Mountains, and temples, and mormons, oh my!

Wednesday was another big driving day. Since I had spent so much time at the farm and bird watching and spent so little time driving on Monday I had to make up for it on Tuesday and Wednesday. Unlike Tuesday, however, the terrain I was seeing as I left Cheyenne, WY quickly turned to mountains. I could see them out there looming in the distance knowing that I would be crossing them before the days end. As I entered the mountains I began to see snow on the ground on the sides of the highway. Ever since my last experience driving in the snow I have a strange reaction every time I see snow anywhere near a road. Its like when you eat something and it makes you sick. Then the next time you see that food you have an aversion to it and you get an awful feeling in the pit of your stomach. Well, that's how I feel toward snow. The good news is the roads remained clear the whole way so I was spared a repeat of my bad experience. In fact, the weather on my trip so far has been outstanding. There were some ominous clouds hanging around as I approached SLC yesterday, but nothing much came of them just some showers in the last 5 minutes of my drive.

The only real interesting thing from my drive was how incredibly windy it was. The wind gusts were really strong and were pushing my car around on the road pretty bad. There was a sign that read, "Strong winds possible next 5 miles." So I was thinking "Oh! 5 miles is nothing then the wind will calm down." But 5 miles later there was another sign saying the same thing, then another, and another and so on. Total it was at least 70 miles of windy conditions. The signs are just a little deceiving. :)

blurry, but it said "strong winds possible". Look at the windsock :)

 Even with the windy conditions the scenery was just breath-taking! It was fun trying to imagine how in the world the pioneers were able to cross this terrain. That took some serious determination!

Today I stayed in Salt Lake City all day. No driving at all. I have read some books on the history of the Mormon Church and I was interested to go to Temple Square and see how the Mormons themselves portray their history. Historical events can be communicated in different ways by different people based on their perspective and their objective. That is certainly the case with this religion. As I watched the multiple films they produced on the church history I noticed that they left out huge chunks of information that would be detrimental to their objective, converting non-believers. They portray the founding fathers of their faith, Joseph Smith and Brigham Young as loving husbands of only one wife, and as completely innocent men who did not deserve any of the persecution they endured by these raving mad heathens who were too closed minded to accept that Joseph had been visited by Jesus and given the authority to translate new scriptures. The fact of the matter, was some of the persecution was directly due to the fact that the concept of plural marriage was being taught in their churches as the will of God. When the videos and tours never even mentioned the idea of plural marriage I was a little taken aback. How could they just leave out such a large part of their history? Especially since, when I asked about it they said that, although the church does not condone the act of plural marriage anymore, it was the right thing to do at the beginning of the church to build up a large "faithful generation." If it was the right thing to do in that time, why be so ashamed of it now?
Nonetheless, the day spent at Temple Square was interesting and I got to share some of what I believe with the young girls who were on their "mission" (they were the tour guides for all the sites), and they tried their best to convert me. (Wasn't happening.)

never seen this scene portrayed on stained glass before...

By far, the most interesting thing in the museum... an odometer for a wagon! Impressive!

Two other cool things then I will stop blabbing on...
1) I got to see the Mormon Tabernacle Choir rehearse. Every Thursday they have a rehearsal that is open to the public. They are really great! However, they did not get through a whole song without the conductor stopping them and correcting something. On the one hand this made it hard to really appreciate the song, but, on the other hand, it was super cool to hear the instructions being given and how precise each note and word has to be in order for them to sound as amazing as they do.

2) One teaching of the Mormon church that I do completely agree with is the importance of family.  The Mormon Church has a family history library where you can go and do some research on your ancestry. So I spent a few hours looking up as much as I could on my relatives.
Grandy, I found out that your dad worked at the Chicago Police department and your mom was only 18 when they got married in 1923.
Grandad, your parent married around 1930 and your mom worked at a jewelry store at the time.
Probably not astounding revelations to you, but it was cool digging up these little hidden treasures.
Tomorrow, is another long driving day. Hopefully, the weather will continue to hold up.