On the Road: July 2012

Salt Lake City

We left Wendover and headed across the Great Salt Lake Desert. Not a lot to see – salt and a straight line road with mountains in the far distance.

Salt Lake City sparkled in the clear air, set off by the mountains behind. It’s a beautiful city. It’s size is limited by the proximity of the mountains. There is some sprawl to the north and south, but the city itself seems doable and inviting. It’s laid out in a very sensible grid pattern – addresses like 1061 East 2100 South, which might explain why we never understood where we were going. We once made a five-mile complete circle around the airport in an effort to find a CVS – “Wait .. I think I’ve seen that before --- hmmm, we seem to be back at the RV park …”

The park was large, very nice and quite close to the center of the city. We set to work on exploring immediately, first order being the Mormon Temple. Well, that turned out to be the first order, the second order and several more. We had no idea. I had pictured a grand church, of course, but not the complex surrounding it. The first inkling that I had of the scope of things was discovering that the church provides transportation to and from Temple Square every half hour from the park and many other points including the airport. Your van comes equipped with two volunteers from the church who are happy to direct you to various points of interest, answer questions, do whatever else they could for you. They were kind, wonderful people and they were only the first of many volunteers that we would meet.

The square was way more than a square. It was immense. There were some of the most beautiful buildings I have ever seen.

And there were flowers everywhere and clearly there are always flowers. Early spring flowers were gone and early summer flowers were in and people were about planting the mid-summer flowers. They were kids – teenagers – working on the gardens. They were volunteers, as is nearly everyone there, modestly dressed, working in the hot sun, getting hands dirty and smiling, apparently happy to be there modestly dressed, sweaty and dirty. Teenagers, in case you missed it the first time.

We wandered around amazed at the soaring structures, immaculate grounds. The Tabernacle is open to the public and with a bit of planning you can hear the choir.

There was a bewildering assortment of huge buildings -- devoted to church history, art, a museum, a genealogy building that is open for anyone to use and complete with computers and helpful people. There is also a 28-story building to handle the business of the church.

We decided it was time for lunch and were surprised, yet again, that the Mormons had thoughtfully provided many places in the complex to eat, from casual to fine dining and all excellent. We went to a lovely old hotel building that is now in use as another visitor’s center. It was a beautiful place and the food was very good, service outstanding. After lunch we meandered into the lobby, which was a vision in green marble and crystal chandeliers. You need only pause looking like a tourist (and you do unless you are wearing a modest dress or full business suit) and someone will appear immediately at your side to offer assistance. A kind man, a brother as they refer to themselves, appeared. Did we want our picture taken with the statue of Joseph Smith? I had not thought of this, but it seemed the right thing to do.

He took us everywhere in the building. To the top floor for more breathtaking views.

We saw a great many things, but it was unseemly to be snap pictures left and right, so you must take my word for it, we saw amazing things. One was a genealogy room that a long, sweeping entrance over-looking people working at banks of computers. It was rather like you imagine NASA, except of course, all these people were attired in the aforementioned way. Business casual will not be coming here, ever. We were taken to a computer where we met another brother, one whose area of expertise is leading the untutored through Ansestry.com, which is based, by the way, in Provo, Utah. We were smug, as we both possessed rather elaborate family trees. It was not long, however, before we were lost and required the assistance of the brother.

When we left that building, we were better educate and even more amazed. The rest of our day there was equally pleasant and we continued to find things to admire. I am impressed with Mormons!

Only 25 miles east of Salt Lake is Big Cottonwood Canyon Scenic Byway. It was a beautiful drive up into the ski area. There was still enough snow on the mountains to give you a bit of Swiss alpine feel. What a nice place to live!

Craters of the Moon National Monument, Idaho

Seriously, have you ever heard of this place? I have been around for a while and I never had. It sounded so intriguing … and with our recent experience on the very volcanic Big Island in Hawaii, I couldn’t wait. And it lived up to all my expectations. It was eerie and strange and beautiful all at once.

Craters of the Moon was formed between 15,000 and 2,000 years ago during eight major eruptive periods. I had ample chance to renew my love of lava. There are 618 square miles of it.

There are no active volcanos there now, of course, but the ground beneath still seethes. In 1983 there was a magnitude 6.9 earthquake during which Mount Borah rose one foot and Valley of the Lost dropped eight feet. Eruptions occur on average every 2,000 years and we are now overdue. The prediction is one cubic mile of lava will be erupted. I understand there are very good deals on real estate in the area.

In the meantime, however, this place is incredible and fairly lightly visited as parks go. I cannot recommend it enough. The landscape is so moon-like indeed, that our Apollo 14 astronauts trained there to prepare for moon landings.

Such a strangely beautiful place should have strangely beautiful trees and it does. The limber pine, pinus flexilis, is indeed a limber tree in that its branches can be tied in knots. It is happiest in harsh circumstances where it has less competition from other trees. It is small by comparison to other pines and slow growing, but it is a lovely tree. And it has a friend: dwarf mistletoe. Mistletoe is a parasite that once affixed to a tree, sends out a hormone that causes the tree to send an abundance of nutrients to it. This causes an explosion of tree growth at the site of the mistletoe that is sometimes called a witch’s broom. In fact, it does the tree little harm and creates some entertaining shapes, but in the 1960s biologists thought that dwarf mistletoe should be eliminated, so they destroyed 6,000 trees at Craters of the Moon. That’s right. They poisoned them and their gray skeletal forms still stand in mute testimony to the foolishness of man.

The thought occurred to someone in power that these two organisms had lived together for thousands of years. It’s working for them, so let’s stop the carnage and live in peace. Thank goodness. But what a shame that it took 6,000 trees.

The unusual plants that grow in these harsh conditions suffered no such interference and they were busy creating beauty in the cinders.

While we were there, the solar eclipse occurred and I cannot think of a more wonderful place to spend such an event. It is a small park (it is more correctly a monument rather than a park in “government speak”), but it has wonderful people. They put on a program for us and one of them bought at his own expense a viewing box for just such occasions. Several people at once can use it to watch solar events with complete safety.

Craters of the Moon, two thumbs up!!!

A post script from Bob (who indulges my love of lava with great patience)

“Indulging Kat” with Great Patience:

Kat, to the first Ranger she meets at Craters of the Moon – “Are there back roads we can take inside or outside the park that cross lava flows? We’re interested in every single detail – plant life, trees, types of lava, cinder cones, lava tubes, animal life.” … on and on and on and etc. So, over a week’s time and after several in-park, defined tours and hikes, numerous visits to ranger stations for questions and redirects, purchases of books, pamphlets, flyers, post cards and maps, iPhone Google look ups and off- highway-vehicle warnings posters, Kat says “can we drive out to the middle of BF Idaho and study lava – pretty please?” Of course, I know her, I love her, and I’m way ahead of her, having spent numerous early morning hours (while she sleeps) studying my $30, OHV map and Google Earth maps of south central Idaho back roads. So I say “Sure, we’ll be taking a 75 mile round trip excursion passing lakes, reservoirs, rivers, ranches, three lava flows, cinder cones, and we will end at a perfect destination point. She’s thrilled. So here’s a picture flow of Kat’s indulgence –