Salt Lake City, Parting Thoughts
August 22, 2005 | 2 Comments
This story is a bit delayed, but I felt I still needed to get it published. This is my final story in the series related to my trip to Utah. I just wanted to get the rest of my images posted and talk briefly about some of the other cool things we saw.
We took a drive through Mt. Timponogos area which is a fantastic scenic drive including some snow topped mountains which were Sara’s favorites of course. On the way out of the mountains are a series of waterfalls including Bridal Veil Falls in Provo Canyon. Highly recommended scenic drive.
Sara also went to the Salt Lake City Public Library. The library is impressively large. She also too of the best shots we have of the city from the public roof observation area.
One night we took a ride out to Park City where many of the 2002 Olympic Games were held. I wasn’t super impressed with Park City though. It is an expensive area with an over abundance of of art galleries and the like. If you like that type of thing, it is the place for you, but not entirely my cup of tea. What we did see while there that was cool was them filming a scene for Everwood. The best part was standing in a crowd waiting to see “the star.” Clearly, the crowd didn’t know who they were waiting for as Treat Williams walked off the set and quietly up the sidewalk without a single person in the surrounding crowd even noticing. It was then that Sara and I also left, following towards our car and watched him enter his trailer. Hugely funny.
On our last day there we visited the Family History Library which is the home to a huge collection of genealogical information. I turned up a book on the Tirrell family there which was awesome. I intend on blogging that later, so more on this all later. If you visit Salt Lake though, I recommend a few hours here, but do as much of your family tree ahead of tie as you can. A majority of there best data is pre-1900.
As a final point of note, I’ll say that Salt Lake is a very clean and cultured city. I found more entertaining things to see in the area than I had imagined. The Mormons have had a positive effect on the community without being as overbearing as I thought they might be. You can still get beer in most restaurants and that’s all that matters to me.
Although, on that note, local Utah beers are overall a bit bland and not very interesting. I tried four different ones, some at micro breweries and was impressed with none of them. Including an oatmeal stout which is usually exactly what I’m looking for…
Tags: 2002 olympic games, beer, everwood, family history library, micro breweries, park city, salt lake city, scenic drive, timponogos, treat williams, Utah
First Impressions of Salt Lake City
August 8, 2005 | Leave a Comment
As we flew into Utah the first things we could see from the plane were Bingham Copper Mine and Utah Lake. Next we made out Salt Lake City, and then specifically our hotel. Clearly I’ve been spending too much time in satellite view in Google Maps… Soon the Great Salt Lake became overbearingly apparent. The plane also passed over Farmington Bay as we came in for a landing. From the air the “bay” appears more to be salt marshes and flats than an actually useful body of water.
As we left the airport Sara was very pleased by the giant mountins all around us. Finding the Hilton Hotel took mere minutes. I already began to get the impression that finding my way around Utah was not going to be difficult.
After getting settled into the hotel we took a quick trip into the city, only about a 7 minute drive. The city is layed out in a simple to follow grid pattern, however, the street names are a bit rough to get used to. Take a peak at them on Google Maps. You’ll see that most street have to directions in them, ex E 900 S or S 900 E which are entirely different roads. Also there are about 3 major streets named Temple. It’s a tad more confusing than say New York City where numbered streets run one way and avenues the other, or DC where numbers are one way and letters the other. You get the point.
Overall this seems like a cool place, it should be fun.
Tags: Bingham copper mine, farmington bay, google maps, great salt lake, mountains, salt lake city, scenery, Utah
Journey to Utah
August 6, 2005 | Leave a Comment
Getting to Salt Lake is a journey or maybe even a quest for us. We started Friday night by driving down to my parents to leave the cats while we are gone. We stayed there overnight, sort of.
We had to leave at 3AM to make our 5:20AM flight out of Manchester. Of course this was started by our alarm NOT going off at 2:15AM as intended, but rather my failsafe phone alarm getting us up at 2:50AM. Not the cleanest start. Then insult was added to injury as I somehow forgot my glasses as we were leaving. Normally this wouldn’t have been a problem, since we realized before pulling out of the driveway, but today was a special day. We didn’t have keys to get back in the house as my parents hadn’t yet returned from their vacation. I considered waking up my grandmother who lives up the street, but alas I could not bring myself to do it. I had my contacts in a suitcase so I put those in and called it good enough.
At this point you may ask why the glasses really mattered when I have and usually always wear contacts. Well, for the last month the contacts have been bothering me so I took an afternoon off and went this week and bought new glasses specifically to take on this trip so I could take a much needed break from the contacts. I guess that just wasn’t to be.
We got to the airport with plenty of time to spare, but were surprised to find the smallest plane we’d ever had for our first leg, Manchester to Cincinnati. Well, we got on the little plane and realized I’d checked my book, so no reading for me… When we landed in Cincinnati, it was one of those terminals where you walk down the plane’s steps and across the tarmac to get into the terminal. Seriously low end.
The leg from Cincinnati to Colorado Springs was less annoying and I got a few fun airial shots. Go check out the Gallery: Trip to Salt Lake City.
We are now sitting in the small but nice Colorado Springs Airport, enjoying a view of the Rockies and free wireless with great bandwidth. More posts will follow as my journey continues.
Tags: aerial photgraphs, colorado springs, flight, salt lake city, Utah