Smithereens: Gardens, but not of the flower variety

We have this book called Utah Curiosities that lists interesting, cool, little-known, and sometimes just weird places throughout our glorious state. Last Saturday, we decided to hit a couple of those places in Salt Lake that we'd never visited. One I'd categorize as interesting, the other...at the very least, weird.

First, the odd ball.

Just a stone's throw from Trolley Square (you out of staters may remember Trolley Square from the mall shooting that occured there a little over a year ago), is a hidden spot in the backyard of several houses called Gilgal Garden. A guy named Thomas Child lived in one of the houses that borders this garden, and for years in the 40s-60s he brought in huge stones and created sculptures, all with some sort of religious theme. Now since this is Salt Lake City, most of that religious theme has to do with Mormonism.

Here we are perched in front of the sphinx:

"But wait," you say. "That doesn't look like the regular face of the sphinx, Rich."

Why yes, how very observant of you. And that's because, once again, we're not in Egypt, we're in Utah. And the face is?...Joseph Smith, of course. Founder of the Mormon church!

Can you imagine the time this guy put into sculpting and carving this? And this yard is full of stuff like this.

This one is some sort of monument to tradesmen, or masonry, or construction workers, or something. Note the guy's pants are brick. Very stylish. By the way, that's a self-portrait of Thomas Child, at least the head. I don't think he wore brick pants in real life.

A representation of Nebuchadnezzar's dream of the idol in the book of Daniel:

I know...kind of disconcerting. Body parts scattered on a small hillside in a backyard.

And that 's the thing. This is STILL in people's back yards. All the original homes still surround this. There's lots of other sculptures to examine, 12 in all, but here's one more:

And remember, he carved and assembled all these on his own over 50 years ago! The stack of books on the right is the Bible, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price (the last three are Mormon sacred writings, for you non-Utahns).

It was a memorable stroll. Odd, but memorable.

Next we headed a few miles west and just a little south to the International Peace Garden. This was created to help foster peace and create understanding of different cultures, or some such mumbo jumbo.

Basically it's several acres of a park with different areas dedicated to different countries, with various representations of those cultures.

For example, in France, a miniature version of the Eiffel Tower, small enough to put next to your fireplace.

In Switzerland, a remarkably accurate (if by accurate you mean "it looks like a 7th grade science fair volcano") rendering of the Matterhorn with a lovely Swiss chalet at its feet.