Mormon DisneyLand
December 20, 2006 Posted by Al Castle

trackback Categories: Castle, Squirrels, Uncategorized

Recently I traveled to Salt Lake City, Utah to meet up with some friends and experienced many things, including I’m surprised to say some grand theft, bad food, grumpy cops, coffee deficiency and yes, Mormon DisneyLand.

The bad food was a shared experience that was really pretty funny. As it kept happening over and over until finally on the last day, David lost his dinner - (which I caught on camera in case anyone is interested). I guess I can blame my companions as they chose the restaurants. In one case, even the name of the business was a glaring warning to all that enter. At first I thought my companions were joking when they kept preferring to the restaurant as “upchuck-arama”. It’s actual name is Chuck-Arama, I had to have my picture taken in front of that sign.

Our hotel was the only place which served coffee, even the gas station mini-mart didn’t carry my SoBe Green Tea or other favorite wake-up beverages. I may have developed a type of caffeine related scurvy or something.
Part of my experience was coming to grips with my misconception of Utah as some sort of Leave It To Beaver, crime-free, nuclear family, Pleasentville mashup. The day we were to leave was when my *misconception water broke and I realized I may have built Utah up too much in my mind. I awoke early and headed to the rental minivan to load up my luggage and checkout of the hotel. As I approached the back of the vehicle I realized we’d been robbed. The rear window had been busted with a rock and thousands of dollars worth of really cool new stuff was taken. We were parked right in front of the main door of the hotel, in a well lit parking lot. Of course we had to cancel our breakfast outing, reschedule a meeting and call the police. The officer who came was not pleasant at all, that’s all I’m going to say about him. Another theory floating about, is that I may have broken the window. After that we couldn’t get another rental car from the same company even though it wasn’t our fault, and with that in mind I ask that you to use another company instead of Budget.

After dealing with all of that negativity it was decided we should go check out the Temple, associated buildings and grounds. My first impression of the architecture was of a Catholic cathedral. Being a born-again heathen I’m not allowed within the temple, but one of my companions shared the secret handshake with me and as such I was allowed into a few of the lesser buildings, all of which were pretty educational about the Mormon beliefs. We took some pictures, here’s Mark, David and myself with the temple in the background and the angel atop the temple.

I didn’t manage to get any good pictures of the mountains which looked really cool both during the day and at night. I also have a few photos of me and Jesus that I need to find.

All told it was an awesome trip and I’d like to thank my companions for the good company.

Disclaimer: The title of this blog post came from a comment I made to my companions about the temple grounds being like DisneyLand for them. Alex an LDS member in good standing says that it was indeed funny. If you find it offensive please take it up with Alex.

Note: Misconception Water and the act of it breaking in any tense are trademarks of my imagination and cannot be used without my explicit written permission and all rights are retained regardless of law.

Pictures are credited to Mark Effinger.