You may think that Salt Lake City, headquarters of the LDS Church, is Mormon Central, but actually it's 50% Gentile. To get to real Mormon country, where alcohol and coffee are as rare as Methodist Churches, where, everyone is into genealogy (so they can convert their ancestors), and where almost all young men spend two years after high school as missionaries (with or without their shirts), you have to hhead south to Utah Lake. The west side is all mountains, but the east side is cluttered with Mormon towns.
1. Lehi sounds like a character from the Book of Mormon,but it's actually a place in Judea where Samson slew some Philistines with a donkey's jawbone. Its main tourist attraction is Thanksgiving Point, a museum-recreation complex with a golf course, a working farm, and the Museum of Ancient Life (which displays fossils but says nothing about evolution).
There are two high schools, Lehi and Skyridge.
2. The ritzy suburb o
f Highland increased its population by 2000% between 1970 and 1980. Its high school is called Lone Peak.
3. American Fork was the site of the first Mormon settlement in Utah, before they got to Salt Lake City. It's the site of Timpanagos Cave National Monument, which is not nearly as extensive as Mammoth Caves in Kentucky.
The American Fork team is called the Cavemen.
4. What can you say about a town named
Pleasant Grove? There are twelve LDS wards and a fundamentalist church called the Truth of God. Followers must feel severely outnumbered. There's also a restaurant called the Holy Grill.
So you can invite a Pleasant Grove Viking to a service at the Truth of God, followed by a burger at the Holy Grill. That's quite an unusual date.
5. Orem is named after railroad magnate Wallace C. Orem. It's nicknamed "Family City USA" because of all the Mormons, who are into having lots of kids. The median age is 24, about 10 years younger than the U.S. in general, which I suppose is good if you're into Mormon twinks.
It has a bar called the Hitching Post for Mormons to get their alcohol on.
Three high schools and Utah Valley College.
Orem is 0.9% black. Where did they find a black guy for the swim team?
I like Timpanagos High. Clever how they take the initials THS and build them into the word "Toughness."
6. Provo, 112,000 people, almost all Mormon or ex-Mormon, the home of BrighamYoung University, which draws 33,000 students from all over the world. Where else would Mormon youth want to study? Unless you are gay, of course. Gay people are verboten throughout Mormon country.
I couldn't find any beefcake photos of BYU athletes, except for this old one of a bulgeworthy wrestling team of yesteryear.
And this one of the tennis club on a shirtless hike. I had to block out the kids. There are always little kids in Mormon photos.
