Day 24: Salt Lake City to Idaho to West Yellowstone, MT

On Monday, we woke up ready to take on the SLC! We drove right downtown to the Temple Square and noticed two square blocks of construction going on. This one's for Gabby.


I spotted this sign on a corner, but we were never able to actually locate this store.


The Mormon Temple was stunning! It gleamed white in the desert sun.





As did the office building next door, which, I might add, bore a vague resemblance to the Department of Transportation in downtown DC. Hmm...maybe there's something to that.


There were several sculptures on the grounds around the Temple, but none had any indication of the image being presented. As a result, I had to guess at some of these.

Here we have (I'm pretty sure) Joseph Smith, founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.


The importance of family and children, I suppose.


The hardship of traveling from the east to the Wild West.


I'm not sure what this means.


This was one of the buildings on the grounds of the Temple. I know the Relief Society was a women's group, but I don’t know any more than that. Any input would be appreciated.

A little something interesting:



This library apparently holds the largest stockpile of genealogical information in the world.


This logo was on the construction posters and walls protecting us from construction zones. Dave found it particularly amusing.


It sure is.

Theater of Weird Signs entry for Salt Lake City:


Stop for what? To watch birds? To yield to bird watchers? I don’t get it.

We also made sure to go to the Utah state capitol in Salt Lake City.


It stood directly across from the Visitor Center, which presented us with this little goody:


I, myself, found the street signs to be quite confusing.


This is not indicating that this is 300th Street or even E Street. I believe it is indicating the 300-block of East Temple, but I really cannot be sure.

For lunch, we hit a restaurant we’d seen the night before that had, yes, been recommended by Jane and Michael Stern.

Hires Big H was a restaurant that offered dine-in, take-out,


...and drive-in service.


The food was all the standard hamburger, chicken sandwich fare, but I did take particular notice that they offered caffeine-free Coke and caffeine-free Diet Coke. It took us a while to realize that this is because Mormons aren’t supposed to drink caffeine. Being a person who CAN’T drink caffeine, I was in seventh heaven. It was awesome!

After lunch, we got back on the road and headed to Idaho on our way to Yellowstone in Wyoming. Idaho was GORGEOUS! Everything suddenly turned so green!





We also noticed this strange convention.


Every once in a while, we'd come across a hill that had a letter or letters mowed or painted into it. We came to assume that this was a way of branding one's tract of land, but I have no way of knowing if that's true.

And once again, planes in someone's yard.


What is up with American's and their personal displays of war vehicles?!

I found this sign particularly cute in a Winnie-the-Pooh kind of way.


Idaho's submission for the Theater of Weird Signs:


We soon came upon Blackfoot, Idaho,


It was quite proud to be the home of the Idaho Potato Museum.



Dave and I stopped to investigate, but we were, apparently, 15 minutes too late; they had closed. Dave was very sad.

Oh, look! Idaho has a Mormon Temple, too.


The KOA at which we chose to stay for Yellowstone was actually in Montana instead of Wyoming. As we crossed into Montana, I witnessed a most horrifying sight.


This face can only be the result of looking at a heard of cows along the side of the road and seeing one "mount" another. This was NOT on our agenda. I did not need to witness that element of nature, did I? Now, I thought I had seen everything.

We went to our campsite in Montana and prepared for the next day's adventure in Yellowstone!