As you may or may not know, I recently moved to Salt Lake City to go to graduate school (and to ski). So far, here's my initial impressions on my new home.
THE GOOD
Mountains - If you've never been here, it's hard to describe how impressive the Wasatch mountains are. The largest mountains in this range rise over 7,000 feet above the valley. They are quite impressive, but I've yet to get a decent picture that captures their impressiveness well.
Dry Heat - When it's 99 degrees here, it is hot just like everywhere else; however, it's only bad when you're directly exposed to the sun. If you can just find a light breeze, or just a bit of shade, you immediately feel a huge difference. Back east, the humidity eliminates all chance to escape the heat without air conditioning.
The Evening Canyon Breeze - Every evening after dinner, a stiff, cool, refreshing breeze blows down Red Butte Canyon to the East and just makes the evenings incredibly pleasant.
Sunsets - The summer sunsets paint the valley and the mountains in all sorts of colors. It's quite impressive. And when the sun actually goes down, the valley (which one can see from my apartment) glows with city lights.
Nice People - So far I haven't had the opportunity to meet any Mormon religious zealots, which is a good thing. The people here are quite nice. I don't know if that's a Mormon thing, or not, but it's quite noticeable that people are just a little more pleasant.
World-class Skiing - It's not winter yet, but one of the best things about living here should be the skiing.
Fast-Food Chains - For some reason, we don't have Sonic and Chick-fil-A back east. Those two fast-food chains are my new favorites, by far.
THE BAD
Roads - The Intermountain West is the part of this country that has been developed most recently. So, we have allegedly learned how to improve on the archaic traffic designs of the East. Unfortunately, this means the following:
- 12 lane Interstate super highways (I kid you not)
- 65+ mph highway speed limits even near the city... crazy!
- City streets that resemble superhighways themselves (6 to 8 lane city streets are the norm)
- Medians everywhere; therefore, u-turns
- Double and triple turn-only lanes
- Turn lanes that appear, then vanish, only to reappear
- Multiple lane changes are necessary to get off at an exit or even to just stay on a highway
- Commuter rail traffic right next to all the automobile traffic
THE UGLY
Bottom-Outs - Over 60% of the water residents in the Salt Lake Valley consume comes from snowmelt that trickles down the canyons of the Wasatch Mountains every spring. Given that it is dry as hell here, every drop is precious; therefore, all the roads have those run-off channels. Some of the channels even run across the roads. These channels, however, make this place the "Bottom-Out Capital of the World". If you leave a parking lot going more than 1.4 mph, you will bottom-out your car and you will leave yet another scar on the street from all the other idiots to bottom-out before you.
Road Construction - This city has the most idiotic road construction, ever. All over this place lanes are closed, open, somewhat open--it's just a total mess. I can't understand why it's so difficult to pave a road, but I've been here two weeks and sometimes the exits to I-80 are open, sometimes they're not, and I still cannot figure out what the hell they're doing at the corner of Foothill Drive and Sunnyside Avenue!
The road construction crews out here shut down entire sections of major interstate highways during rush hour! Back east, that would not be permitted at all. In fact, back east, a construction crew engaging in rush-hour interstate highway closures should fear for its life (cars make excellent murder weapons)!