August 27, 2008 - The Great Salt Lake and the Mormon Temple

Note: Photos for this day have not been posted yet.

Salt Lake City is well known to genealogists. The Mormons keep track of family history regardless of the person's religion. Major genealogy web sites like Ancestry.com are run from Utah. I looked up the Family History Library and found it was only a short distance from the hotel.

Finally swapped my rental car
After leaving the hotel, the first thing I did was to finally get this rental car exchanged. It was not an easy thing. I had a car with a California plate. I wanted something with a plate from either a western state (Montana, Utah, Idaho, etc. but not the West Coast) or a midwest state as I headed further east. Most of the cars that could go one way had West Coast plates. Finally, they found a nice Pontiac G6 with Ohio plates. I was a bit nervous since Ohio was so far east. But I didn't complain because it was the best they could do. At least it wasn't an East Coast plated car while I was driving around Utah.

It took an hour to move all my junk from the old car to the new one. I have to learn not to pack so much junk in the future. I used very little of it compared to the amount of things I packed. I also have to learn not to pick up travel books and brochures along the way. I usually do all my research online.

The Great Salt Lake
I decided I needed to see the Great Salt Lake. You can't go to Salt Lake City and not see it. The first thing I did was go through the gift shop. They had some placards on the wall (I couldn't find any for sale) with humorous sarcastic "warnings" to visitors. But on a serious note, they warned visitors that brine sharks (presumably living in the Great Salt Lake) are an endangered species. If attacked by a brine shark, you cannot fight back.

The beach was amazing. There were areas all over the beach with salt that looked similar to ice that develops on the ground where there are puddles. Some of the salt was "polluted" and was red or yellow colored. In some cases, just like ice in the northeast, there would be a thin solid layer of salt on the top. If you cracked it, there would be saltwater below. See photos of the beach and Great Salt Lake.

The Great Salt Lake is very shallow. It has lots of tiny islands. Each island is covered with gnats. But, unlike other gnats, they do not go after people. In fact, if a person disturbs their island, they all swarm and leave. Many will land right on the water. The water has lots of dead gnats floating on it.

This part of the lake had a beautiful canyon in the middle of the lake. I kept wallking along, going from island to island. The water typically did not go above my knees. I went further and further away from the beach....and away from people who could help me if there was a problem. This was really not such a good idea. I also had my camera with me. If that got submerged in the salt water, that would be the end of it. As I went out further, the ground became very muddy. At times, I would sink almost to my knees. Walking became difficult because with each step, I would sink. The beach wrapped around, so there was a beach area further out. But that part of the beach had a mud problem too.

While I was out there, I kept wondering about the Family History Library. I had not called them before going into the water to find out their hours. But, I wanted to see the Great Salt Lake while it was daylight. I just had to hope the Family History Library was open until 6 or 7pm.

Seagulls would usually congregate on islands. Unlike seagulls at ocean beaches, these seagulls did not seem to want to be around people. On the ocean beaches, they typically hang around people looking for handouts. In this case, they just kept flying further away as I approached.

On the way back, I did not want to go near the beach closest to where I was. There was just so much mud and I didn't want to keep sinking. Still, it would have been a less stressful experience. I went through the water to get back to the beach area from where I started. At times, I became very nervous because there was lots of mud and I kept sinking. I really thought there was a possibility I would get stuck there. I also kept getting nervous about the camera getting submerged. It was around my neck but if I ended up falling in the water, that would be it for the camera. I was also nervous about the brine sharks mentioned in the gift shop. I prayed that I would get back to land safely. God came through.

The beach area had showers to wash all the salt off. I had initially walked through the water with my sandals. After a while, I left them on the beach. But, the showers did not get all the salt out of them. That night when they dried, they were white with salt.

I called the Family History Library and found they were open until 9pm. That was great. I started heading that way.

Across the road from the beach, there was a pond of saltwater. It had salt along the ground and salt along the edges. There were even salt formations within the water. I found this to be so interesting because it looks like ice along the edge of a body of water in the winter. However, it was 85 degrees outside. See the photos.

Downtown Salt Lake City
Downtown Salt Lake City, while less congested than Seattle, reminded me of why I do not usually include very large cities on my vacations. In this case it was necessary to swap out the car and because there were things I wanted to see in the area. But, parking was difficult and there were so many places with road construction.

Temple Square
Salt Lake City has an area called "Temple Square." This includes the main Mormon Temple, some Mormon churches, and the Mormon Tabernacle where the Mormon Tabernacle Choir performs. Across the road is a huge convention center built by the Mormons. The Family History Library is just across another street from Temple Square. Inside Temple Square, everything is very well maintained with lots of beautiful landscaping. See the photos.

There were lots of people visiting Temple Square. There are lots of volunteers from the Mormon Church available. I took a number of photos of the outside of the Mormon Temple. I asked a volunteer if I could go inside. Only Mormons are allowed inside. Anyone who entered was wearing very formal clothes. The volunteer immediately found a book with photos of the inside of the Mormon Temple and showed them to me. She explained the Mormon beliefs. She asked about my trip and various things in my life. I kept expecting that at any point there would be an attempt to get me to join the Mormon faith. But, it never came. She just explained their beliefs, talked for a while, and then had to move on. She invited me to hear the world-renowned Mormon Tabernacle Choir practice the next evening. I was non-commital on whether I'd hear it or not. I hadn't developed plans for the next day yet, other than wanting to see the city of Provo.

Family History Library
Finally, I went to the Family History Library. It was about 8pm. I was nervous about only having one hour to do all my research.

I walked in and explained that I had never been there before. They sent me to watch a video presentation about how to use the library. I got a paper where I could fill in the names of my grandparents and great-grandparents. The video came from the pretense of people not knowing who all their grandparents and great-grandparents were. Of course, I did not havwe that problem.

There are lots of visitors here. This is a huge building with five floors.

After watching the video, I was ready to go out on the main floor to start looking up information on the computer. A volunteer sat with me. He asked me to insert the first name. I chose my ggg grandfather, who was born in 1804. The volunteer was in shock. He said "You can go back that far?" Of course, my ggg grandfather was not that far back. I could have really surprised the guy by picking someone born in 1595. All we could bring up were census records, which I've already seen. The volunteer asked if I planned to print any of the census records. I had no need to do that.

Anyway, I soon realized that what we were searching could just as easily be found at www.familysearch.org . The volunteer began to recognize that I was savvy at this. He left me alone. After a few minutes, I became very bored of this and left. The only advantage this library has over the web site is that if you find a book with information about your ancestors, it's available right there. However, many of the books have been digitized if their copyright has expired. So, they are available in PDF.