road carried us down into SLC. It was cool because all of a sudden we could see the city, sprawled out in every direction as we approached from the west.

We got to the Motel 6 and I was absolutely ecstatic. for the first time on this trip our motel was actually located downtown and within walking distance of the city's attractions. Almost all of our motel have been located in seedy areas or out by airports. This time, we could actually head out without having to take the car and worry about parking with the trailer in tow. after settling in I walked around the block and it was so different to see mountains surrounding the city. It now felt that I was in a place that was no longer familiar.

A look out from the motel

Mountains!!!

We met back up after relaxing for a bit and we figured that we would walk around and see what SLC had to offer. My first impression is that it is a clean city. Everything seemed very well taken care of in the landscaping. There was little trash littering the sidewalks. The people seemed nice and relatively outgoing. We made our way to the Temple Square, where the SLC Temple is located as well as other monuments and buildings related to the Mormon faith. We were about seven blocks away but you could easily see it in the distance. The sheer size of the temple is the first thing that grabs your attention. To see the huge walls of granite and the towers and steeples, is definitely breathtaking. The whole square is walled off with sever large gates to get in and out. Within this compound is the temple, several visitor centers and the finest public restrooms I have ever seen.

As we walked around I noticed tons of young people walking around giving tours to small groups of tourists. They walked in pairs and each guide had a Bible and the Book of Mormon in their hands. On their shirts were name tags with flags under them to designate what country they were from and which language they could give tours in. I saw flags from all over Europe, from Asian countries like China and even Mongolia. There was a pair giving a tour where one woman was from Finland and the other from some Island in the Pacific. It was absolutely amazing to see the diversity and to see the impact that their evangelism and mission ministry has spread their word across the world. They have gone out of their way to make sure that language and culture will not serve as a barrier to get the Word out and make it easily accessible. After denying several advances by evangelizing Mormons we had to explain several times that we were just passing through on our way to seminary. We grabbed dinner at a local "social club" called Murphy's Pub and Grill. In Utah apparently drinking is done in the context of a "social club." I am guessing that if an establishment is considered a private club the moral code of the Mormon faith does not apply, as opposed to a public restaurant. Though we did walk by restaurants that had beer signs in the windows so I may not be on the right track.

All in all I really liked my time in SLC so far. I could definitely see myself in a place like that, though not anytime soon. Below are some pictures of the temple. Tomorrow we head by the Great Salt Lake, through the Bonneville Salt Flat and into the deserts of Nevada. We will cross the whole state of NV tomorrow as we hope to get to Reno. We will see what happens.