"The west is the best.....the west is the besssssst."
I could hear Jim Morrison's voice in my head radio as we pulled into the 4,200 mile high city. With both my ears and eyes popping, I gazed upon the city that millions of people consider the holy land.
Earlier in the day, we hiked one of the most dangerous trails in any of the US National Parks. We scaled Angel's Landing trail at Zion. This trail is super technical, steep, scary and should not be attempted by just anyone. And for good reason: A 13 yr old girl fell to her death on the very same day we hiked it. Tragically it happened 2 hours after we left.
CBS News
The girl's fall sent chills down my spine. I mean, what are the odds that we hiked this very trail the exact same day that 1 out of 7 total fatalities that have occurred since 1994? This a huge hiking destination, so thousands of people attempt it every year. As we pulled into Salt Lake City, I prayed for this young girl's family as I blankly stared out the window in deep contemplation of how preciously fragile life is. I cannot imagine the pain they must be in.
Today I rose around 6AM, still with a knot in my stomach from what happened so close to me in Zion, but I had to keep moving onward. After a cup of coffee, we decided to check out the natural history museum of Utah.
So many dinosaurs!
I was overwhelmed with the sense of how small we are compared to our time on this planet. We as humans are mere blip on a extremely long timeline.
Archeologists cleaning a T-Rex skull
Crystals
The museum reminded me, once again, how insignificantly small we are on a cosmic timeline. All week I've been reminded of this. The desert has a great way of giving one a grand big sky perspective of this micro to macro machine of life we are all participating in.
When we left the museum, we decided to head to the main Mormon Temple here in SLC. Before today I knew nothing about the Mormon religion. I'm so glad we went.
Door into the Temple
We were greated warmly by devoted Mormons who took the time to tell us about their faith, history, family, artwork, etc. I was so amazed at their kindness and eagerness to welcome us into their world.
The Mormons are quite literally the folks who practice what they preach. Family values, hard work, perseverance, Golden Rule, etc. Everyone we passed greeted us with "Hello" as they passed and I had genuine sense of true kindness within the temple grounds. I was honored to be there.
Later, we walked around SLC for our last night on this wandering desert road trip and just recapped about all that had happened. I've realized a lot on this trip. I'll explain more when I get home. Stay tuned....
Never stop exploring,
LeeJ
