May 2022

The kids just get a week off school for Spring Break but somehow we've managed to work some of our most memorable trips into that short interval. Five years ago we took an extra week to tour Sicily and Malta but since then we've managed to stay within the confines of the school vacation to see Buenos Aires, Louisiana, and Belize. Late March is a great time of year to visit Central America and I had anticipated tackling Costa Rica, but the kids had made so much progress on their second ski trip in Vermont over New Year that we decided it would be a better idea to keep building on it. We had Southwest Airlines vouchers from our canceled trip to Belize in 2020 that would expire over the summer which meant flying to either Salt Lake City or Denver. Denver would have been a direct flight but frankly I'd found the city to be as boring as dirt on our first ski trip at the end of 2019. We'd already been to Salt Lake City as well on our huge Southwest road trip the previous summer but I liked the vibe there more and I had a couple of ideas for things to do on a return visit. Salt Lake City also had a profusion of ski slopes within an hour of downtown that catered to every budget and level of proficiency.

There was a huge price difference between departure days for the flights so I decided to cut our trip down to five days. I figured it wouldn't really matter since three days was as much skiing as I could tolerate and I could only think of a day's worth of other activities in Salt Lake City. It felt strange to be sorting through all our ski clothes again so soon after our last trip. Making sure five sets of ski parkas, ski bibs, balaclavas, goggles, gloves, wool socks, warm hoodies, and long underwear are safely packed is not a trivial task. One large suitcase was full before we even turned our attention to the regular clothes and sundries. The only significant annoyance of the flight out was having to make a connection in Houston. Oddly enough, the first time I ever used the in-flight tracking app was the first time we ever deviated significantly from the planned route on a domestic flight. Instead of heading directly across the Gulf of Mexico to Houston we were headed northwest towards St. Louis and the app showed an arrival time an hour and a half past schedule. I kept expecting to see our flight path curving back south and we kept heading in the same wrong direction. Rather than bother the kids who by now were cocooned in charging cables and ear phones I waited for a flight attendant to come by, an event that didn't take place over the next hour. By then the app showed that we were practically over St. Louis, a huge detour from our expected route. I wondered if our plane was destined to disappear over uncharted ocean like that Malaysian Airlines flight. When an attendant finally passed by I flagged her down with barely suppressed anxiety. She seemed a little puzzled by my question and told me that we were going to be arriving late and an announcement had been made at departure. I was sure I hadn't heard anything. A couple of minutes later the captain came on overhead and said that we'd made a detour due to weather and we'd be arriving a almost an hour and a half behind schedule. This would give us less than an hour to make our connection to Salt Lake City which I could see in the app was scheduled to leave on time.

When we finally arrived we hustled off the plane but fortunately we were in Houston's smaller Hobby airport and our next gate was just a hundred yards away. We still had enough time to grab sandwiches before the next flight. On the news I saw that there had been a storm and even tornadoes in Louisiana that afternoon so clearly our detour had been justified. We had actually been lucky to have such a long layover in Houston that we were never in serious danger of missing our connection but it was another reminder that nonstop flights are almost always the best option.

I hadn't made a dinner reservation for our first night in Salt Lake City, figuring there was a good chance the kids might be sleepy or just beat up from the travel, but everyone seemed in good shape so I made a couple of calls and wound up with a table at Bambara. We picked up our SUV from Alamo and arrived at our Airbnb close to the state capitol uneventfully, quickly dropped off our bags and headed to the restaurant downtown. I generally don't think twice about what I wear to a restaurant in most American cities, especially in Miami, but when I walked into Bambara I felt a little self-conscious about our sloppy travel clothes. The bistro occupied the space of a former bank lobby with a travertine marble floor and a central kitchen that dominated the space. We arrived just half an hour before their closing time so I can't imagine the staff was thrilled to see us but they were very pleasant and didn't betray any sign of annoyance at the sight of the kids. I wasn't surprised when our orders were taken quickly and our food arrived even quicker but we were on the same page regarding getting through the meal with no time to waste. The food was excellent, including creative preparations of regional specialties like elk and salmon. We were thoroughly stuffed after ordering about half the items on the menu and we had an eye-watering bill as a souvenir.

In the morning we took an early leave of the Airbnb and drove a short distance to the Oasis Cafe for breakfast. This was an upbeat little restaurant with a bohemian flair that shared its building with a bookstore. The windows extended from the floors almost to the ceiling which made us feel like we were eating in the atrium of a hotel. We ordered the usual suspects for a filling breakfast such as waffles and breakfast burritos and left quite satisfied.

The fueling up was necessary because we were about to hike to the top of Ensign Peak. This was a trail we'd accidentally discovered on our first visit to SLC over the summer but couldn't attempt because of the triple digit July temperatures. Now that it was March we were dealing with far more comfortable weather for walking. It seemed like an easy hike from what I'd read but I wasn't going to take anything for granted so we packed plenty of water. The trail was steep in a couple of places but it proved to be fairly short and we reached the summit quickly. There were great views of the State Capitol and the short skyline of Mormon office buildings. To the east of the valley were the majestic peaks of the Wasatch Range and to the west were the more modest Oquirrh Mountains. According to local lore when Mormon leader Brigham Young first entered the valley he uttered the words "This is the place", indicating that he believed it was the valley in the Rocky Mountains that their prophet Joseph Smith had instructed him to find. A monument at the summit commemorated the moment in 1847 when Young and eight associates gazed over the empty valley and laid out their visions for a new city. Directly below us were the beautiful mansions of the Ensign Downs neighborhood that we had admired on our last visit. On the way down we noticed a few patches of snow whose heavy contents were perfect for packing. Ian lagged behind with me and was able to surprise his siblings with a snowball in his hand once we were close to the bottom.

We had seen a good chunk of central Salt Lake City on our first visit but somehow we had missed the majestic City and County Building, an enormous Romanesque edifice constructed from blocks of grey Utah sandstone in the late 19th century. It's a building that might have seemed better suited to one of the larger metropolises of England or Germany and was quite surprising to encounter in one of America's less-heralded cities.

We had already knocked out most of the things I could find to do in Salt Lake City on our first visit. All that was left on my list was the city's botanical garden, Red Butte Garden. To visit the garden we had to drive all the way past the University of Utah to the eastern border of the city, where expansion was limited by the rising foothills of the Wasatch front. The garden is designed to merge almost seamlessly with the untouched wilderness of the mountains. It was a pleasant place to explore and stretch our legs but the time of year meant that almost nothing was in bloom so it felt more as though we were in a park than a botanical garden.

We still had time to kill before our dinner reservation in Park City so we decided to stop off at Woodward Park City to check out the facility and look at their snow tubing runs. The kids had enjoyed snow tubing on their first ski trip in Denver but my research had told me that once spring came the quality of the runs deteriorated due to the melting snow. I hadn't wanted to commit to the activity and then find out that we would be dragging our tubes down the last half of the slope. Woodward also has ski slopes although these are geared more towards freestylers. The boys had fallen asleep when we arrived so Cleo and I went inside on our own. As I had suspected the tubing didn't look that great. Hardly anyone reached the end of their runs and I saw lots of people getting out and dragging their tubes. Even so there were a fair number of people lining up to participate. I figured there would be a chance to do it better wherever we went to ski the following winter. The inside of the huge, warehouse-like facility was partitioned into different areas for skateboarding, trampolining, and bike tricks. We watched kids skateboarding over ramps and flipping into a foam pit for a while, which I found somewhat terrifying even though it clearly wasn't particularly dangerous. I'm not sure how I'd feel if any of my kids decided they wanted to get into those kinds of sports.

Since we'd passed on the tubing we arrived in Park City a full two hours ahead of our dinner reservation and I really wasn't sure what to do. It's an attractive, narrow little town surrounded on either side by steep hills. The town originally came to prominence in the late 19th century after large deposits of silver were discovered, but by the mid 20th century the silver was exhausted and Park City was a ghost town. Just thirty years later a new boom developed in the form of recreational skiing and mountain biking and Park City experienced a rebirth. The residential side of town is filled with modest homes on the hillside that might be typical of any small town in the western United States. There's a sharp demarcation at the beginning of the historically-preserved Main Street where the homes give way completely to a profusion of restaurants, boutiques and galleries that characterizes upscale resort cities from Aspen to Sedona. Despite it being so late in the season, the sidewalks were crowded with pedestrians who looked like they had just returned from the slopes. A few had bright pink sunburns, a consequence of failing to appreciate the power of the spring sun at high altitude.

For the next two hours we made our way north on Main Street, sliding into any galleries and shops that looked sufficiently interesting. Much of the artwork in the galleries referenced the town's history with display cases made from antique mining lockers and plenty of silver work. Our favorite establishment was a combination bookstore and gelato cafe that also served up a mean cup of coffee. It was the perfect way to keep up the kids' spirits without messing up their dinner.

Dinner was at Riverhorse on Main, which my research had indicated was the best choice for our single evening in Park City. Not only did the food have a great reputation for quality and creativity, but the entrees included several varieties of local wild meats such as venison, elk, and trout. This would be our second round of elk in two days but as far as we're concerned there's no such thing as an excessive amount of game. For the second night in a row we got carried away with the ordering and we were so preoccupied with making sure that we didn't leave anything too expensive behind that we almost forgot to enjoy the meal.

Once dinner was complete we had a one hour drive via the interstate to Ogden, which would be our home for the next three days as we completed the skiing portion of our vacation.