So if you haven't been to the Salt Lake City area, it's essentially made up of two things: Mormon stuff and extreme sports stuff. There's really not much else here. (I suppose there's some software companies....)
The drive into the Park City area on I80 is winding and has some serious ups and downs. And then to get to the Deer Valley resort (a pretty swank place above Park City), you have to go up a grade that ranges from 5% to 10%. My little car really had some problems pulling the trailer up to Deer Valley. It was revving at 5000 rpm for a few minutes and actually the engine temp started to rise. But the Little Engine that Could made it up the mountain.
It's good to have relatives. It's even better to have relatives that have nice townhouses at ski resorts. My esteemed Uncle lent my sister his townhouse for a week and we got the privilege of crashing there. Showers. Kitchens. Laundry. And, awesome surprise: two pinball machines in the playroom.
We got ourselves unwound from the drive from Cheyenne and immediately played a lot of pinball.
The next morning (July 15 - my dad's birthday), we took off, sans camper, for Salt Lake City and Temple Square.
Temple Square is to Mormons what the Vatican is to Catholics. And the similarities don't stop there. There's prophets, sisters, tours, choirs and all the good stuff you expect from religion. It's really a must-see. These Mormon folk have been very industrious here in Utah and it shows.
When you arrive at Temple Square, you go to one of the two visitor centers. There, a Sister (any female member of the church) will offer a tour or you can sitesee on your own. We opted for a tour, having learned that you see more and get more info in less time with a tour leader. There's a minor amount of prosletyzing, but it's 100% upfront and honest so can be ignored or enjoyed, depending on how you feel. All of the tour guides in Temple Square are attractive young women from all over the world on their "Missions" which means 18 months spent doing whatever the LDS (short for Church of Jesus Christ and the Latter Day Saints) wants.
Though I should caveat that the Sisters were clear that the decisions on where they serve their missions is not a decision by church leaders, but is a revelation given to church leaders. It's an important distinction which I have a hard time getting my mind around in 2014.
The museum is fascinating, especially some of the artifacts from the death of Joseph Smith. Imagine if all those relics from the cross where Jesus was crucified were known to be real... The Mormons actually have this stuff. Pretty amazing.
But the coup de grace of the Mormon Temple Square visit is the Genealogy library. I wish we had had more time to spend there. In just a matter of minutes, we pulled up cencus records with grandparents and great-grandparents. Some of this is online, but there's literally floors of more information that is only available on-site in the libraries many archives. The library staff are knowledgeable and there is (in our experience) zero proselytizing.
The reason that Mormons are so involved in genealogy is because they believe that family relationships (marriage, birth, etc.) not only survive after death, but precede us before we are born so that whole genealogy ting is just documentation of pre-existing divine relationships. Neato.
Once you've done the Mormon thing.
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