My month in Utah

My take on Utah

where I went this month

I made a valiant effort but still missed a lot of Utah.  There's that whole chunk in the west, south of the road I took to Bonneville Flats Speedway west of Salt Lake City - but it looks like there's nothing much out there but desert and roads that go to Nevada.  I understand there's some interesting and beautiful country south of US-40 I drove from Vernal across to the SLC metro area, and north of UT-24 that runs from Green River down to Torrey and up to Richfield, but I just ran out of time.

Greatest Snow On Earth

United We Stand

Life Elevated

All three of these designs are current official state license plates, which is unusual.

Instead of separate categories this month, I'm going to mush things up together.  This is mainly because I was enraptured about how beautiful this state is and somewhat dismayed about how difficult I found my relations with the people who live here.

Here's the list of my split impressions.

On the one hand, Utah's drivers aren't safe drivers.  Here, it seems common practice to enter a highway by ignoring the YIELD sign and instead rushing at top speed down the entrance ramp as if everyone on the highway was supposed to yield to them.  Many of them never even braked but just inserted themselves in the highway traffic in the space I'd had to brake suddenly to create for them.  Others did hesitate right at the entrance, but by then I'd already had to brake because they didn't look like they were going to.

This kind of highway entrance was a clear violation of driving etiquette, and I saw this same kind of behavior at intersections in towns.  People drove through red lights; people turned right on red when I was driving straight at them and had to brake to keep from hitting them; people didn't seem to know what their turn signals were for.

Since I spend so much time on the road, these practices influenced my view of Utahns in general.  Still, I tried to talk to people in stores and campgrounds and wherever I could.  Most people were pleasant but didn't seem willing to make any effort to be nice or welcoming.  Even those in tourist-related jobs.  They weren't cold or forbidding, but they didn't give me a warm fuzzy feeling about their state either.

I was concerned about their casualness regarding Covid protections, and their casualness regarding basic Constitutional protections for people who don't agree with those making decisions (a law requiring gun ownership? really?)

On the other hand, I don't think I've seen another state so far that has more natural wonders than Utah.  I confess to a weakness for red rock canyons lined with yellow cottonwoods, but Utah goes way beyond just that.

The range is stunning.  My month here began in Flaming Gorge, touched on the Wall of Dinosaur Bones, covered Bonneville Salt Flats, drove in and around forested mountains, included red sand beaches and the world's largest living organism (aspen clones), and then wound up in jaw-dropping rock formations: Zion, Red Canyon, Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef, Arches and Monument Valley.  Along the way I found long ago history: Golden Spike, celebration in buildings of the early LDS church, remains of the lives of the early Pueblo people.

My conclusion

I would love to come back to Utah to see more of these natural wonders and historic sites.  What they have here are, for once, appropriately noted as national treasures.  

Utah seems to have many of the qualifications I was looking for for another home: 4 seasons, sort of 2 political parties, mountains.  It is, obviously, a little too far from the ocean but otherwise seems to fit my list.

But when I asked people if they liked where they were living, they all said yes; and when I asked what they liked about it, none of them could tell me.  It wasn't clear to me they'd ever given the matter any thought.  Of course this is a generalization - I'm sure all Utahns aren't like those I met, but all the ones I met are like this, and I found that odd.

I enjoyed talking to park rangers.  Staff at some of the campgrounds were very helpful and pleasant, but surprisingly not all of them were.  People working in grocery stores and convenience stores were often brusque, abrupt.

So I found the land wonderfully welcoming and the people not so much.  Such a shame they don't coincide.