Exploring Salt Lake City

I found some places around Downtown SLC, all within a couple of miles of each other, that were way cool but not well known. April, Kip and Adam were willing to go exploring with me.

First on the agenda was the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers Museum (Across from the State Capital) where, in the basement, is Utah’s own 2 headed lamb! April thought it was cute. I thought it was ugly.

Next, we tried to go to Gravity Hill, but we couldn’t find it. However, the drive was beautiful. For a couple of minutes, we felt like we were in Ireland.

On 707 Genesee Ave., we came across a gold pyramid.

While the pyramid itself is way cool, the history behind it is WAY interesting. The pyramid is actually a place of modern mummification. That’s right – you, or your pets, can be mummified right here in SLC, Utah! The process and the religion behind it – Summum – is fascinating (It was actually founded by a man who was LDS).

http://www.summum.us/summum.shtml

They actually have holy water! But it's only available from 9-5 on weekdays. I wonder what makes it holy? The also offer classes on Thursday nights. I want to go. At least it'll get me inside that pyramid. And who can't benefit from some lessons on meditation?

After our drive, we headed to Gilgal Garden (749 East 500 South).

Let’s just say, we were not disappointed! In case you’re curious, I’m putting the description I found of it on http://www.roadsideamerica.com/.

At first glance, Thomas Battersby Child, Jr. was kind of a normal guy. He was a stonemason. He was a Mormon bishop. He died in 1963. And for the last 18 years of his life, he worked in his back yard on what he called Gilgal.

Gilgal is an Old Testament word that means "circle of stones." Tom did indeed build a circle of stones in his yard -- and then he built a lot more. He built a sacrificial altar. He built a stack of four giant granite books. He carved a sphinx that weighed 25 tons and gave it the face of Mormon prophet Joseph Smith. He erected a life-size statue of himself wearing brick pants.
Profound? Spiritual? Beats us.

Much of the mystery surrounding Gilgal has to do with an extreme lack of interest in it until fairly recently, which means that anyone who could explain it is now too dead to ask.
Still, Gilgal certainly is eccentric. Only a few blocks from midtown Salt Lake City, it's tucked behind old homes and a Chuck-A-Rama buffet. It’s a hodgepodge of biblical references, LDS doctrine, and inscribed rocks.

Gilgal provides plenty of odd visuals. Oversized human body parts are scattered down a mossy man-made hill. A towering barbed spike is topped by a wire-frame trumpeter. Near the sphinx is a man with a sword, carved into an upright slab, with his head replaced by a lumpy boulder. Mormon theology might help to explain some of this, sort of, but frankly most Mormons are as puzzled by Gilgal as everyone else.

Tom was fussy about the rocks that he chose for Gilgal, the largest of which weigh over 100,000 pounds. They were reportedly shipped into the city by boxcar and hoisted into the yard by a crane. This sheer bulk was seen as Gilgal's insurance policy after Tom died. After all, what future owner would ever want the expense of hauling away hundreds of tons of rock? But that's precisely what a Canadian company proposed to do when it announced its plan to clear the yard and build condos on the property.

The Salt Lake City arts community rallied to Gilgal's defense, outbid the Canadians, and preserved the half-acre enclave. At the time, many of its neighbors confessed that they hadn't even known that it existed.

Gilgal is now an official Utah state park, with its sculptures repaired and its grass neatly trimmed. It's still, however, a puzzle. Although Tom chiseled dozens of Gilgal's rocks with often lengthy passages from Sophocles and Rousseau and Brigham Young, none of them explain, for example, why he placed a big grasshopper on the ground next to a disembodied head. Or why he engraved a quote from the prophet Job and then embedded his stone-carving torch into the rock.

As for Gilgal itself, Tom left only a plaque dedicating it to a number of obscure acquaintances and to Queen Victoria, who had been dead for 50 years. It isn't much help.
Some latter-day interpreters of Gilgal say that Tom made it massive so that it would survive until the Second Coming. We saw no messages from Tom to that effect, but, then, there are a lot of rock slabs to read at Gilgal. And we might have been distracted by the body parts and the brick pants.

Gilgal Garden!

A 100,000 pound Sphinx with the head of Joseph Smith.

Daniel 2! In case you can't tell, its engraved on the rock bottom middle.


Captain Moroni! (I think) Complete with a stone head. What a guy.


The brick pants! We all loved the brick pants.


This is Childs' self portrait. To demonstrate his loves/passions. The mural behind him is of the ward he was bishop for for something like 16 years. In his left hand are scriptures. And in his right, stone working tools.

After our tour of the Gilgal Garden, we preceded to Virgin Mary in a Stump (Corner of 700 South and 300 East).

This, like everything else, was amazing. Someone cut the branch, removing the figure of the robed Virgin, but it still remains a place of hope and faith. There were all kinds of fresh flowers there (I really wanted to take some of them home. They were so pretty and smelled wonderful. But no one would let me. Probably a good thing.) and steps had been built to reach the stump.

This mix CD and cross with "TACO DAD" was tucked into the photo collage. I would love to know whats on that CD. And what "TACO DAD" means.

The Virgin Mary in a stump! It really does look like a cloaked figure. This is a picture of a picture.


Unfortunately, due to vandalism, this is whats left. Sad.

Finally, we finished out our night at Hobbitville, located on 13th East across from Westminster College.

We didn’t get to see any little houses or hobbit’s/dwarfs, sadly. It was a pretty walk, and we got to see cute rabbits running around, and some really big peacocks. Before we could walk far enough to see Hobbitville, we were sent packing by a lady who was a little irritated we had walked past 2 No Trespassing signs. (Whoops. We really wanted to see Hobbitivlle!)

So this is it! Each place was so fun, and had no one there. It was pretty sad. I especially recommend visiting Gilgal Garden.

Love,

Brittney