Heart of the State

What is so special about the United State? I say it is the States. Utah State is one of them.

Yesterday and today, I had a chance to visit Salt Lake City, for my housemates has a new car and he wanted to test drive it. We also had a workshop in the University of Utah though, there is no reason to not drive to Salt Lake City and see what's up! So we said bye to the beloved Cache Valley and drove all the way to the magical capital of the Mormons.

My first impression is: It is truly the Heart of this State! We went through farms, a small valley, a lake, and farms again, and factories, and farms again... A lot of farms. At first, I felt like this country is so big people here can be billionaires by just farming on the vast lands. But then a huge white structure showed up behind the hill, follow up by several tall buildings behind it: The capital city of Utah appeared before my tiny Asian eyes, beautiful and majestic. If the farms in the wild places of Utah can out reach your vision range, the industrial city of Salt Lake can make your eyes blinded by its spectacular beauty.

The big white structure I mentioned earlier is the Capital of Utah State, where the governor works. It gave me the impression of a wealthy and powerful being by just staying there in its Greek-like look. Of course my Asian instinct told me to take some pictures in various weird poses in front of it, for the sake of showing my achievement of putting my feet on its property. There was a moment when my actions of showing the Asian dominance was noticed by some police officers who was patrolling around the building in their nicely polished sedan car. They stood there, in front of the building, with cold faces and skeptical eyes. They were scared of me, of course. They were afraid that I would do something harmful to their sacred place and their boss would fire them. I am a tolerant person. So I decided to not make them feel more nervous with the present of my dominant spirit there anymore and left the place in a glorious retreat. It is not like I was afraid of their cold faces and unfriendly attitude or anything, totally not. I just want to say it again: no, it is not. I just did not want to make them feel uneasy, that is it.

Then we drove into the city. It was very tidy and large. I felt like I was in Hanoi once again, with all the buildings and shopping centers, minus the tidy part. I was living in Logan for several months, and I thought my memories of big cities would fade into my past without any trace soon, until this city opened its hands and held me inside its heart. It has everything I could remember of Hanoi: noises of cars and people, bricks and mortar (not wood like the houses in Logan) buildings, windows and glasses, hobos and dogs, etc. Even the smell, it was so...big city-ic. Everything intrigued me and my sense of time and space was overwhelmed by the happy feeling of escaping out of a boring small town to a real city. Then I heard a voice.

The voice said to me: "Hey Phong, look!". I turned to my back, just to found an artistic sculpture of an old man blessing two younger men. (By touching their forehead, of course. How else can people bless others?) That moment, I realized that somehow my legs brought me to a holy place, where the history of the Mormons started in this land: The LDS Temple. It was a nicely structured building with artistic details. A whole bunch of other buildings are positioned purposely around it to support its shininess. Some of them are twice as big as the Zion Bank building nearby. "This must be the capitol of the Mormons", said me, to myself. "Wait, could that voice belongs to ... OH MY..."

"It belongs to me, dude" my housemate said.

That was how it ended. The Mormons are rich, Utah State has a huge capitol, and my friend has the voice of a holy spirit.

Someday I will visit you again, my love. (Next time I will eat less sugar and be cool)