Day 8: Church and State

This morning I woke early in Salt Lake City, Utah. I didn’t have to get up early but I did. I was confounded by questions about whether I’d actually make this journey work given the financial constraints involved. When you wake up in a hotel and think about how much that night’s sleep actually cost and whether you got value for money, it’s a bit of a buzz kill. Anyway, eventually I snapped out of it and got myself organised. Today I needed to get to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Jackson is a city (read: town) at the mouth of the Grand Teton National Park (pronounced ‘Tee-tawn”) and further north, Yellowstone National Park. As such, it’s back to the old fish-and-barrel scenario. This place is hideously expensive all year round. Little wonder then that last week the United States Federal Reserve Banks had their conference pow-wow there. Anyway, I had no real interest in the town, but rather  the two parks. Jackson was just the slumber den. But try as I may, I couldn’t find a way to stay Friday and Saturday nights. I’d figured to myself I’d need two days to do the parks justice – I’d been to Yellowstone before, but not Teton.

After much agro, I realised there must’ve been something on on the Saturday as I could book the Friday with relative ease. I say ease – I had to call the hotel and book over the phone. All said and done, I went down to grab some breakfast (the La Quinta chain offer a fairly standard breakfast but if you’re watching the pennies it’s a nice way to get started for your all inclusive rate). They were out of coffee by the time I got there but a polystyrene bowl of cheerios or two and I was on the road. In what has become a bit of a tradition now, I punched in the State Capitol building’s address into the GPS and drove up through Salt Lake City (SLC) to see what this one looked like (remember Iowa has set the bar pretty high!). I had been wanting to see the Bonneville Salt Flats which lay out west, but they’re 2.5 hours out so it’s a 6 hour round trip. This excursion into town would have to do.

Before I go further, let me share some information about Utah. It’s a strange state, to say the least. Almost the entire population are belong to the church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints (LDS for short). You know these guys – the ones with the black name tags who walk around cities all over the world in pairs – usually in creepy white uniforms with black ties and they’re almost exclusively pasty white blonde emaciated folk. Mitt Romney is one of them, as is the current Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada. They have some crazy laws too, most of them in the state legislature of Utah, including perhaps the most draconian liquor licensing laws since Ireland closed off licenses on St. Patrick’s Day. Until recently, you had to pay a cover charge in a bar to buy a drink. Only the state can sell liquor at an ‘off-license’. It’s a bit like Sweden in a way, but just odd in the 21st century – especially in America.

That being said, southern Utah – where I’d been yesterday – seems to skirt the measures a bit more than SLC but I wasn’t prepared for what happened next. I kept driving up the street and the GPS showed I wasn’t too far from the capitol building. But I couldn’t figure out where the actual city was. All this time in the US I’ve come to expect skyscrapers – here there are about 5. And they’re not even that tall. As I rounded the street aptly named ‘Temple’ street though, something weird appeared in front of me. A collection of buildings that just didn’t belong in a city centre. They were all belong to the LDS. There was a business school, conference centre, library of God, office building, tabernacle, theatre. The tallest building in the city was their office building. This was surreal. As I rounder the corner onto State Street, I went up the steep hill to be greeted through the trees by the state capitol building – a pristine marble monstrosity of a building that lay on a site entirely by itself. It was awesome and baffling at the same time. I parked the car, got out and walked over to it and still couldn’t believe it. It looked so out of place. What I’d passed a few moments earlier (the God buildings) seemed more alive than here. I decided to go inside and this turned out to be a good idea because I found a plaque that explained that weird beehive symbol I’d seen on signs all day yesterday and today – it is indeed a beehive, the state symbol and symbol of industry. Go figure. Anyway I climbed up the steps, turned to take a photo of the city and still couldn’t shake this feeling that it was all very weird. Pushing the doors in I was confronted by a female priest heading out – another weird thing. Once inside though, it got even weirder. The place was immaculate. I’ve never seen or stood in a building so clean. Polished sparkling marble floors, walls, columns. The central vane of the building has a glass ceiling (not too dissimilar from the Reichstag building in Berlin) but the light permeating the cavernous passages was cold. As I walked around the inside I felt as if I was in a Mausoleum. Or maybe inside a diversion – as if this was all a front, but the real action took place downtown in the pristine buildings of the LDS church. Walking outside once more I saw that of the 4 tall buildings, one was the LDS office building, one was called ‘Zion Bank’ (which I figured was linked to the LDS – and it is/was). So two out of 4. Weird.

I decided to walk down the hill to these crazy buildings – but that only made things worse. I tweeted at the time that I’d have felt less freaked out in Mecca than on that street in SLC. It was weird, to put it mildly. Those same pasty annoying guys who peddle so-called “Jesus’ Word” around the world were here. They were still white, pasty and thing. They were clutching (read; grabbing tightly in a forceful grip) their girlfriends (or at least I hope they were girlfriends) and walking toward these buildings and seeming to disappear. Servicemen nodded to me as they drove past on the sidewalk with their sweeping machines. A stream ran the entire length of the street. These massive cold buildings loomed from the edges of the sidewalk as if to dominate the landscape. Every single person I crossed paths with had a gaunt look of determination and suspicion about their faces. It was as if they were all puppets in an odd game – and they accepted that fact. They also almost all had some form of name tag. Not just the black badge we see elsewhere, but tags on lanyards and belt clips. Everyone was so purposeful. Then I began to notice other weird things. So far everyone was caucasian. There were no black people at all. Then I noticed everyone dressed more or less the same – older than their age. There was no flashy attire, no skirts and certainly no colors, on men or women. I then spotted that the sidewalk was completely clean – no chewing gum, cigarette butts, litter of any sort. The grass was perfectly manicured. The stream was following me. I was, to put it mildly, rather freaked out. I thought I’d have the camera taken from me for breaking some rule. I decided to get out of there quickly so as to save myself or I feared I’d have ended up being “saved” by someone. Another strange thing is the lack of US companies represented in SLC, and according to Wikipedia, only 1 of the Fortune 500 rated companies has a presence in SLC. This is very strange because even PayPal had an office in Omaha, Nebraska.

All this craziness lead me to cut short further exploration of SLC and head north out of Utah. I really genuinely was fascinated and creeped out by it all. So I navigated to a Target (like a less mental version of Walmart) and pick up a cooler box for the car – it had occurred to me before to do this as all my water just kept getting warm in the car. Once I’d built my own ice machine in the car, I popped into the In-N-Out burger joint to get a chocolate shake (best in the world) and get the heck out of Utah. I went north toward Pocatello, Idaho and then west into Wyoming before going north to just below the Teton range. I must say I really dislike Idaho’s countryside – as a state to drive through I find it really dull. It’s just a personal observation – I don’t see anything appealing about the entire state. It’s a strange place, predominately farming but in a rather lacklustre way. When you think of Idaho you think of potatoes, but I’ve never ever seen a potato plant in Idaho. Or much of anything else except old irrigation equipment and lots of higgle-dee-piggledy buildings – anything goes anywhere. But I also noticed the white spires of the LDS churches. This is so strange because you don’t see churches here like you do in Ireland. Church buildings here are generally more informal.

Anyway, long story short I made it to Jackson. I must say though I really dislike this town. It’s 100% cheese. The entire town is fashioned from the pockets of wealthy socialites who come here for the ski season and those who come to the national parks to hunt – those who frequent the “sporting goods” stores. Lots of country music too. I can’t wait to get out to the parks tomorrow and back to landscapes devoid of human tarnation. Night all!