Flying J
SLC
August 2, 2021
My notes from today. The prose wont be pretty.
Earlier start than usual. Watched The International (Clive Owen, Naomi Watts) and then hit the road at 615 am.
The southeastern part of Idaho has a number of hot springs to go along with its agriculture.
Soda Springs is a town of 3,000 people. It’s a rough place.
Montpelier, Idaho has seen better days (there’s a trend here) but had some interesting buildings.
Paris, Idaho is a farming community of about 500 people at an elevation of 6,000 feet. It deserves a separate write up which I will give it soon. Thumbnail - founded by Mormons. Name was supposed to be Perris as in California but snafu occurred during the process and the name was changed to Paris.
Thr founders thought they were in Utah, not Idaho.
The tabernacle was built in the 1880s snd is beautiful.
The town museum is amazing for such a small town
Lots of French come visiting intrigued by the name.
The post mistress used her Paris, ID stamp on several items I put in front of her. 🤪
Bear Lake is a BIG lake on the Idaho- Utah border. A real vacation spot.
US 89 from Big Lake to Logan is a wonderful drive, most of it on curvy road with a trout stream on one side and the side of a canyon on the other. I’m almost thankful for the cloudy day because there were hundreds of potential high caliber photo ops.
Logan looks like a new city - clean with wide streets. It is the home of Utah State.
Logan to SLC is 80 miles. 80 miles of too many cars going to fast and sprawl on both sides of the road. However, the road is in the valley and the mountains along the valley are spectacular.
The International PeAce Garden in SLC is beautifully done. Very Zen. The French did not go overboard with their donation of a ~ five foot tall replica of the Eiffel Tower.
For the record, Boise no longer has an Eiffel Tower as the Cafe de Paris closed its doors.
At 7 pm it is a very warm 75 degrees in SLC. It is ten degrees warmer in Chez Hi Ho Silver.
I had va friend from grad school get a job teaching at Utah State (he still is). On a visit to there some years ago, I discovered something I'd never seen before or since -- in the Student Union building, there is a jewelry store!!! So many LDSers, they get married in school or upon graduation....