Utah
Where nature keeps outdoing itself.
Salt Lake City · Moab · Arches · Canyonlands · Bryce Canyon · Zion · Gunnison · Clarion
The Journey
Coming to Utah, we expected beauty. We were still completely unprepared for what we found.
As we landed in Salt Lake City, the snow capped Wasatch Mountains immediately greeted us. Almost everywhere we looked, the city seemed to sit inside a postcard.
We made our way downtown and stayed near Temple Square. It did not take long to realize that we were in Latter day Saint country. Missionaries and church groups seemed to be everywhere, and it felt like another world within our own, something we always enjoy experiencing when we travel.
We walked the beautiful streets, enjoyed the flowers, and saw a show at the Eccles Theater. The little trains moving through downtown, with snow covered mountains rising behind the city, gave Salt Lake City the feeling of some European capital or little Alpine town.
We climbed Ensign Peak, where we stopped and simply took in the entire Salt Lake Valley below us. Utah really is blessed with beauty.
Then we headed south toward the national parks.
Arches National Park was first. We stopped at the visitor center, picked up the girls’ Junior Ranger books, and headed into a landscape that seemed almost impossible.
We arrived around sunrise in the Windows area and watched the first light hit the sandstone, turning the rocks into deep reds and oranges. The sun seemed to peek through the arches themselves. We explored Double Arch and others nearby, stopping constantly because every angle seemed to deserve another photograph. It remains one of my favorite national parks in America.
Canyonlands gave us another view entirely. Standing high above the enormous canyons and looking into a landscape carved over unimaginable amounts of time made us feel very small.
Then came Bryce Canyon. The hoodoos, thousands of tall, thin towers of orange and red rock rising from the earth, looked like something from another planet. Standing there and looking across that landscape was simply insane.
And then Zion. While staying around Colorado City, we returned to Zion more than once. Walking beneath those enormous sandstone cliffs, surrounded by canyon walls rising almost vertically around us, made each visit feel different.
Utah kept doing that. Every time we thought we had already seen the most beautiful part of the state, another landscape appeared and challenged it.
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Jewish Utah
Jewish Utah became one of the most emotional Jewish experiences of our journey.
In Salt Lake City, we visited the historic B’nai Israel synagogue and the former home of Simon Bamberger, Utah’s first Jewish governor and its first governor who was not a member of the Latter day Saint faith.
But the moment that stayed with me most happened far from Salt Lake City.
We went looking for Clarion, a Jewish agricultural colony established in the Utah countryside more than a century ago. Jewish immigrants had come here with the dream of becoming farmers and building a community on the land. By the time we arrived near Gunnison, the sun was already beginning to set.
We were looking for two small Jewish graves left behind by that forgotten community and eventually knocked on the door of an older woman who lived nearby. She seemed surprised to see us. When we explained why we had come, she became emotional.
She got into her car and led us deep into the fields. We passed cows, farmland, and open country until finally, surrounded by mountains and the colors of the setting sun, there they were.
Two little graves. Two Jewish children resting in the middle of the vast Utah landscape.
We stood there and prayed for their souls. We also prayed for the woman and thanked her for caring about a history that was not even her own. She then showed us remnants connected to the old Clarion synagogue.
We sat there and said Shema Yisrael, thinking about the Jews who had once gathered in this remote place to pray, raise families, and try to build a Jewish future.
More than a century later, another Jewish family had found its way back.
For a few moments, Clarion did not feel forgotten anymore.
What Stayed With Me
What stayed with me about Utah was how much natural beauty could possibly fit into one state.
Arches, Canyonlands, Bryce, Zion, snow covered mountains, red rock, canyons, desert, and landscapes that seemed to completely change every few hours.
Whenever I crave rugged nature and that feeling of simply sitting somewhere and being overwhelmed by what is in front of me, Utah is one of the first places I think about.
And one of the first places I want to go back to.
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