The Houses of God

First, an advance warning (I cross out advance because a warning is, in itself, in advance just as YOU CANNOT PRE-BOOK YOUR NEXT APPOINTMENT as you are often asked to do in haircut places. You either book an appointment or you don’t! Note some frustration there?) Anyway, back to the warning. In our next blog, which will cover our visits to Antelope Canyon, Horseshoe Bend and Bryce Canyon, you will be entertained by the eloquent words and stunning photos of the original writer of this blog. Yes Terry is coming back. (Rah rah, cheer cheer) However she has had a few very taxing days and needs time to recover and prepare. I assure you though,

“It will be worth it, if not for the sake of this song blog but for the
Sake of your own peace of mind.”      The Animals – San Francisco Nights, 1967

Now for the Houses of God.

After our sojourn getting us to Page, Arizona we enjoyed a fine dinner of Pringles, chocolate and wine in our room. It was like a kid’s picnic. The next morning we traipsed into downtown Page to the tour company’s office. We passed by these churches – all different denominations. They were all right next to each other – all on the same side of the street. I guess if you didn’t like the sermon in one, you could just slip next door. Church Street in downtown TO has nothing on Page.

We are staying at Ruby’s Inn in Bryce Canyon City, where we had a real dinner. Apparently people who come to Utah can’t do math, as we also found this on the bottom of our bill at the pizza place we went to for lunch in Panguitch.

We got up this morning ready to go for our first visit to Bryce Canyon and found our bottle of water in the car quite frozen.

After a few hours exploring the canyon, we went into Panguitch for lunch – quite a good pizza.

On the back of the door in the women’s washroom was this poster.

Now, when the sign on the door to the men’s washroom says “Closed – Please use women’s washroom” I am left wondering if anything could go wrong…

Panguitch is a town which had a population of 1,623 in 2000 and I feel confident in saying it hasn’t grown since then. The town has a significant Mormon population.

We asked the server at C Stop where we could get a bottle of wine. She told us to go to the state liquor store on main street “Next to the hunting store but look closely because it has just a small window and you might miss it.” We are, after all, in Utah now. (Remember Provo, Ken?)

The store was reasonably stocked – had a choice from about 20 reds and 20 whites and there was quite a range of hard liquor. There was a box of chocolate bars on the counter with a child’s hand printed sign “Help Sam go on his school trip $1.00” and another hand printed sign that said “Mixers – Cash Only“. Apparently the liquor is the state’s and the mixers are Heather’s (it is Heather’s Liquor Agency). Our final bit of conversation with the woman working there – not Heather, disclosed that “The Jack Mormons come to the back door, tell me what they want and I take their money, get it from the shelf and bring it back to them. They can never be seen in the store.” Aaahhh Mormonism.

It also has a Days Inn…

Apparently windows aren’t a big feature of Utah schools. This is the high school.

The high school is a veritable school of glass compared to the middle school across the street.

As we drove around town we came upon this place – just someone’s home with a lot of stuff.

and this one

Now some more Houses of God.

Why, you might ask, have I called these Houses of God. It is because they all have two very distinct entrances to the home – one for each of the wives.  We think there is an entire street which has several homes like these in a row, but sadly we couldn’t find it and Terry refused to ask someone “Hey, where is the street of Mormon houses – we can’t find it on the map.” Talk about a no fun girl!

Well, that’s about all for now. I am giving you advance warning though. One day soon I am going to put together a blog of “The Many Faces of Terry”. Wait for it.

BTW Bruce – I was going to use spelunker, but I try to write without technical jargon getting in the way of my ramblings.