Utah Saints

Salt Lake City is known for a few things. It's Utah's state capital, it held the Winter Olympics in 2002, the nearby slat flats hold land speed record runs and it's the home of the Mormon church in the U.S.
The snow is coming down thick as we drop down a never ending hill towards the city. Apparently the temperature and the moisture content around here mean that the weather system produces quality snow powder. Coupled with the world class ski resorts around the city and it's easy to see why the Olympics was chosen to be staged here.
A dominant feature of the skyline is the Mormon church that took 40 years to build before the turn of the 20th Century. It's an impressive building and is housed in it's own square in which other buildings connected to the church surround. There's a lot of stigma about the Mormon religion, the Church of the Latter day Saints, and we take a free tour around the Temple Square to find out more.
To be honest Salt Lake City hasn't got much else going for it other than snow related activities, the downtown area is bland and empty even on a Saturday. This is mainly because everybody is strolling around the paved shopping street a few blocks down dressed in awful green garb, it's St. Patricks' Day. In England we use this day as an excuse to get hammered but here in Utah they use it to wear orange wigs and green shorts, I know which I prefer.
The tour around some of the Mormon buildings and temple square must have to rang as one of the most uncomfortable things I can remember for a long while.
We listen to some mildly interesting information about the setting up of Utah by the head of the Mormon church, Joseph Smith. Then we get to hear a load of tosh about how this Joseph Smith fella and another conman Brigham Young are god like and have received messages from god and blah blah. We then sat through some comic sermon from a Jesus voice from around a statue of the bearded dude.
Whilst we filled out comment cards about the tour the two guides, both young women as they always are, sang some god song of some sort. At one point I thought they were going to ask us to prey, I was about to swear loudly but it was all over. The nightmare hadn't ended yet as we went into the Genealogy building to find out some family info for Laura. The Mormons are keen on family history and the like and it soon occurs to me why. They have vast access to family history so that they can look back into the past to, wait for it, baptise their dead relatives to become part of the Mormon church. No wonder they say 14 million people are part of the religion, they never said they were alive or not!
The whole thing is entirely mental and ludicrous. The Mormons kept banging on about being moved on and persecuted for their beliefs, which is clearly more insanity on a part of the Christian nutters already living in America. The way I see it is that one bloke, that Smith and then Brigham Young, decided it would be a good idea to become idolised by a load of people and make some cash in the process. Smith then invents some balls about god coming to him and telling him the true teachings of the bible are not be followed how he intended. Then he sets out to set up a new town, unfortunately not many think this and they think it fit to throw him and his followers out of town. Smith dies, whilst also denouncing polygamy to his death. Brigham Young carries on to the West until they happen upon a flat land beneath the mountains that is some what desert like and unforgiving. They set up the city around a grand church, that is in fact an impressive build. They name the place Deseret. Off the wall Brigham Young now becomes first governor. This guy not only dressed up as the dead Joseph Smith to pretend he'd returned from the grave to declare Brigham the new leader but also that Brigham is now god. Obviously. This all went down well with the willing congregation who took it all in, if only they'd had Google to research this charlatan. The guy had a history of trying to make a quick buck and this was a serious way to get a load of it. So now with God Brigham at the helm he announced polygamy was the god given way. Talk about brash, this guy not only has a wealth of followers, excellent living and the run of the town he now wants to have as many wives as possible. I've always that that this was a fast way of gaining more followers to your religion, by having lots of kids.
The state of Utah was, and to an extent still is, run by the Mormon church. A law unto itself. They were supposedly t-total, alcohol was banned, but as Mark Twain found out they had made a substitute similar to whiskey. The self ruling nature of Utah has run them into trouble a few times. They'd made agreements with the local Indians giving them permission to attack travellers through the state for their goods. Hundreds of people were killed by the Indians aswell as the Mormons themselves. When they wanted to become a state and therefore be a part of the United States the government were not interested due to their legal polygamy stance. Knowing that being assimilated into the union would benefit the state Brigham Young suddenly decided he'd got a message from god saying that now it probably wasn't the best idea to have 60 wives.
The government declared the state to be called Utah, after the local Ute Indians, and not Deseret as the Mormons wanted. But still once Utah became a state it was pretty vicious toward non members, aswell as Brigham's outspoken attitude toward African Americans, calling them 'dumb brutes' among many things.
The government wanted Young out of the seat at the head of Utah and sent in military protection for a new governor. The Mormons fought against the troops for some time until Young finally stepped down as governor. As a side note he also travelled to England to convert more gullibles and many of them moved to America as a result. Preston is said to have the longest continuous strain of Mormon belief in the world. This is probably because at this time Salt Lake City hadn't been set up.
Still, strange things have been known to happen in Utah. One related by Mark Twain was of a friend of his with a telegraph pole contract. This was the introduction of cross country networks in which Mormons were enlisted to erect through Utah. The Mormons decided throw all the telegraph poles into the desert and off mountains and return to their daily business. Apparently this was because it pleased them to get a gentile, non-Mormon, to commit them to a contract in which they felt they had no duty to fulfil. At much distress and cost to Twain's friend. He decided to approach Brigham who then decided to order the Mormons back to work. And that they did. But it just goes to show how they revelled in a feeling of lawlessness toward the Federal government.
Now the church is the centre of Salt Lake City and it's disillusioned believers. It offers people from around the world to come and study here, which is why our tour guides were from Samoa and Kenya. A great way to get new followers is get into the poor areas and offer them a new life in America, must be hard to say no. I've seriously had enough of all this bollocks after half a day and I'm glad when we head out of the place. Utah is an amazing state naturally but the rest is complete guff so it was good to see the salt flats.
The flats are about 2 hours out of town along the humongous Salt Lake. It's a short turning off the freeway to drive up a dead-end road to where the fastest land speed records have taken place. The Bonneville flats are the official name and are prepared each year for summer high speed runs. It's a vast plain of hard salt but it feels incredibly mushy near the edge. Many tourist's cars seem to have got stuck here but I couldn't resist pulling a doughnut out on salt, obviously in an area I'd walked on first. It's hard to imagine the fast land craft in the world has reached upto 600mph here on the mile track. It's straight one way and then another run back and an average is taken of the two runs.
It's freezing here and the wind really does whip around this strange land. It also happens to be near the Nevada border, as the large Casino attests. What's the deal with the gambling fixation here?
We drive back along the wind exposed road surrounded by white flats running into the distance. That's enough nutty religious stuff for me, we get enough in America as it is, so we leave Utah for the state to the north that's 'famous potatoes' weren't famous to me at all.