The Decompression of a Boomer

It’s Friday, September 12, 2014, our last day in southern Utah. In the nature of true tourists we decide to do a walking tour of the historic district in the center of St. George, starting with a guided tour of Brigham Young’s winter residence (his primary residence was in Salt Lake City). Brigham Young was the second President of the LDS church. He led followers from Missouri west to the Salt Lake Valley after Joseph Smith (the founder) was arrested and killed by an armed mob. Brigham Young was the most famous polygamist of the early LDS Church. As you can see, his winter home was modest in size

with a bedroom for him, a bedroom for his ‘wife’, and another bedroom for his ‘cook’ (one had to wonder where any or some of his additional 54 wives would have stayed??). By the time of his death on August 29, 1877, at the age of 76, Young had 57 children by 16 of his wives – 19 of his wives had predeceased him, he was divorced from 10, and 23 survived him. (Check out this link to learn more about Brigham Young.) Our tour guide explained that Brigham Young oversaw the building of the LDS Temple in St. George, which was barely completed before his death in 1877. (It was the first temple built in Utah.) Brigham Young had expressed his disappointment over the size of the original spire – it was too small in relation to the size of the temple. A few years after his death, as the story goes, lightening struck the spire down and they rebuilt it to the current size it is today.

We continued our walking tour to the town square, past several interesting bronze sculptures. Megan gives this very bronze young girl

a ‘high-five.’

“Hey – Look!!” (I do a double-take…)

“It’s my long-lost brother!”

We eat lunch at the Painted Pony, a charming restaurant in Ancestor Square. Verses, such as this one, are carved into the tabletops:

When the going gets tough, the smart get lost. Yeah. (Sigh)

Well, that’s about it with the tour. The daytime temperatures soared into the upper 90’s. We were done with our walking tour.

Saturday morning – September 13 – we hit the road at 9am for the 513-mile drive back to Idaho Falls. Boy, are we anxious to be home. David takes Red Rock Road through St. George – it runs along a high red bluff that overlooks the city. I snap a couple of photos.

The Temple stands square in the middle of the city.

(Geez. Why didn’t we think to ride up in a hot air balloon?) Soon the city disappears behind us.

Heading north on I-15 now. Speed limit – 80 – (how fast can you get away with?) David sets the cruise control at 82.

We sail past the exits to Hurricane, Toquerville, New Harmony, Kanarraville, Beaver… (How did they come up with these names?)

Through Payson:

… home of a very large Temple.

“Ben!! Are you there?”

Past American Fork:

The traffic is solid now – four lanes all barrelling along in tandem at 82 mph. It’s about impossible to capture a picture of Salt Lake City as we sail past, hardly slowing our pace, but I give it a whirl.

That’s the best you can do? You ask.

Yep. If you look carefully you can see the Capitol building (toward the left in the picture) and the spires of the Salt Lake Temple poking up (next to those twin towers).

We’re zooming along – north of Salt Lake now, there – you see the Layton Temple coming into view!

Uh, never mind…

Brigham City!

“No, Jody. Stop it.” I know – it just strikes me funny. My eyes are on the lookout for temples now and they sure are finding them. ( NOT! ) Recalibrating…

We see the exit to Plymouth – then spot the whole town off to the right – nestled at the base of that mountain:

Then a neighboring community off to the left – the town of Portage:

“Hey Megan, you wanna live in that house?”:

“NO, MOM.”

We sail across the border into Idaho now.

Hey, so the sign is blurry – Whatdoyaexpect? It’s flying at me at …

Yep – 80+ in Idaho too. (Can anyone really keep it at 80?)

At 2:20 – after being glued to our seats for four hours and twenty minutes, we make a 12-minute pit stop. You can pull this off in Malad, Idaho, where there’s gas, bathrooms and Burger King all in one building. David gasses the car up, while Megan and I jet to the ladies’ room. Then Megan and I order food, while David uses the restroom: “Double burger, ketchup only, and 2 whoppers, hold the pickles.” I further explained to the young introverted employee behind the register: “Megan likes her hamburgers with only ketchup, we want the 2 Whoppers with everything but pickles. Got that?”

“Yep.”

David joins us as we grab the bag of burgers, jet back to the car, fasten ourselves in – he’s pulling out again while I get out the burgers – I hand Megan her burger in the back seat. Then I pull out ours. Geez they feel awfully thin…

I unwrap David’s burger:

“What??”

“What did you order?” He inquires from behind the wheel, as we swirl back toward the freeway.

“I said, hold the pickles!” I holler back.

“TAKE OFF THE PICKLES!”

“Okay, honey.” Now I have extra pickles for my whopper, making it hands down the ugliest whopper you could ever encounter:

“I’m not eating this.” I shove the thing in the trash bag at my feet. And sulk in silence as David reluctantly knaws on his dry bun and meat patty to suppress the growls in his stomach.

A few minutes pass and I turn to David with a revelation:

“Maybe God is punishing me for being such a heathen.”

“No. God is saving you from eating Burger King.”

(What do you think?)

We’re passing through Pocatello now:

(Beats me.)

Pulled into our garage in Idaho Falls at 4:00 PM. We covered the 513 miles in 7 hours, for an average of 74 mph – you know, because of that 12-minute pit stop.

Tags: St. George, Utah - Brigham Young's winter home

This entry was posted on September 20, 2014 at 6:22 pm and is filed under travel, Utah. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.