I’ve been trying to find a great place to celebrate Firstbud this year, but the trees of Los Angeles shed their flowers long before the equinox! It’s not as fun to celebrate without family, but then my great friend, Oreo, invited me to spend a weekend with him in Salt Lake City, where the trees were in full bloom! Being a dog of great wealth, he even offered to fly me there, and I could celebrate Firstbud by his pond if I liked! Of course I liked, and right as I left the airport, I was astonished! Oh, for the flowering crabapples and the tulips- what pretty tulips! I had a few hours before Oreo’s chauffeur was to arrive, so I decided to make an adventure of the morning!
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Apart from the flowers, one of Salt Lake City’s highlights is its architecture, which blends old brickwork with new glass in a way that makes it hard to guess what waits around the next corner. My favorite of the newer buildings is the Main Library, where a beaver can spend hours looking through four floors of books (five if you count the basement), or admiring the hanging sculpture of a human face made of bookish butterflies, or chatting with the homeless folk who frequent the tables on the main level! The exterior is lovely for wandering too. There is a sculpture garden that features art all the way from Zimbabwe and a monument dedicated to celebrating life, all surrounded by the most brilliant tulips and daffodils!
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From there, I hopped on Salt Lake’s light rail, TRAX, and went to see the famous Temple Square. The whole Salt Lake infrastructure is built as a giant grid around this complex. The only time I’d seen it before was around Christmas when it glowed with bajillions of lights, but during spring, the place is just as alive with flowers! The gardens were so pretty! I immediately jumped into the tulips for some frolicking.
Two nice young ladies from Colombia and Russia approached and said they admired my camera. We struck up a conversation, and, as they seemed to work there, I asked if I could take a look inside the temple. This seemed to strike them as strange (they were okay with a talking beaver), and they said it was saved for special occasions. If I was interested, though, I could visit the garden on the roof of the LDS Conference Center. Well alright then!
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I jumped into a tour group led by a holy moley old man who was pleased as punch to tell us all about the cherry and peach wood veneers before showing us into the conference room, the largest auditorium in the world! I was only off by a thousand guessing how many seats it has: 21,000! It’s built so everyone can have an unobstructed view of the pulpit and the rostrum, which, by the way, can completely fold up and disappear into storage in the back! It is a remarkably designed center from within, but even more so without!
The roof of the Center is a real live meadow with flowers and evergreens! The builders planted everything in a substance called SoilMatrix, which reduces the weight of the garden by 22 million pounds! The guide also said they used some sort of radioactive rocks that repelled animals, but I couldn’t verify this, since I found the garden with all its fountains and waterfalls too pretty to resist. And the views! Well, see for yourself!
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When the tour ended, I grabbed a fish sandwich at the nearby Crown Burgers (like In ‘n Out in California, you just have to try it when you’re here) and decided to wait for Oreo’s driver at the state capitol. It’s nice to visit capitols when one can. There’s a certain majesty to them that just isn’t found on your average edifice. This one is surrounded by monuments to Utah’s history and has a fine view of the Salt Lake Valley, but alas, I did not have time to tour it, because at that very moment, my ride pulled up, and I was off!
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Firstbud with Oreo was strange, as to be expected from his events. He invited lots of local critters who didn’t really understand Firstbud and were more focused on winning favor with their host, but in the end, he had a pond, there were flowers, and there was frolic. Worth the trip!
Hasta la byebye!
P.S. Also, if you ever visit Salt Lake City and you’re in the mood for some down-home country fun, check out Wheeler Historic Farm! There are cows to milk, wagons to ride, and pollywogs to catch! Admission is free unless you bring a camera, any camera at all! If you bring a camera and aren’t ready to pay $10, they take down your information and track you! So please, folks, support your local parks. Making happy farms resort to scary tactics to stay afloat financially just isn’t the beaver way.
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