Road Trip - Day 11 - Nephi to Ogden
7 a.m. 36 degrees. Cold
Although the hotel has a complimentary breakfast, we have decided to drive to Park City to eat. It is very cold outside and there is more snow up on the mountains.
Our journey continues north on I15. Just south of Provo the traffic slows down. Of course it is Tuesday and it’s rush hour. We take Highway 189 through Provo. Brigham Young University is here. We are on the lookout for a coffee shop spot nothing at all. Imagine a town this size in California without a Starbucks on nearly every corner.
North of Provo we start to climb and drive through Provo Canyon. They are building a new road here but although we slowed down a bit we were not held up. There was a waterfall coming down the side of the mountain and it looked so pretty with the trees changing color. It was the first day of Fall yesterday.
Nearing Heber City we pass a hot air balloon. Although the sun is shining here, the temperature is just above freezing. I bet they are cold up there.
We pull into Park City Historic Center at 9 a.m. Now to look for breakfast.
Well that was disappointing. There are a lot of shops on Main Street but only one that served anything resembling breakfast. There were a lot of art galleries and collectible shops and some small boutique clothes shops plus lots of restaurants and bars but none of those were open. We had breakfast at The Main Street Deli but it was nothing to write home about and certainly not worth an entry in my breakfast blog. The only thing worth mentioning was the fact that my oatmeal was served in a polystyrene cup!
Behind the town the ski runs can be seen on the side of the mountain. At the moment there is just a light dusting of snow on the runs. Park City was one of the venues for the 2002 Winter Olympics.
We drove to Salt Lake City, which was just 30 miles away. This is the state capital of Utah and also home of the Mormon Church. We parked in Temple Square and visited the temple.
It covers 35 acres and there are many buildings on it. The main building is the temple itself. There is also the Tabernacle, two large visitors centers, a church, a huge conference center plus several other buildings. Everywhere you are greeted by young women, modestly dressed with long skirts and flat shoes and carrying the Book of Mormon. They are all called “sister” and are Mormon missionaries.
Every 15 minutes there is a guided tour of the site so we joined one of them. Our hosts were two very earnest young women who explained not only about the building of the temple and the tabernacle but also informed us of their beliefs. The last stop was the Northern Visitors Center, where we sat in front of a huge statue of Jesus Christ. At the end, our two guides sang the verse of a hymn and handed out cards which they wanted us to fill out.
Well, it was quite an experience but it did not persuade me to become a Mormon.
From the temple, we walked to the Gateway shopping mall. One of the entrances is through the old Union Pacific railway station. We couldn’t stay long as the car was parked at a parking meter.
From the city we drove north to Ogden. Tom used t0 live here in the 1970’s and he saw a lot of changes. There used to be countryside between Salt Lake City and Ogden but not any more. Also you used to be able to see the Great Salt Lake from the highway but I saw no sign of it. We found one of his old homes. The neighborhood had not changed much except the trees have grown.
We checked into the Best Western in Ogden. I am getting a little tired of living out of a suitcase.
October 05 2007 09:48 am | Further Afield
