Paul's Down-Home Page

Today was a fascinating day. First thing, we got up and walked over to the LDS Conference Center, a 21,000 seat auditorium used for church events. They offer a 30-minute guided tour. I expected it to be mildly interesting, but it was actually really cool. The main floor of the conference center is actually 96′ below ground level, with an array of nine skylights that bring outside light underground. The king truss weighs 621 tons– you can see from these pictures that there are no internal pillars or supports in the conference area; the mezzanine and balcony levels are cantilevered. The workmanship of the lectern, flooring, and everything else is breathtaking. (In fact, the rostrum is large enough to hold the entire Tabernacle… with a 2′ boundary left over!) There’s a lot of gorgeous artwork, including the originals of Arnold Friburg‘s 12 Book of Mormon paintings and a stunning sculpture by some guy whose name I have unfortunately forgotten. The roof garden is pretty stunning, too; it looks much like a natural mountain meadow, and the outside of the building is terraced to reinforce that impression. I got some good across-the-street shots of the temple, too.

After we left the conference center, we walked over to the Church Administration Building; our tour guide mentioned that the admin building had an observation deck on the 26th floor. They sure did, as you can see from the below shots of the Utah Statehouse (north of the building) and the temple (east of it).

The Utah state capital and the SLC temple, from 26 stories up

Our next stop was actually the surprise hit: the Church Art and History Museum. I’m not much on art museums, so I figured that this one would be a quick in-and-out. However, I hadn’t counted on the variety of pioneer artifacts they had– all kinds of great stuff, including tools and dies used to make the original Utah Territory currency, tools from the Salt Lake City temple construction, and lots of details of the original economic and territorial missions that the church sent out to help populate the intermountain West. That was cool enough, but what really blew me away was the collection of submissions to the 6th international LDS art competition (note that the link should take you to a Flash presentation of the artwork itself). Some of the sculptures and paintings were ugly not to my liking, but others, like the quilt “Let Us Oft Speak Kind Words”, the photo “Two Prophets Saluting Each Other” (where the photographer caught a picture of President Hinckley’s plane dipping a wing in salute while flying over a wagon train recreation commemorating the 150th anniversary of the pioneer migration), and Don Christensen’s painting “Called To Serve” were just outstanding. A couple of the works were so beautiful that they moved me to tears, and that’s not exactly my usual M.O. Who would have guessed that an art museum would be one of my favorite parts of this trip?

On our way to lunch, we finally got good pictures taken at the pedestal.

Paul & Arlene @ the temple

After lunch, we drove to find a scrapbooking store, but not until after we’d visited the This Is the Place Monument. I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect, but I learned quite a bit from the monument and its surrounding information. For example, Provo was named for Etienne Provot, a French fur trapper and explorer who was the first white man to explore the Salt Lake valley. A trio of Catholic friars were the first to map out the route from Santa Fe northward into the Utah territory. And so on, all of it mostly useless but nonetheless interesting.

This is the place, all right

We had dinner (mostly dessert) at Passages again and watched the new episode of MI5 (Verdict: it’s no 24, but it’ll do). Arlene’s watching Aliens while I write this, then it’s time to pack. Tomorrow, back to the real world. Oh yeah– it was 105 degrees today. Mmm, mmm, good.

Today was a great day. We got up, had breakfast in the hotel (where they incessantly play bad ’70s mush-pop, like Bread; I wish they’d quit), and headed over to the Tabernacle for the 3,860th broadcast of Music & the Spoken Word. The choir was delightful; as good as they sound on the BYU satellite channel, they sound ten times better in person. The volume and clarity of their singing is just amazing. You miss a lot of the fine notes of that magnificent pipe organ, too, particularly the vibrato at the end of each passage. This was probably the high point of my trip so far.

The Tabernacle Choir in their natural habitat

After that, we went to have our picture taken at the pedestal that overlooks the Temple. Unfortunately, our two pictures both came out poorly; Arlene was sticking out her tongue in one (ostensibly to moisten her lips) and had her eyes closed in the other. We’ll try again tomorrow. (We also took this picture, just for David– it was his special request.) Of course, at the time we didn’t know anything was amiss, so we headed over to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building for the Salt Lake 18th Ward sacrament service. It was quite nice, although oddly there were only two talks. One of them was really moving; it was given by a man who had only recently joined the church, and who had had a fairly rough road of life until that point. He was very sincere in his appreciation for God and the blessings that he’s received. THe other talk was given by a newly returned missionary; she served in the Oregon Portland deaf mission, so she closed by giving her testimony in American Sign Language. It looked to me like she was signaling the pitcher, but Arlene speaks a little Ameslan, so she understood some of it.

After church, we walked back to the hotel, changed clothes, and set out for the Rodizio Grill, another Karen recommendation. Rodizio’s is a kind of churrascaria, which is basically a Brazilian cross between a tapas bar and dim sum. You sit down, and the servers bring skewers of various foods– steak, chicken, some outstanding Brazilian pork sausage, and so on. You ask for what you want, and they serve golf-ball-sized portions, so you can get some variety. The food was terrific. My favorite, surprisingly, was grilled pineapple– it was a little crispy on the outside and still warm, but very, very juicy.

After lunch, we decided to drive to Park City, without benefit of maps. We ended up headed north on I-15, toward Layten. That was OK; we drove for a while just looking at the mountains. We turned around right outside the main gate of Hill AFB. On the way back, Arlene pointed out a sign for Antelope Island, which is actually in the Great Salt Lake. On a whim, we decided to visit. We drove along a causeway over some (bad-smelling) salt flats before we entered the park proper, then we drove around looking for some of the 600 buffalo that live there. No joy, unfortunately. We did climb up Buffalo Point. At first, I wasn’t going to, but then I asked myself: what would Chris Larsen do? So, we climbed it.

Arlene taking a break enroute

On top of Old Smokey…

Buffalo Point is just over 5000′ above sea level, but only a bit over 500′ above the trailhead, so it’s not like climbing K2 or anything. Still, it was my first significant climb. Yay! We drove back to the hotel (marveling how many ugly refineries and other industrial sites are just to the west of I-15) and came up to the room to rest.

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First off: some pictures from Friday, here, here, and here.
We woke up early yesterday, had a delicious breakfast, and headed over to the Temple for an endowment session. It’s no exaggeration to say that I have never had a more spiritual experience– the beauty of the Temple’s interior, and the calm spirit that pervades it, really made this special. (ANother thing unique to this temple is that some of the endowment ceremonies are conducted with live actors– we had a guy with a lovely, but mild, Scottish brogue filling one part, and he was a treat to listen to.)
After our temple session, we walked over to the Joseph Smith Memorial Building, formerly the Hotel Utah, to see a film. The Testaments of One Fold and One Shepherd gets its name from the New Testament (John 10:16):

And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.

The whole point of the Book of Mormon is that it’s a record of Christ’s ministry in the Americas– hence the title (and content) of Testaments. It was a fascinating, and very moving, film– even I got a bit teary-eyed at the end (but I won’t spoil the surprise). Arlene’s friend Anita recommended it, and she was right.
Unfortunately, her lunch recommendation didn’t go so well– she suggested we go to The Roof for lunch, except that it’s only open for dinner. Instead, we went to the cafeteria-style Lion House Pantry, where I had some decent tilapia and some superb bread. (Personal to John: it’s rated in Zagat’s but since I’m too cheap to subscribe, I don’t know the verdict.)
After a bit more walking around, we decided that it was time to try another recommendation, this one from our friend Karen. So, we drove the 7 or so miles to Murray and found the local Cold Stone Creamery. Their ice cream is very good, albeit expensive; they make up for it with huge portions. Yay. Once we were done bingeing, we drove back to the hotel, dropped off the car, and went to the big Deseret Book store near here. Along the way, we ended up with a couple more pair of shorts for me and (drum roll) some more Mormon Handicraft fabric.
We went back to the hotel and watched How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. Pure fluff, but it had some entertaining moments. Along the way, I downloaded Franklin Covey‘s TabletPlanner, which is supposed to implement their time management system on a Tablet PC. Heaven knows I could use the help; I’ll have to post a longer review when I’ve used it more. And so to bed.