Salt Lake City, Utah

Mountains always prevalent in the background in SLC.

When talking to various Americans about my planned route, and mentioning that I'd be heading to Salt Lake City, on about 4 separate occasions they responded: "Why?!". Well the place was always on my list of cities to go to (although probably not as high up as New York or Las Vegas), as I always wanted to see the some religious attractions while over here, due to religion being such a big part of American culture.

This may not be the case in all parts of the US, but all you have to do is turn on the TV or radio to get an idea on how much religion is part of many people's lives over here. I'd say Australians are mostly Christian too, but it's not as in-your-face. When I was calling around stores to find a top case for my bike, one of the motorcycle parts guys asked me my name: "Matt" I said. "Oh that's my name too, do you know what Matthew means?" he asked. "No, not really" I responded. "It means the gift of god. Isn't that wonderful? I tell everyone I talk to that.". I can't imagine that conversation going down back home.

Some fountain in the temple square mall.

I spent 5 nights I SLC, where the first 3 days were spent purging the demons from the local "Wingers" restaurant chain out through my mouth. First time I've had food poisoning in over a decade. Since then I have not ordered chicken from anywhere, I distrust how it is prepared over here. I'll get over that phobia pretty soon, I am thankful that I got it on the first night so I didn't have to ride feeling like shit. I am also extremely grateful to the staff at the Holiday Inn Express, who came and brought me a big bag of saltines and cans of sprite while I recovered. I only had booked in 3 nights, but tacked on 2 more nights so I could see a bit of SLC.

Tabernacle organ.

The first thing I noticed about SLC was the haze, but there was a huge bushfire burning fairly close to the city center. In fact, there are a whole bunch of blazes burning throughout Utah and Colorado. The massive heat coupled with this long running drought and common electrical storms has caused many fires this summer. The second thing I noticed was the proximity of the mountains. It is quite spectacular to see these huge rises in the urban settings.

Just like you would see the Vatican City when in Rome, I went to see the Mormon "Temple Square" in SLC. This is, after all, the capital of Mormonism. Seeing as I was still a little under the weather, I decided it was not the best idea to be riding a motorcycle. So I asked the hotel to call me a taxi, which ended up being a fucking limousine that cost me about twice as much as what a taxi would. Note: Don't ask hotels to get you taxis. The driver told me he also did guided motorcycle day trips which sounded promising, but after getting ripped off I wasn't going to give him anymore money. On the positive side, he did talk about how riding out to Moab was a fantastic experience, so I took mental note of that for later.

View from the Joseph Smith Memorial building

That day I mostly wandered around temple square and took photos. I wasn't feeling too flash hot to be doing anything to strenuous. I first visited the Tabernacle (which I was hoping to see the world famous choir in 3 days earlier, until dodgy chicken punched me in the digestive system). It's a massive silver-topped building with a massive organ and lots of pews (pew pew pew). I then went around to the North Visitors Center, which had lots of exhibits on Mormonism, Joseph Smith, how Mormons help poor people etc.

What I noticed is that there is a whole bunch of mormons wandering around in pairs. You can tell them by the little badges they wrar that contain the flag of their nationality (many come over to SLC from overseas on missions), and they always have the book of mormon in their hands. They wanted nothing to do with me though, perhaps I looked too evil? I really wanted them to come and preach stuff at me, not that I was going to be a dick about it, but I thought it'd be an interesting experience. Plus I really don't know much about Mormonism apart from that South Park episode.

Inside the Joseph Smith Memorial Building.

I did go and talk to a couple of them (if you're too scared to approach me, fuck you I'll come and talk to you), and we talked about my trip and what I'm doing over here. One of them loved motorcycles and was going to buy an R6 when she got back to her home state. She was pretty cool, but the other one was strictly business: Mainly talked about how mormons made a lot of sacrifices in he past, blah blah blah. Nice religion though, it did seem that they were very happy people and have done a lot of good in the past.


Apparently one of the best attractions of SLC is the family history museum. Here you are supposed to be able to use their massive library to trace back your family tree. I, however, did not have much luck. I managed to find one or two electoral records for my mother, and nothing on my father's side. I guess their Australian content still needs a bit of work.

Utah State Capital Building

I also checked out the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, which was a super fancy hotel back in the day and was converted by the Mormons as a function center of sorts. It has a beautiful interior, and you can freely walk around the rooms and ask questions of the lovely Mormon staff on each level. It also had pretty good views of the city from the 11th floor. It didn't seem too Mormon-y, apart from the room which contained portraits of all the Mormon presidents, everything seemed pretty secular.

Next up was the the Utah State Capitol building. A beatiful old government building which is still used today. What I found interesting is that many rooms are lit using what the guy called "Edison" bulbs, which use the same kind of thechnology that Thomas Edison discovered when he invented the lightbulb. This is just done really for effect, and the bulbs have to be specially made when they fail. Also worth noting, almost all rooms are accessible and there are no metal detectors/security checks at the front door. This is because the the State Capital is "the people's building", so there is purposely very little public restrictions. They get around the security implications of this by putting cameras everywhere.

"The Gold Room" in the State Capital Building.

The next day I got a massage (shoulder was hurting) and a haircut. I was to go see the "biggest man-made hole in the world", some copper mine. However my GPS had lots of trouble finding the visitors center due to all the roadworks. There was also lots of haze from the fires and ash falling from the sky. At that point I thought it was getting too late, and the views would be fucked l from the smog anyway, so I headed back home.