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Ok, I am currently on a month-long odyssey with my parents and myself visting assorted national parks and site of interest on our way to California and then back home to Michigan. So far we have seen Badlands, Mount Rushmore and the Black Hills, Rocky Mountain National Park, Arches National park, Canyonlands, and Bryce National park. It has been enjoyable so far, just more than a week into this escapade. Our future plans include Las vegas, the hoover dam, grand canyon, san diego/los angeles(like, san diego zoo and stuff), meeting up with some family in vegas who's flying in to meet us (we've been touring by large van).
Enough with the backstory and on to the subject. Upon arriving at our hotel in Utah, and relaxing in the pool to hide from the glaring 103 degree heat and waiting for later-in-the-day-light to see Arches park we noticed that we were the only three people of about 18 people in the pool who were speaking English. It seemed that the majority were speaking German, but some may have been speaking something else (dutch? other?). We figured that some group of Germans was staying in our hotel, but the trend of seeing many foreigners continued at the park, expanding to include french, spanish, and "other" speaking peoples. Now, this trend was continued at Bryce today when I was intrigued enough to count the numbers of people speaking English, or other things, I found 99 english speakers, and about 105 foreign language speakers.
Now I hold nothing against there being foreigners at the parks, or anything like that, but what confused me is why is it only here in Utah that we are seeing such high percentages of foreign visitors. In rocky mountain, badlands, mount rushmore, people not speaking english were an oddity. Here in Utah, however, they out-number the natives in the National parks(based on my rough counting).
Sooo... Any idea why such a high concentration of foreign travelers would be found in Utah's national parks, specifically German travelers?
posted
Americans go to Europe to see old buildings. Foreigners come to America to see the scenery. Utah has a LOT of scenery, it is breathtaking, it looks like nothing else on Earth, it is all right next to each other, and there is little other reason to be in a hotel in Southern Utah.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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quote:there is little other reason to be in a hotel in Southern Utah.
True dat.
It might also have something to do with Utah being one of the few places you don't get approached by LDS missionaries every 20 minutes. (They all left utah to proselytize in the other countries.) Posts: 4287 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
Where are you that you get approached every twenty minutes? I think Salt Lake would be the only place in the U.S. where you WOULD, considering Temple Square and the 3/yardsquared missionaries there.
Salt Lake City is the highest-baptizing mission in the United States.
*shrug* Maybe I'm just tired from reading all the Mormon bashing in the comments at the Washington Post.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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The Weak dollar is one of the reasons why I'm considering visiting the U.S. in my next vacation (if this monetary trend keeps on for a few months) instead of Europe. My wife would like to visit a little more of Spain than we could last time, though. Still, if the dollar keeps crazy cheap like it is now, it might help her come around (we could probably stay and eat in nicer places, etc.)
Unfortunatelly, some brazilian friends were mistreated in an American airport 2 years ago and my wife is a bit afraid to go there because of that (yes, I know, she's being silly).
Posts: 1785 | Registered: Oct 2003
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