The salt flats were a marvelous bit of geology. As you probably know, back in prehistoric times, much of the country was a shallow inland sea. After its retreat, it left a large salt pan just west of the Great Salt Lake. This salt pan was a remarkable place. It stretched for miles. It was almost perfectly flat and the salt was so bright in the nearly constant sun of eastern Nevada that you could go "snow blind" if you didn't wear shades, like the young dude in the above picture. The Stateline Cafe was the unofficial site of the Bonneville Speed Way. Every couple of years, a contest was held at the salt flats to determine the fastest ground-based vehicle. It could be a souped up hot rod, it could be a rocket powered car, it could even be a motorcycle.
During that summer (1967) Craig Breedlove was the holder of the record for "fastest man on the ground". He used a modified motorcycle style of vehicle. It was actually more of a rocket ship on the ground. It's name was "Spirit of America" and it was powered by a turbo jet. He held the land speed record for years, eventually managing to exceed six hundred miles per hour. The Bonneville Speedway and Breedlove's crazy turbo-rocket cycle made the salt flats famous and Terry and I made this part of our first weekend outing.
As we ate our lunch burgers at the cafe, we marveled at all the pictures on the walls of the land speed contestants over the years. Craig Breedlove's pictures standing proudly beside each year's new and improved rocket-cycle dominated the walls.
After lunch we darted across the highway, put on our shades and walked onto the salt flats. It was an amazing experience. We walked out aways until we were surrounded by nothing but salt; hot, dazzling white, very salty, salt. (we had to taste it). Everywhere you looked there was nothing but this amazing monolithic floor of salt, with mountains in the distance. It was actually kind of disorienting and I was glad we could see the entrance gate by the highway, otherwise instead of wandering in the sage brush and sand, we'd be wandering in the salt flats.
After we'd gotten our fill of the salt flats we headed East. Next stop; Salt Lake City! Driving into the city was a bit of sensory overload after all that solitude in the desert. We checked into a little flea-bag motel. The room was pretty decrepit. It had one light bulb hanging from a cord in the middle of the ceiling. In the corner was a tiny, very stained, sink. The communal bathroom was at the end of the hall. It was the kind of place a junky might stay at while he detoxed. We found a little greasy spoon and had dinner. We asked the waitress where the action was on Saturday night. "Well, hon" she drawled, "This bein' Mormon country and all, they ain't no bars, or nothin' round here. For kicks, the kids cruise up and down State Street in their hot-rods."
We followed her directions and headed to State Street. She wasn't kidding. It looked a scene out of "American Graffiti". It seemed like every car, souped up hot-rod or not, was filled with fresh faced Mormon teenagers. The drill went like this: You open your car windows, turn the rock-n-roll radio up loud and drive slowly down State Street. When you got to the end, you did a u-turn and cruised back down the other way. As other cars passed, you checked out the members of the opposite sex. If you thought they were cute, you would yell out some inanity and they would do the same. I must say Terry and I were titillated to see all these young babesters; all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, due to the absence of wicked vices in their lives. We did here one wag tell us, "Mormon girls don't smoke and they don't drink. But that's all they don't do!"
As guests of this fair city and feeling like beings from another planet, we weren't about to find out about that last part. I could just imagine being interrupted "flagrante delicto" with some young honey by her Mormon patriarch father, armed with a pitch fork or worse. So we just cruised up and down a few times and flirted a bit at the stop lights, of which there were many. "Hi! You're kinda cute! You're not from around here are you?" one of the gals said. "No, we're working for the USGS for the Summer." I replied. "We're stationed in Montello, Nevada, about a hundred, or so, miles West of here up route 233." "Montello? You guys are staying in Montello? I passed through there once on a family trip to Idaho. It seemed like a dumpy little place." our flirtatious teen remarked. Luckily the light changed about then and we didn't have to tell her about our humble living arrangements.
While cruising state street, we couldn't help noticing a strange apparition to the north of us. Rising high above the surrounding trees, were these stunning white alabaster towers. From a distance it looked an albino version of the Emerald City. Intrigued, Terry drove us up to get a better look at this etherial castle. Situated in the center of a ten acre park we beheld the magnificent Mormon Tabernacle. This castle, which none other than Frank Lloyd Wright dubbed one of the most magnificent buildings in the country, is ground zero for all things Mormon. The temple park is open to the public and there are tours open to us non-believers. The next day, Sunday, we checked out of our fleabag motel and took the tour. However we were not allowed into the tabernacle itself because of our heathen status. Construction of this temple, also known as the Holiest of Holies, took place in the mid 1800's and it has undergone several upgrades and remodels since. This is also home to the world renowned Mormon Tabernacle Choir. It would not be presumptuous to call this tabernacle the Mormon Vatican.
The acoustics in the main cathedral where the choir sings are reputed to be as good as any modern day opera house or symphony theater. Most Mormons are known for industriousness and thrift. The state emblem is a bee hive and Utah is known as "The Bee Hive State" announcing to the other, less industrious states, just how busy and prosperous Utah's Mormons are.
The church expects members to tithe ten percent of their annual income to the church. This allows the tabernacle to be as resplendent as it is. In order to properly accompany the choir in their cavernous cathedral, the church commissioned a magnificent pipe organ to be built; one that could stand side-by-side with the great organs of the European cathedrals. Below is a picture of this mighty instrument. To get a sense of perspective of its massive size, those little pink things in the foreground are actually the seats where the choir sits. You've got to admit, that is one big honking organ...
Sunday afternoon we bid adieu to the bee hive state and returned to our little humpbacked trailer, suitably humbled by the Mormon Tabernacle experience. We didn't venture out on every weekend. Sometimes we just stayed in Montello. That allowed us to get to know some of the local residents.
We became friends with one family in particular. Mr. and Mrs. Ludwig and their teenage daughter Rita had spent their whole lives in Montello. I don't remember what the mom did but she was employed, as she was the main breadwinner in the family. Mr. Ludwig had been one of the aforementioned railroad maintenance guys till he hurt his back in an industrial accident, thus allowing him to collect a generous disability pension from Union Pacific. This allowed Mr. L, unencumbered by the nuisance of a regular job, to pursue his real passion; gold and silver mining. On one visit to their home, he excitedly took Terry and me out to a little shed behind the house. "This here's my sluice box. I load this up in my pick-up and head out to the dry washes around here and shovel the loose sand and gravel into this here box. Then I shake the box and sift through everything looking for gold and silver. You know it was right here in Nevada that silver was first discovered in this here country at the Comstock load."
Here's a picture of a gold miner using the sluice box method circa 1860. Notice the presence of water. There was no such stream anywhere around eastern Nevada but hat didn't seem to dim Mr. L's hopes...
I didn't think it was polite to mention to Mr. Ludwig that the Comstock load was discovered in Virginia city, on the other side of the state, about four hundred miles away. His wife said that her husband had been diagnosed the year before with incipient emphysema and under Dr.'s orders he was only allowed to smoke three cigarettes per day. With the loss of his job and his smoking habit, the sluice box and the dry stream beds and dreams of hitting it big with gold and silver nuggets was pretty much all the poor guy had to look forward to. That, along with the love and companionship of his wife and daughter.
Rita was about sixteen and had to commute the sixty-five miles into Wells to go to school. She was a pretty typical teen for this area. Despite her long blond hair I would have to say she was average looking at best; a little on the plump side, she was ever vigilant for the next pimple to appear. However she was a good kid and she was a bit awed by having two studly young Stanford boys in town for the Summer. She was fascinated to know what life was like in California; especially in San Francisco. The Summer before had been the famous "Summer of Love" in SF and the locals had witnessed the occasional long-haired hippy hitch-hiking on highway 80.
The owner/manager of our little motel was a friendly sort who welcomed any new strangers to the area. Terry had brought some records with him, including the Beatle's "Sergeant Pepper's" album. He often invited us into his home and he graciously allowed us to play records since we didn't have a record player. We invited Rita and her best friend, Thelma, to join us for a little impromptu record party. "Rita, you're gonna love the new Beatle's album. It's got a song on there about you!" I told her. When we got to "Lovely Rita, meter maid; what would I do without you?" etc., she let out an excited squeal. "Oh my Gawd!", she gushed, "I ain't never heard a song about a Rita before!"
Terry and I huddled briefly and decided that the girls seemed thrilled with the pleasure of our company. We invited them to come join us in our trailer that evening after dinner and we'd have a little party. After dinner, as we waited for our "party dates", I whipped up a pitcher of Sloe Gin Fizzes.
Pretty soon the girls showed up and we all got jolly. We had a grand time chatting up the gals with tales of exotic California college life. After the girlish giggling died down, we indulged in a little make-out session. A grand time was had by all. The girls were curious about college life and asked us if we'd ever smoked pot. We admitted that we had and told them how it made you kind of loopy and light headed and happy. When told his comment by Rita, Mrs. Ludwig gave us a piece of her mind. "I've read all about them pot smoking hippies in San Francisco and I've even seen some of them at the coffee shop in Wells waiting for rides out of town. I read in "The Weekly Reader" where smoking pot can lead to all kinds of trouble. You boys say that pot makes you feel all light headed and happy. Huh! You just think you're happy!"
We apologized profusely to Mrs. Ludwig and promised we would stop trying to corrupt Rita and Thelma or any of the other kids in the neighborhood. (I don't remember seeing any others...). We did have a chuckle about the conundrum of the difference between being happy and just thinking your happy. That became a catch phrase of ours for the Summer. "Hah! You just think your happy!"
Final episode: The Elko Cattlemen's Steakhouse and Topless Bar and being on stage in Big Piney, Wyoming with Beaver Cleaver
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