The Great Utah Road Trip July 3rd - 8th, Part 2: Freaks and Geeks in Salt Lake City

Well, in those days Mars was just a dreary uninhabitable wasteland, much like Utah...but unlike Utah, it was eventually made liveable. - Professor Farnsworth, Futurama.

I've decided this entry is going to be mostly comprised of lists, because I could rant about Utah until the cows come home and if I don't restrict myself somehow, it's going to expand to the point of literary explosion. My old university essays will start to feel threatened and we certainly can't have that, they're inferior enough as it is.

Pretty much every SLC local, every American, every living creature has asked me the following question at the very mention of our little road trip: why did I stay in Salt Lake City, hell, why travel to Utah at all? Salt Lake City was an experiment to see if I could survive the whole 'going it alone' approach to travel the way I had planned. Start off with the very worst (she wrote, with trepidation...) and by doing so, become accustomed to the joys of unlimited freedom and the potential pitfalls of loneliness, getting hopelessly lost and, most of all, my own incredible stupidity which tends to rear its ugly head whenever I'm thurst into the infamiliar. I'm pleased to say that the experiment succeeded (meaning I'm still alive and writing this entry in Portland).

I'm less pleased to say that Utah was pretty much exactly what I expected: Red State Hell. Lots of chains, lots of dodgy people, too much heat and too little sense. I will say a few things in Utah's defense (before I start working for the prosecution) - the people who aren't dodgy are quite friendly. People will often greet you in the street which was a shock to the system after coming here from Sydney. There were some random surprises: as I was wandering around one afternoon, I turned a corner and found a concert/festival that wasn't full of tabernacle music. Also the Life After Death exhibit at the Salt Lake Art Center was pretty good (loved the works of Neo Rauch), unfortunately it was the only exhibit.

The following places I have listed are not in any particular order of importance. I thought I should mention that before the 'WTF, you're listing a Catholic Church first?' comments begin.

Top 5 Favourite Places In Salt Lake City/Utah (I did have some, you know).

1. The Cathedral of the Madeleine 331 E. South Temple, Salt Lake City

Yeah I know, I know...I went to the Mormon heartland and was nearly converted to Catholicism. It doesn't matter which creed you follow, if you're in Salt Lake and you're dying from heat exhaustion, or just need to escape...go to church. I'm not religious at all, thanks to three and a half years of studying the subject at university, yet I found this to be the most peaceful and beautiful place in Salt Lake City. It is deliciously cool inside the Cathedral and there are murals covering the walls and ceiling, the likes of which kick the ass of some of the more famous cathedrals in Europe. After a few moments of sitting in the pews, taking in the violent splendour of the Stations of the Cross, I found myself in the chapel, lighting a candle. As soon as I did, this cool breeze floated through the room. Again, let me specify that I am not religious, but I was v. grateful for that coincidental occurrence.

2. The British Pantry, 652 SW Temple, Salt Lake City

Say hello to the lovely ladies at The Pantry if you're in the area. If you're not in the area, make time for tea and scones and go here. The British Pantry was my favourite spot for brunch in SLC because it was ridiculously cheap ($4 for a huge pot of Scottish Breakfast tea and two scones with fresh chantilly cream and jam, what a steal), and the staff were just gorgeous. I spent half an hour talking to them because they refused to let me drag my bag around in the oppressive midday heat.

3. Hogle Zoo, 2600 East Sunnyside Avenue, Salt Lake City
Yeah, I'm a sucker for cute, caged animals. Go check out the zoo's adorable Sand Cat and the Arabian Wildcat who, despite its name, looks like it belongs in a Victorian manor, with a pink bow around its neck. The black bears were fun to watch...the more sedentary of the two was quite happy to lie around in the baking hot sun (I'm going to guess it was a she, since she reminded me of myself) but the other bear would spend half its time pacing around the enclosure and the other half walking over to the lazy bear and butting its head against her back, trying to stir her into action only to receive a bite on the snout in return. Hogle is also home to three of my favourite animal species: the African elephant. Dari the megalomaniacal matriarch, Misha the clever subordinate who stores food in her tusks so she can get her share of the spoils and Christie, the baby (relatively speaking, she's only a year younger than me). The only problem I had with Hogle is that the most rambunctious animals are not the spider monkeys, nor are they the showoff giraffes. It's the children. Howling, screaming, crying kids. Everywhere. Christ.

4. Esther's Cafe, 30 East 300 South, Salt Lake City

On my last day alone in Salt Lake City, I was making a fast getaway from a creepy Salt Lake Stalker on a bicycle and I needed somewhere to disappear into. Quickly. It was also around dinner time, so I bolted into the first place that looked open, hoping to kill a couple of birds with one stone. That place was Esther's. What a stroke of luck. It's a cheap looking joint made for take away and initially I didn't have much confidence in the food. Before I could turn on my heel and make for the exit, I found out they had homemade clam chowder as the soup du jour. Something I'd never had before and was aching to try. So, I decided to take a chance on the little diner that could. Add a bit of green tabasco and the result is exquisite. Either that, or I was really hungry. Friday is clam chowder day at Esther's, so do yourself a favour and have the friendly people behind the counter look after you for an hour or two. There are free refills (well, there would be if the one serving wasn't so filling) and it's cheap and cheerful.

5. The Bonneville Salt Flats.

They filmed part of Pirates 3 here (think of the bit where Jack is in Davy Jones' Locker, talking to a few hundred replicants of himself) and once you step out onto the texturally incorrect salt surface, you can see why. The landscape is eerie, all white and blinding when the sun is out and all you can see is this huge expanse of nothingness. Much like, you know, the rest of Utah. Take the I-80 on the way to Nevada and you'll be driving right next to it. Bring those sunglasses.

Top 5 Worst Things About Salt Lake/Utah.

1. Salt Lake Stalkers

By the time the others had come back from camping, I was at the end of my tether. I'd come to Utah with certain expectations about the place, the main expectation being that it's full of Mormons who are a pretty harmless, if stupid, bunch of people. That expectation turned out to be correct, however, I'd failed to prepare myself for the rest of the population who are not Mormon and although they're harmless, they're irritating in the extreme. Dodgy men infest Salt Lake City at every time of the day and night (I refused to go outside my hostel after 9pm for this reason) and if you're a young woman on your own, they will target you. It doesn't matter if you refuse to acknowledge their presence (believe me, I tried), they've got bicycles and they will circle you. And follow you. And ask ridiculous questions, especially if you have an accent. The problem is, if you throw a rock in the spokes and they fall off their bike and get hit by a car...then you look like the bad guy. So instead I had to grin and bear it and try to lose them as quickly as possible. This is difficult, because Salt Lake City isn't exactly the liveliest of towns and the streets are close to empty, even in peak hour.

2. Mormons

Only ye with enough faith to tithe 10% of your total income may enter here.

Except for their taste in architecture, it's a well-known fact that I hate Mormons. The history of the Mormon religion is an adventure into the ridiculous, the two leaders and their merry band of idiots were so disliked amongst the general populace of wherever they went that they had to go all the way to a barely inhabitable place like Utah in order to set up shop, they wear ridiculous underthings and they wake people up on Saturday mornings in an attempt to spread the stupid around. Plus, who willingly goes to church for three hours?

It's also a fact that I am not a particularly tolerant person and that one of my favourite things to do when I am approached by a person I recognise to be an idiot is to question them relentlessly and to make them as uncomfortable as possible. Wandering around Temple Square was a difficult experience for me, mainly because I wasn't able to wipe the smirk off my face the entire time. Temple Square is the main tourist attraction in Utah and the main objective of the thousands of missionaries there is convert you, so it's very difficult to just wander aimlessly around the place, people want to take you on tours or if you're not on a tour and you're on your own for too long, they come over for a chat before the independent thoughts have a chance to begin. The hilarious thing about the missionaries in Temple Square is that they make sure to have the rookies come over to you, so they can harp on about all that 'loving one's family' crap and they can avoid talking about, for example, how the Book Of Mormon sets up a huge case for racial genocide. I was firing question after question at this one girl about the simplest things and she was turning a nice shade of lobster red in the face from the exertion caused by thinking. I know, I'm a needlessly cruel little wench and possibly a bride of Satan. But they're idiots.

3. The Weather

Utah is hotter than Hades. Hot and dry, which is better than hot and humid but a damn sight more expensive, thanks to all the bottles of water one has to buy. Potential travellers to the area (snort) beware - it is impossible to walk a few metres in the heat of a Salt Lake summer without a 'sip' (re: massive, gulping chug) of water. There's little change between night and day, if you don't count the light and the best time to go running around is in the early morning, before the sun has had its first few fags and isn't yet hot enough fry you to a crisp. The only brief period where the heat wasn't as intense was during a sudden wind/dust storm which descended upon me after I'd been walking around for four hours straight trying to find something interesting to look at (the Sugar House District is not urban, nor is it hip...it's suburbia. The SLC guide book tells filthy lies!) and it was exactly what I didn't need. You will be sunburnt, so take sunscreen and even if you have the complexion of a 'fair English rose' like myself, you will probably get something of a tan (Praise be to the Christ and the Prophets! It's a miracle!!). Also, if you don't own a pair of sunglasses and you go to Utah, then you're a bloody idiot. Get the hell off my blog.

4. Hostel Patrons

I really liked my hostel. The Camelot is in a really inconvenient location (quite a ways out of the main centre, in a particularly dodgy district) but the rooms are deliciously cool, even during the day and they're decently furnished, clean and comfortable. I scored a private room (hallelujah!) and I wasn't bothered by anyone barging in at some ungodly hour of the morning (re: 11 a.m) trying to tidy it. There was one problem though: the other people staying there were freaks. There was one guy who, every night from 9 to 11 without fail, would be watching a Star Wars film. The Hayden Christensen films. Ughhhhh. I'm not a huge fan of Star Wars, mainly because geeks tend to make oh-so-hilarious jokes after they find out my last name ("Why, no, I'm not related to Luke Skywalker...") and I hate how George Lucas temporarily destroyed Natalie Portman's stellar acting talent (Christensen never had any talent to begin with). There was another asshole who, when I was blundering around trying to work out the crazy check-in system, was doing his best to be as unhelpful as possible when I inquired about the workings of the hostel. I never had direct contact with anyone else but for a while I'm pretty sure I was the only woman, the rest being an assortment of older, morbidly obese guys with severe cases of plumber's crack. Gross. And the Camelot claims to attract a 'more discerning clientele'...

5. Billboard Moralising

This wasn't limited to Utah. It's everywhere, even in Washington. Billboards in America can be hilarious at times. Check this one out. Other interesting signs along the way included an ad which listed how much bacteria is exchanged during a kiss (at the bottom it revealed itself to be a Toyota ad, wtf) and a church sign - 'Don't be too open-minded or your brain might fall out.' Hmm. Start talking before they start thinking...

My main qualm with SLC was the fact that there was bugger all to do there...I was there for a mere three days and was struggling to find something to divert my attention by the third day and I'm fairly easily amused. I ended up having to go to the mall. It could've been worse though. Imagine if my hostel didn't have free wi-fi?! Or worse still, what if I'd been wandering around the desert in the heat and dust and the burnination, like my friends?

Discography.

A whole bunch of songs will be forever connected to the Salt Lake City/Utah in my mind. You want to know what I was listening to on the way? Download the following:

Journey - Don't Stop Believing

Oh my god, Steve Perry. If I ever meet you in person, you will be thrown into the Pit of Doom. Kosta and Jon's endless repetitions of this song (I missed a whole chunk of renditions, thankfully) meant that Journey have now become something of a personal joke between the Red State Road Trippin' Seven.

Viva Voce - Get Your Blood Sucked Out
Sufjan Stevens - In The Devil's Territory
Elvis Presley - Hound Dog
Patrick Wolf - The Magic Position
The Arcade Fire (Mormon music!) - Keep The Car Running