One Life, For His Glory, By His Grace.: Salt Lake City

I like it when the hotel provides free internet and the computers as well.

An Apple and little mantou for breakfast?

First stop of the day was to the State Capital of Utah.

In 1912, the State Capital was built here. Previously the State Capital is about one and half hour further downsouth nearer to Fairfield. The Utah State has 2.4-2.5million people and the city here has about 240,000 people.

At 440 feet wide, 289 feet tall, 240 feet depth, the state building is made of a lot of marble transported from the East (even the toilet is made of marble).

For about 4-5 yrs, the building was closed to build isolators to cater for earthquake. In all, the state building cost USD27.5 million to build, and then USD60 million, in today’s terms it cost nearly 1 billion US to build! No casino in Vegas had cost this much to build.

Utah is also nicknamed the Beehive State. The beehive became the official state emblem on March 4, 1959. Utahans relate the beehive symbol to industry and the pioneer virtues of thrift and perseverance. The beehive was maintained on the seal of the State of Utah when Utah became a state in 1896.

Capital is built on top of a hill so as to oversee the city.

I took this photo of the 2 tour buses waiting for us. It's special to me because Lassen Tours on the left is the agency which brought me around California in 2007, popping over to Vegas, while America Asia is the agency which is bringing to these 8 states in Western US this time.

Next stop of the day was to the original and first Mormom church in the world.

The city state has both church and temple. We can enter the church, but not the temple. We can take photos, but not videos.

Utah was set up by the Mormons. Here is their story which I'm going to insert in between the photos as we walk around the Mormon church.

Joseph Smith was confused by the many religions, so he prayed and prayed that God will reveal the truth to him. One day, God revealed to Joseph and got him to go to the forest where an angel will guide him. So Joseph went to the forest and saw an angel who pointed him to a box of gold leaves. Joseph saw there were words/inscription on the leaves.

After some research, he found the language (apparently in Hebrew) and translated the words/inscriptions on the leaves and form a book out of it. The book is about a lot of prophets after the time of Jesus Christ. For we know that the bible revealed no more prophets after Jesus.

The prophet mentioned most often in the book is called Mormon. Thus Joseph Smith named the book Mormon.

Thereafter, Joseph began “evangelizing” about his beliefs. Initially people laughed at his "nonsence", but soon he had more and more followers. Eventually the government became wary of him and put in him jail. However, that became an advantage for Joseph as people then knew where to find him and went to the prison to ask him questions and seek his opinions.

Joseph Smith called himself a prophet after he became President of Mormon. Some say he had difficulty spreading the book. So what he did (as commanded by his god) was to have many wives and many children. Polygamy was considered weird and cultish to the Americans. Eventually Joseph was murdered with a short in the back.

After Joseph’s death, Beckham Young came forward and took 1600+ people from the east of United States to the west of United States. Beckham knew that there’s a Pacific Ocean on the west and wanted to relocate the Mormons there. He knew that it will be a challenge with the Native Indians, locals, army and animals. So he divided the 1600 odd people into smaller grous of 5, 10 and 20 people. In 1847, the Mormons touched ground at Salt Lake City. Beckham Young tasted the water from the Salt Lake and noted that it is salty. Thinking that they have reached the Pacific Ocean he said “This is the place”.

With that, Utah slowly became developed by the Mormons. Here is where the first
Mormon Temple and Church started. Here’s where the contribution of 10% of one’s earnings began. But the people were so united, they gave even more, thus the Mormons became the richest church in the world. If you don’t know, the British Airways is run by the Mormons.

Because of the religion, Utah is known to be a clean and pure state, literally boring with no smoking, alcohol, no drinks with caffeine (eg coffee, tea or coke), no prostitution, no gambling.

Leaving the church of Mormons, we headed for Salt Lake, which I found to be very similar to the famous Dead Sea which we all know.

After a short visit at the salt lake, we visited the Copper Canyon which was just behind the lake.

The salt lake tells one of the stories of the Mormons settling down in Utah

When the Mormons began to grow crops, they were unfortunately plagued by insects which kept destroying the crops. This led Beckham Young to pray to God for help. Shortly after, it was believed that God sent a flock of seagulls to the rescue. The seagulls did not eat the insects – they merely peck on the insects and brought them away. Back and forth, back and forth, slowly but surely, eventually all the insects were brought away. As a result, the seagulls are considered ‘special’ animals to the Mormons. (there is a seagull statue at the mormon temple, and a painting at the state office)

The seagulls in Salt Lake City are the most pitiful though. They also thought that the Salt Lake is the Pacific Ocean. The Salt Lake is 75miles long , 47miles wide and 33 feet deep. It is so huge you would have thought it’s the sea if you were there years ago too. But it is a dead lake. Water enters the lake from the mountains but has no outlet and the evaporation is faster than the inflow of the water. As a result, the Salt Lake gets saltier (it’s so salty, you can float in it just like the dead sea). The saltiness ratio of Salt Lake to the Sea is 6:1. No fish lives in it except the red coloured brine shrimp lives in the sea. These brine shrimps will come to the shore to lay eggs, and die after laying the eggs. The insects eat the dead brine shrimps and the seagulls can only live on insects and remain very skinny. (Compared to the seagulls in san Francisco, remember bay area pier39? Those are fat!)

This Copper Mine is supposedly one of the world's largest copper mine.

Give it another 10 more years, this man made canyon will be deeper than the natural Grand Canyon.

Can't visualise how huge the whole place is? Compare the ridges in the overview picture about with the vehicles on one of the plateau of the ridges below.

Compare the wheels of the vehicles in the picture above with me in the picture below.

This is the world's largest wheel, and that's how large the entire man made canyon is!

Apart from copper, there are other precious metals too. I'm holding a nugget of gold in my hands.

But I figured out that if I don't know how to recognise and process the gold in my hands, the precious metal is also worthless in my eyes and hands.

Touring the copper mine museum.

Leaving Utah for Vegas, I munched on the little snack pack which was given free at one of the lodges at YellowStone.

Reading a free newspaper, I was amused by the comic by Family Circus.

It is an innocent child's question, but as for me, I have enjoyed every bit of scenary I take in the US!

Trip break time! Let's take a look inside the market!

When strawberrys are as cheap as S$2 for a rather big punnet!

And clothes and bags aren't expensive too! (Too bad I was backpacking, else I would have gotten some stuff back!)

Krispy Kreme...hmmm.. should I have another try at this renown famous donut?

Enjoying the lovely green meadow in the bright sunny day with beautiful hills in the background with a tinge of snow. I love US!

Filmore was Utah's first capital.

Taking some energy bars to recharge.

I'm determined to finish my energy bars instead of bringing them back to Singapore again. =P

Another trip break.

Enjoying the scenary.

Before we enter back into the desert again..

Sunset..

Volcano erupts as we head towards the pirates ..

Will I get to watch Treasure Island?

I've been to Vegas twice in 4 years, hanged around for almost 8 nights in total but I have yet to watch this most talked about free show. I'm here early today, found a good spot. Will I get to see it?