Go West.  Paradise is there.

I think a lot about our family history.  My grandfather started life in Pechora, in Northern Russia, near the Ural Mountains.  He migrated to Poland when he was 12.  He spoke Polish with an accent for the rest of his life.

At age 31, my mother migrated from Poland  to the United States.  I’ve always joked that I needed to go west, to compete our migration around the globe.  

In truth, I had always been fascinated by the west.  I think a lot of Americans are.  Herman had a clock in his office that had the time for Half Moon Bay, California on it.  I remember thinking that one day, he would just move to California. 

For years, I thought the same thing.  Maybe  I should migrate to California.  Go west.  Paradise is there.  

But one day, I got bitten by the Charles River bug and well, in Boston I shall remain.  As I have said many times, Boston was really the first place that felt like home to me.  We were no longer visiting.  We were home.  

I also found this version of America I liked.  I think foreigners look at America as this monolith of Walmarts, F150s, distances measured in miles per freedom eagle and other sundry quirks.  But in truth, a Texan and a New Yorker are from the same country, but they have as much in common as a French person and a Dane.  Sure they speak the same language, but that’s where the similarities end.  In the United States, state to state we don’t learn the same things.  A person from Alabama cannot tell you the name of the high school exam a person from New York takes and vice versa.  

As for my own experience, I lived in the New York version of America for a long time and quite frankly, it just got tiresome.  Endless stupid gate keeping about what a real New York is, how above 125 street in Manhattan is “upstate.”  One time, talking to some mullet sporting “New Yorker” I heard that I didn’t understand the big city ways because I lived “upstate.”  I was in college at the time but my parents lived in Westchester.  Here we were simpleton yahoos chewing on our hay, not understanding the ways of these grand city slickers.  Give me a break. 

Somehow New England was just more welcoming and a lot easier to deal with.  People in Boston are mean but kind.  Honestly I don’t think they are mean at all, but the bar, it is low.  There’s a documentary called on Netflix about the Boston marathon bombing and right at the beginning, a Boston police chief says that in his mind, there are no finer people in the world than the citizens of the city of Boston and every time I watch that, it hits me right in the feels.  Every single time.  

The New England version of things, to me, is to make things available to everyone.  Wachusett isn’t elite level skiing but it’s available to everyone.  I don’t think any other cities that boast a ski resort available via public transportation from the city for $10.  The city is walkable and comfortable.  

It is a very Euro version of things.  Boston looks like Europe and there are these egalitarian ideas floating around.  Are they always executed well?? Not really but there is some kind of effort to make Boston a livable place.  

Somehow though, I still get the itch to explore other places.  I spent years criss crossing Europe looking for something I eventually found in Boston.  Like I wrote on this blog about a year ago, I got it into my head a year ago that I should spend a day in Salt Lake City, Utah.  

What drew me to this location in particular?  Well, they have some of the best skiing in the world and if you ski, inherently, you must have at least one screw loose.  The normies stay inside on days when it’s negative 20 degrees outside.  But the few, the proud, the skiers, we head directly into that, propelling ourselves up and down a mountain until our entire bodies feel like jelly and then sign up to repeat this the next weekend.  I’ve legit booked a ski trip for the next weekend on the return trip from the other one.  

So I guessed that a state full of people who probably do this on a larger scale must be ok to visit.  And somehow I fell in love with it.  There was just such a different vibe to the place.  New York and Boston, I mean that’s basically Europe.   Salt Lake City, that looks like it was built yesterday.  

I got back after my trip last year and did a deep dive into the history of the state of Utah and well, of the Latter Day Saints.  A couple of my friends said I was off to join their church, but honestly, I like coffee too much, they take considerable liberties with accepted biblical doctrine and it took the Baptists 40 years to drag me kicking and screaming through the doors of a church.  

A Baptist I shall stay. 

Unsurprisingly, the very wise couple who run the church I attend said it best.  The pastor said that of course I was fascinated by the American west being the history freak I am.  Pioneers, manifest destiny.  What’s not to love???  I mean I mentioned visiting the LDS in Salt Lake and the pastor told me to sign up for a year long course about the Bible he was teaching. He assured me these two things aren’t related.  His wife also assured me that there was nothing wrong with exploring the history of the LDS, to realize that there were faiths out there that again, stray from accepted doctrine. 

Still my deep dive continued. I watched Under the Banner of Heaven and this slightly off kilter documentary called Murder Among the Mormons, about a forger named Mark Hofmann who use all kinds of dastardly means to create documents related to the founding of the Mormon Church.  The “mild mannered family man” turned sinister when someone he sold documents to threatened to expose him.  I heard someone say once that you have to be aware of the quiet ones, like Hofmann. See a guy like Fred is just about the least likely person to ever be a serial killer because the guy just openly hates everyone. A guy like Fred, he’s never suspect. But a “quiet, unassuming family man.” Yeah. Think twice. The documentary is also chock full of interesting characters with these old fashioned sounding accents.  Many of them have this earnest Mormon look about them.  Clean cut, trusting.  Perfect marks for someone up to no good.  

My favorite figure in the documentary was a guy named Gerry D’Elia.  Jerry introduces himself as “an undesirable” who had been thrown out of college with a .6 GPA.  He’d moved to Utah to ski.  He described himself as a skier who happened to be a lawyer, not a lawyer who happened to ski.  He wasn’t a native, so he enjoyed an adult beverage here and there, by his own admission.  I like to joke and there is a ring of truth about this, that I’m a skier that happens to be a teacher, not the other way around.  I would say this is how I would describe myself.  I work to have the means to go do my hobbies.  Anyway, Gerry seemed like a really fun guy to hang out with.  I googled him and it turned out he had passed away not too soon after the documentary came out.  What a wonderful character to have had in your life.

YouTube is also full of people talking about the LDS and I watched an embarrassing amount of those videos.  Some were people who had left the church and were critical of it.  Other people found the whole spiritual environment in the state interesting and wanted to explore the LDS as an exercise in comparative religion.  

I think I approached all of this from the perspective of a person who is fascinated by how different America is in every way.  Like I said, I’m a Baptist and I love my church and the people in it.  Still, I wanted to go back to Salt Lake City.

It struck me how there seemed to be this western version of America.  Boston and New York are basically Europe.  Florida is wildly colorful in almost harsh way.  The west though, that really is pioneers and manifest destiny.  

I asked around with my friends to see if anyone wanted to join but I really thought that I have to go alone, so be it.  I decided to attach the couple of days out west with a trip to Florida I now make every year to see dear friends who are basically family at this point.  Salt Lake is on its way to Florida, right???  

I booked the plane tickets and right up to my departure, I wondered what I was even doing.  I booked a four day stay at what is rapidly becoming my favorite hotel on the planet, the Little America.  I planned one day of itinerant wandering, one day of church/museum going and one grand adventure.  Then onto Orlando to sharpen my Spanish and have fun with my beloved abuelas.  

My first stop was O’Hare in Chicago, the first city we lived in when we came to America.  Then onto Salt Lake City for I don’t know, vibes???  I sat at the gate to board my flight and still thought — what am I even doing????  What if this is just super weird???

As we were flying into Utah, I saw this expanse of rocks and sand and mountains and I thought — this is the place.  Me and you know, Brigham Young, but I don’t have a beard and a Wikipedia page dedicated to my 57 spouses.  

I boarded the Trax green line, which obviously runs from Commonwealth avenue to the Little America hotel.  Except this time, a lot of the buildings and streets looked familiar from my self directed YouTube study.  I got to Little America and found myself booked into the tower, rather than in the motel looking thing I had been booked into the year previous.  I got to talking to the front desk attendant and she it turned out she had lived in Massachusetts for 20 years.  I ended up with a BEAUTIFUL room with windows on both sides with gorgeous views of Salt Lake and the Wasatch mountains.  I needed rest and I needed food.  

This was the view from my room:

The next morning, I decided to start my trek.  I decided to walk to the University of Utah.  Sure, the locals told me I was crazy for attempting this but I was determined.  Let’s just say me and my knapsack of camera equipment ended up in some weird spots.  At one point, I ended up in the parking lot of some kind of biotech company.  From the parking lot, I saw one of the ten most beautiful views I have ever seen in my life.  Imagine working in this place.  You drive up to work every day, with the most insanely beautiful view from your parking lot and you head inside to deal with emails and people who use phrases like “getting our ducks in a row” and “circle back” in an unironic way.  

The view from a random parking lot in Salt Lake City:

What I realized on that massive walk was that Salt Lake doesn’t boast a ton of crazy architecture but my God, the nature does the talking.  A lot of the architecture is modern, probably owing to the city’s expansion in the past 23 years since the Olympics. 

I walked around the University of Utah for like vibes or something.  Again, super impressive place.  Lots of buildings with names like “Huntsman” and “Eccles.” Huntsman I know from the chemicals company but Eccles is a less familiar name.  What struck me is that these people seem to have boo coo cash but they give boo coo cash to their alma mater.  It struck me that instead of doing stupid things like fly rockets for some strange reason, these people chose to pump money into the university, making it really attractive to potential students and faculty.

Some U of U views:

Oh and of course, some exotic paintings from the U of U Fine Arts Museum:

After endless trekking for hours, I located a Trax train, the cute little streetcar that runs around SLC.  I walked for about 8 hours.  I got on the Trax train and was back to my hotel in 15 minutes.  That’s what I noticed too about Salt Lake.  Everything is 15 minutes by car or 15 years walking.  

Well but of course we’re going to analyze some of the photos I got from my 18,000 step trek around Salt Lake City:

The next day I decided to visit a church in Salt Lake, just to feel something familiar.  I searched and searched for a good church to visit and found one again, a 45 minute walk from where I was staying or 7 minutes by car.  I get there and I’m just observing everyone.  I hear familiar conversations about community groups and church events.  

Now to backtrack here a bit, I’m a part of a church plant in Boston.  A church plant is a new, kind of start up church.  The married couple who run the church, I’ve been dedicated to them from day one and I really want the whole thing to succeed.  And I’ve gotten an extensive education on how church plants work.  As I do with most topics, I share these facts with people.  Do they want to hear about this?  Most of the time, no.  Do I share it anyway??? Most of the time, yes.  

Still though I’m a bit shy in this situation.  I’m unsure of myself but confident it’s going to be ok.  In typical pastor fashion, the pastor of the church is going around introducing himself to everyone and greeting everyone.  I don’t look like anyone this guy knows but he cordially introduces himself.  I go into church plant representative mode and talk about how I go to a church plant and how it’s great they have their own building because our church rents space.  The guy pulls out his phone and says — what’s the name of the church plant you attend??? I tell him and he goes — we’re talking about sending some people to help out at a church plant in Boston.  I’ve been talking to (a person who is a very close friend of mine).  We both start laughing hysterically at this, how we ran across each other.  The service was very beautiful, with the same songs we sing every week.  Afterwards, there was socializing, where we realized we knew a lot of the same people.  Small world, I guess.  

The next day though was the reason why I came, to see the Bonneville Salt Flats.  Of course after my trip last year, I followed a bunch of pages about Utah and they all featured the Bonneville Salt Flats.  It looked insane.  A dried up river bed that turns into a mirror sometimes.  I bought my ticket for my salt flats adventure a while back and was so excited that I woke up an hour before my alarm.  

We were hitting the road at 8am and I kept checking that I had the right day and the right time.  Our tour guide shows up and goes — we only have one other person, so it’s just us three.  

Again, I’m thinking — oh Salt Flats and then back to Salt Lake and to all of my overexcited bubbling over chatter about how awesome of a day it was to anyone who would listen.  And probably to plenty of people who weren’t listening.  But in true adventure trip fashion, it did not turn out that way.  It was waaaaaaaaay better.  

Our first stop was the Great Salt Lake state park, where we saw some incredible nature and I got to stick my hand into the Great Salt Lake.  I would have loved to go swimming in the lake, but I guess I’ll save this fun for next year.  I have a feeling this is about to become a yearly trip.

Great Salt Lake state park views:

I almost forgot to add the copper mine. This is the Kennecott Copper Mine and the smokestack is the tallest structure west of the Mississippi. The smokestack is taller than the Empire State Building.

We drove down this half apocalyptic highway and stopped at the tree of Utah.  Now you gotta understand.  There was no trees to be seen anywhere. But suddenly we were there at this apocalyptic looking expanse, looking at this insane tree sculpture, surrounded by broken concrete looking eggs.  I was wondering where the apes were and the broken down Statue of Liberty.  

Some pictures of the moment when I felt like I had left planet Earth:

My INSANE enthusiasm for this day kept bubbling over during the trip.  I told myself I wasn’t going to post anything until we got to the salt flats but I couldn’t stop myself.  This was all too weird.  

Then we got to the salt flats and I don’t even know how to describe it.  It was this white expanse that looked like dried up water, which it was.  It just looked super surreal.  Just like I like my nature.  Weird looking.  

Did I take an insane amount of pictures of myself at the salt flats? Obviously. Did an almost 50 year old college professor do a cartwheel on the salt flats? Yes. AND I didn’t break my arms.

Dancing on a dried up salty lake bed. 10/10 experience

Did I take a lot of pictures of the salt flats? How long have you been on this blog??? Of course I took a ton of photos.

Here:

This was this never ending day of just wonder.  Next we drove to Wendover, Utah which is actually in a different time zone.  I crossed a time zone in a car.  Unbelievable.  We ate some really good tacos in Wendover and then drove into Nevada for less than 10 minutes.  Oh and Fred is expanding operations into Wendover, having opened a supermarket there.  I took a picture of Fred’s supermarket and sent it to him.  He told me to have a good trip, like the good Boston uncle that he is.

Meet Wendover Will. The most interesting border marker I have ever seen:

Last, but certainly not least, views from the road trip around the state. Mind blowing doesn’t even begin to describe these views:

Now you have to understand. This is pretty much my ideal day.  I LOVE things like this.  There are people who go on vacation to party and shop and get massages and things like that.  That’s my idea of hell.  I mean that might be an exaggeration but I love ending up in utterly strange places and looking around and just being amazed by where you’ve ended up.  Going to West Wendover, Nevada was just about the funniest thing that happened to me this year.  I don’t really like luxury things.  I think I’ve realized that.  I like simple things, like Krispy Kremes and eating tacos in small towns in Nevada.  I can’t explain this to people.  

To quote my 8 year old best friend, this was definitely one of the best days of my life.  Now my 8 year old best friend said this when he was four years old, that a day before spent eating popcorn and playing with balloon animals and then building a fake staircase out of blocks.  There’s nothing like a day like that in your life.  He had about 1300 days to choose from at that point, but he chose that day. I have considerably more days to chose from and well, this was definitely one of the best days of my life.

In my eyes, going west really showed me that paradise really was there.  It’s my little spot that I enjoy.  It’s a spot I hope to visit many times over the next couple of years.