Mormons, Mojave

This painting hanging at the Mormon Temple in St. George shows the temple, circa 1870, standing alone in an area that is now a city of almost 140,000 people. 140-plus years later, it still dominates a now-modern skyline.

FIRST THE MORMONS, THEN THE MOJAVE

After a full day exploring Zion and a wonderful meal and visit with my hosts, Tom and Linda, I was early to bed. The next morning, I hit the road before lunch, with my interim destination Sin City, Las Vegas, 120 miles-or-so to the southwest, sandwiched between stops at the Valley of Fire and the Hoover Dam.
Upon my return to St. George, my paramount concern was to get the truck out of the shop and back on the road, after a stop at a spot I promised myself to make long ago.

Mormon Temple in St. George.

After some questions involving the overdrive override switch for the truck transmission, I settled all debts in St. George, Utah and hit the highway, heading back to Orderville to to pick up the trailer and eventually heading west.
You see, the override switch was the culprit in the transmission troubles, having burned out long ago and taken the dashboard warning light with it. As explained in a simple fashion to me by Scott, the boss at the garage, the overdrive override governs the engine’s output by computer and its ruin led to the transmission’s failure and the eventual expense of much time and treasure for its replacement. Now I don’t know from overdrive, but Scott said, without the automatic override, the transmission would have failed eventually and, he added, “Towing a trailer, you never had a chance!”
There was a possibility that I would have to wait ‘til the first of the week to leave, as an override switch replacement couldn’t be located in town. Scott suggested I could get the trailer and travel over to Las Vegas and have a switch installed there, but I wouldn’t consider the transmission overhaul completed without the switch put in place here. I volunteered to drive over to Las Vegas in the rental car to retrieve one, but a switch was found locally. My wallet was considerably lighter, but all’s well that ends well.
I made time for the promised stop and visited the huge Mormon Temple in town, and spent several hours chatting up various folks there.
I wasn’t interested in changing religions, which did disappoint the missionaries, but instead, as I explained, I held a healthy curiosity about the faith, and its connection to the current news cycle, given Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney’s impending (2008) presidential quest, the controversy surrounding renegade fundamentalist bigamist leader Warren Jeffs, who then occupied a prime spot on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted List and now a federal prison cell, and HBO’s then-new hit serial, Big Love, which, set in Utah, detailed the triumphs and travails of a bigamist family.
When I showed up at the temple, I was assigned a 20-something woman as my guide. She seemed to enjoy my irreverency, and my accent, for the most part, as I compared Mormon rituals to the ones I was brought up with as she showed me around the exhibits inside the visitors center (the temple itself is off-limits to non-believers). Oh, the laughs we had! Soon, we were joined by another 20-something female guide. Double the audience, double the laughs.
But, as I soon had to explain to them, Mother Nature and Father Time, perhaps my true gods, were calling and it was time for my to hit the road. I really enjoyed Utah and its residents. As a fellow I was to meet several weeks later in Oregon told me, "The Mormons? They won't steal from you. They won't stab you in the back." I can second that. After about three weeks in the state, I found Mormons on the whole to be industrious calm, welcoming folks, perhaps a tad too serious at times, but always pleasant and patient to a fault. No small feat, considering everywhere I went I asked a zillion pesky question in a presumedly foreign tongue.
I then drove the 85 miles north to Orderville,Utah once again traversing through Zion National Park, and rescued the trailer from where it sat for the past five days.
There didn’t seem to be anyone around the trailer park/thrift shop to inform when I smelled smoke as I was leaving. I then saw that the ranch-style fence fronting the property was full afire. I kicked down the burning fence and snuffed out the flames, ruining a new pair of sneakers in the process. Not to worry though, as one good turn deserves another: the woman who owned the property was very fair to me about a storage rate on Memorial Day, even though it was apparent I was desperate after the transmission turned to toast.
It was now around dinnertime, so I decided to avoid Zion’s steep winding canyons and instead drove north then west through the beautiful Cedar Breaks National Monument . This area contains fabulous cliffs and rivers among the abundance of cedars. It still had a decent snow pack and was full of white-tailed deer. The climb up through it offered the new transmission a stiff test, especially over Summit Mountain (elev. 9,633 feet). I could only get one radio station up here. It came in clear as a bell and, strangely, it was an Oldies signal from Odessa, Texas, between 900-1,000 miles away to the southeast as the crow flies.
I found an area there to coop in for the night and early the next morning was back on the highways, bound for Southern California. Down the shimmering ribbon of road I went, windows wide open, the breeze the only relief from the 110-115 degree temps. Through St. George again I went and then the fabulous Virgin River Gorge , a scenic 12-mile canyon leading to the Utah-Arizona Border. Out over the ribbon of road in the Mojave Desert I continued, bound for southern California. Driving all day, my destination Escandido, northeast of San Diego, I touched four states, first Utah, then Arizona and Nevada with finally the bulk of the miles coming in California...

Vegas was near and music was in the 114-degree air at Baker, a desert truckstop in the Mojave.