The governor said the state was quite diverse, we even have this gay black guy who isn’t a mormon! And a lesbian couple. And you can now buy beer in stores but not wine.
I rate myself to be a notorious Utahphile, despite a lot of skepticism about the LDS faith. We are just back from a two week tour of Utah and Nevada, taking a family member along to show off the scenery. Instead of sister wives, I was with a wife and her sister, who just couldn’t believe how incredible the scenery is in southern and central Utah. I still find it incredible too, after quite a few visits over a long period.
People are generally very nice also, it’s sort of like going back to the 1950s in smaller Utah towns, whereas Nevada has a libertarian new age sort of vibe (except in one or two places that are spillovers from Utah like Panaca).
The scenic beauty of Utah is not quite matched anywhere else but it spills over too, into eastern Nevada, northern Arizona, n.w. New mexico, and western Colorado. We were lucky this trip to find results of the relatively wet winter, in widespread cactus bloom and desert flowers.
The St George - Cedar City (which is considerably cooler in summer) area would be my pick as to where to live, I am not that big a fan of the Wasatch Front (Ogden to Provo), the I-15 is pretty scary to drive with five or six lanes all going about 80-90 and a few drivers doing frequent lane changes, if any two of them randomly decide to do opposite ones, then it’s game over. Also a lot of sudden congestion on the left because a lot of people are merging into the express lane, if I have to drive through there I stick to the middle lanes and try to drive about ten spaces behind a big truck, figuring they can see over top of the traffic and will guide me safely to the far end of the nightmare. As fast as the herd like to go on I-15 in Salt Lake, there are a few who prefer 95-100 mph (I am not kidding) and they inevitably drive large pick up trucks or white SUVs; they weave in and out of the fast flow of regular traffic like eagles in a flock of crows. (or condors in a flock of eagles). I would imagine that they all have that coveted Darwin Award.
I find moab a bit on the Californian side nowadays, but Kanab is a nice little town. We like to base ourselves around mesquite, NV for a good affordable stay, casinos there have good deals for their hotels.
Las Vegas is of course worth one visit per lifetime, but overall the place is a vast urban jungle and large parts are what you could call borderline slummy, also the driving leaves a lot to be desired on the freeways at least. 95% good drivers but 5% terrible. Better odds than in the casino, I would admit.
So Utah may have been undergoing a population boom but 99% of it seems to be in the Salt Lake and St George regions, the rest of the state is pretty much underpopulated and growth seems relatively tame. We drove 100 miles on UT-95 in southeast Utah on a Saturday evening to make it to our stay, and passed a grand total of two cars going the other way.
In the early 1980’s, I was looking to upgrade my career and asked a coworker about Utah as he had just moved from there. He explained that Utah is not one state. He referred to it as Southern Idaho, Eastern Nevada and Northern Arizona. He was there one day when someone knocked on his door with a plate of cookies and to tell him what Ward he would attend. When he told them he had transferred his membership to the local Methodist church, he was placed in the “Polite” group. Everyone was polite but they didn’t push. They apparently didn’t “sheep steal” there. One thing he did tell me was that everything in Utah is beautiful but can kill you. Heat, cold, avalanches, floods, falling asleep at the wheel, etc.