It’s been a week since I last wrote and we’ve had a lot of fun enjoying Utah and skiing. We picked up our rental car, visited downtown Salt Lake and spent several days on the slopes. We leave Salt Lake tomorrow and move up to Park City where we will be for 12 days.

Getting the rental car was easy - we have a cute silver Equinox with all-wheel drive that is great for the snow and ice. We drove around the downtown a bit before parking and heading over to the Temple Square. There is a lot of building going on in Salt Lake City - it seems everywhere buildings are fenced off and cranes abound.

Temple Square was a bit disappointing this time around. They are retrofitting the foundation on the Temple itself. Apparently SLC is fairly active seismically and a fault line runs through the city. The Temple is a huge granite edifice and they have had to dig deep and wide to get to the foundation, where they are apparently installing rollers (this from one of the many nice young girls that are there at the Square to greet you and answer questions). We did check out the construction, which is impressive. Most of the Square is fenced off and what wasn’t fenced was covered in snow. We saw the assembly hall, a nice building, and went inside the Tabernacle, a first for me. Inside we arrived in time for an organ recital and we enjoyed that for a few songs before moving on. With all the construction, “peaceful” was no longer a word I could use to describe the scene.

We had a quick lunch at a just-so place, then took a drive up to Park City to check out the RV park we will be staying at next. It’s a lot smaller than the KOA we are at currently, but cute and inviting. There was a lot of snow on the ground so one concern has been how easily we will be able to get in and get parked. However, since that day we have had nice weather and even a day that was almost 60°!

The sign at Alta ski resort. — The sign at Alta Ski Resort

Tuesday was our second day here and we headed up to Alta to ski. The weather was just OK and it was really cold - 22° or so. I was dressed like I normally do for Tahoe and I was a bit chilled. I did a few runs but the last one I was getting disoriented - it was snowing and there were very few trees. At one point I thought I was moving until I realized I was standing still! That was mainly up on the higher areas, down below visibility was better. My legs quickly got sore - it’s been two years since I last tried to ski. On our way back to the KOA we found a nice market - Harmons. We found nice pre-cut veggies, a fantastic loaf of sourdough bread from their bakery and a few other items we needed. I normally eschew pre-cut veggies, but in the small kitchen we have, little things like that make a big difference.

I took Wednesday off to get some work done - mostly year end bookkeeping. Van skied at Snowbird and had a great time, though he said the snow was more wet than he’d expected. It made sense - it had warmed up and it poured rain outside of Cookie most of the day.

Thursday we went to Snowbird and I skied a few runs, but again, not my best. I was an OK blue skier but I was definitely having trouble with turns. Still, I had fun. The snow, an additional 14” had fallen overnight, was wet and heavy. I tired quickly and headed back to the car for a while to rest while Van continued skiing for a while.

Friday we decided to try Solitude. It is supposed to be less crowded than Alta or Snowbird, and it being a Friday, we thought that a good idea. For crowds, it was. For my skiing it wasn’t a great choice. I started the day tired from the previous days' skiing, plus a neighbor’s car alarm woke me out of a deep sleep. We took our first lift and skied down several blues only to find I was completely over-faced. The weather was perfect - sunny, warm; the slopes way too steep for me. Two falls and a sketchy way to the bottom and I was almost completely done, breaking down into tears after the second fall with more than half the slope still to get down. We made our way over to the green lift and found some runs that I could manage without feeling like a complete beginner. I did those a few more times but I was exhausted, both emotionally and physically, from the earlier run and ended my day early.

Friday night we had dinner with some folks that were supposed to have had a tasting appointment at Witching Stick on the day we ended up leaving on this trip. They invited us to dinner at their home and we brought along some wines to taste. It was fun to go to someone’s home in this town; they are a young couple with two small children and a super sweet puppy. They invited two other friends which added to the fun. All were vaxxed, so we felt very comfortable. The food was delicious and we ended up having a very nice evening.

Saturday we decided to try skiing at Brighton - they were supposed to have a good amount of green terrain I could ski. We were warned to get their early as the parking lot filled up quickly, so we left early in the morning. Unfortunately, there was an accident on the road up to the resorts (there are two roads in, Big Cottonwood and Little Cottonwood; the first goes to Solitude, Brighton and some others, the second goes to Alta and Snowbird) and we ended up sitting in very slow moving traffic for a long time. We should have arrived at around 9:00 AM, instead, it was almost 10:00 AM. We decided to forgo Brighton and go to Solitude instead as it was the closer to us and to skiing.

Some of the slopes at Solitude. — Some of the slopes at Solitude

It was great to get to ski familiar terrain; I spent an hour and a half on the same runs as Friday. The weather was beautiful again and I was dressed accordingly. I ended up having a good time, no falls and no tears this time. Van went to try different runs and see if there were any more friendly blues, but he wasn’t able to find any. I’ve resolved to stick to greens for now - obviously Utah’s slopes are much steeper than Tahoe’s and I need to enjoy this trip too. We left early so we could get some more shopping in - fresh veggies and salad makings were in order. We had hoped to catch lunch at a restaurant our new friends had recommended but it was closed. We had originally wanted to go on Sunday for an early dinner before going to see Hamilton, but like most things in Utah, it is closed on Sunday.

Today, Sunday, has been catch-up day for things like laundry and work. I did the laundry while working on this article and Van did a bunch of his year-end stuff. We are planning on an early dinner of lamb grilled here before we head out to see Hamilton downtown. Tomorrow we pack up and head to Park City. More adventures to come.

A week in Salt Lake City