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Well, as promised, the wet weather hit and followed us in torrents south into Idaho. It was rain like I've never seen, the road and other cars were just invisible and the water hit the windscreen like buckets of it being thrown at us.
We were aiming to get to Boise, and our couch-surfing host, for around 6pm. Unfortunately the rain delayed what was already a planned 8-hour drive. We also lost an hour as we passed into mountain time. Finally, we arrived around 8pm to a dead-end road and tried to find Kent's house - our host for the evening. His house was a little difficult to find, mainly because it was actually in the grounds of his building yard and was a bloody great mansion. He greeted us at the gates in a rather questioning and strange manner and we were rather relieved when another couch-surfer turned up. He got us to follow him to a local Mexican restaurant where he greeted the waiter and chef as old friends. We learnt that Kent was a rather wealthy chap who donated a lot of money to build orphanges and schools in Mexico. He was also hugely religious and lived in a gigantic house that he built with the money he made from his granite and slate business. Despite all this, he was awkward, rude and just sort of unpleasant in general!
The Mexican was some of the worse food I've ever eaten but, luckily, his friends there (it turns out he sponsored one of them as a kid) said the meal was on the house. After a few awkward drinks back at Kents where he talked of nothing but himself, we went to bed, just wanting the morning to hurry up so we could leave!
We tried to sneak out early the next morning, but Kent caught us and we ended up having to have breakfast. We finally escaped and headed back into the rain and onto to Salt Lake City.
We stopped at an old railroad town called Glenferry, which is also a National Park, but was pretty deserted being mid-March.
We arrived in Salt Lake City and to our hostel, which was all automated entry and no staff ever seemed to be there. A trip to Wal-Mart and then to an Off License/liquor store - as the crazy Mormons won't let supermarkets sell any alcohol besides crates of Budweiser. Much to my delight and surprise they had the biggest selection of ciders and wines I'd seen since being in America! Praise the Lord! Or Jesus, or whoever it was that appeared in the woods to Joseph Smith and told them they to stock lots of international alcohol brands.
A nice curry and some proper Engish cider and an early night...
The next morning after home-made pancakes (yum!) we set off to the lake and salt flats. It was such a bizarre sight, a flat white huge lake with no water movement. There was also an old entertainment palace derelect on the waterfront, like an old castle, left to the salt and nature. You can walk down to the flats and out on the 'lake'.
Seeing the white salt crystals is so weird and beautiful. I think the grey gloom of the weather helped with the contrast of the mountains and blue and white lake. There were also the skeletons and carcasses of hundreds of dead birds, killed off by a disease earlier in the year, but their bodies had been preserved in the salt until now, when the water level drops and they're exposed again.
After a coffee in town we braced ourselves for a visit to the Tabernacle and the home of the Mormon Church. As expected, we were accosted by 2 'sisters' who offered to show us around. They were perfectly nice and after the initial chit-chat they started to ask us searching question about God and our beliefs. We managed to answer most questions whilst putting the onus back on them, that was until they started asking us for our address so someone could visit us in our homes, and we'd get a free bible! Like we couldn't just get one of them from our next motel room...
We made our excuses and left. We walked back to the hostel. SLC is made up of massive boulevards in the typical grid-like block arrangement. It was soul-less, character-less, harsh grey concrete, huge roads tore through the city.
Another quiet night in to reflect on our religious experience, and we couldn't wait to leave the next morning...
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