The Adventures of Samantha & Paul

Ah, its been a week now since I returned from the US, UTAH and the West­gate Resort in Park City. I’ve just about recov­ered from the 7 hour time dif­fer­ence, which was com­pounded by a 24 hour day of trav­el­ing includ­ing a har­row­ing down the moun­tain drive in heavy snow, two flight con­nec­tions (Detroit and Min­neapo­lis) and a 2 hour coach trip from Heathrow back to St Albans. I’m also not a Mormon.

Head­ing over appeared eas­ier on paper, short flight to CDG, Paris then an 11 hour Air France flight to Salt Lake City (do not go to the Trav­elodge near Heathrow and cer­tainly do not taste their food — if you must there is a nicer look­ing pub just around the cor­ner). Look­ing online before­hand we noted the movies we wanted to watch, etc. Unfor­tu­nately the flight was with an Air France part­ner, Delta, with­out a sophis­ti­cated in flight enter­tain­ment sys­tem — instead giv­ing us in the aisle air­ings of the awful “Lit­tle Miss Pet­ti­grew Lives for a Day” and “Kung Fu Panda”, leav­ing 7 hours to spare. No doubt the com­pli­men­tary Kro­nen­bourg 1664 helped the trip go a lit­tle faster. All in all it felt like a short haul flight — just really really long. Leav­ing the dull Lon­don 12C we were treated to a bask­ing 88F on arrival, where we picked up our 4x4 Suzuki rental and pro­ceeded towards Park City in the mountains.

With a lit­tle time to spare before we col­lapsed in a heap of jet lag, we nipped to Ruby Tuesday’s at the Kim­ball junc­tion for our first dose of Amer­i­can din­ing along­side the odd tip­ping cul­ture and the first of the auto-free refills — auto in that they always come back to fill you up. Dr Pep­per, overly salted fries and a glo­ri­ous Bison burger with ranch sauce nes­tled nicely in my tummy when I slipped into an uncon­scious 11 hour nap, bring­ing me nicely into Utah time.

Our rooms were con­joined at the wall, with handy inner door, to form a cozy, large and homely ‘mega room’ of dupli­cates. Full kitchen, half kitchen, washer dryer, one of those ‘garbage dis­posal’ grinders, bal­cony, three sofas, one jacuzzi, one shower with steamer and seat, one bath, four tele­vi­sions each with cable, a large din­ing table, lux­ury bed robes, two safes, two king sized dou­ble beds and to wrap it all off a free news­pa­per in the morn­ing (USA Today)! We were also treated to a heated half in-half out pool with two hot tubs aside it, pool tables, table ten­nis tables and a bas­ket­ball net. Though most of my hol­i­days are about get­ting out and see­ing as much of the cul­ture as pos­si­ble, on the days we had noth­ing planned or didn’t feel like going too far, these facil­i­ties made stay­ing ‘at home’ a lot more enjoyable.

First stop, Wal­mart and then Smiths for much needed gro­ceries, bagels, drinks and Peanut But­ter M&Ms! After a green chili and cheese bagel and some­thing I pre­fer to call plas­tic yel­low rather than cheese fill­ing, we nosed around Park City’s old main street, with a lit­tle bit of shop­ping and a gan­der at some pup­pies in an antiques store with old native, hunt­ing and ski­ing mem­o­ra­bilia. Eleanor cooked a very tasty roast for din­ner, though she was too tired to eat most of it.

Day 2 and the Indian sum­mer con­tin­ued as we drove down the val­ley into Salt Lake to pick up a map, visit the “This is the place” mon­u­ment and carry on towards a small Mall with a ter­ri­ble food court and Ante­lope Island. The island sits in the mid­dle of the great lake and is home to a herd of Bison, ‘wave cut plat­forms’ and a lowly lit­tle ranch with some infor­ma­tional plaques. The sec­ond shot below was tak­ing from the eat­ing point where we enjoyed some juicy refresh­ments before head­ing home.

Wednes­day became an out­let store shop­ping trip com­plete with red Vans shoes, a lot of relax­ing, some pool side sun­ning, swim­ming and a meal at the local Good Thymes. Home cooked bread and but­ter, Brie and Roasted Chicken Que­sadilla and Down South Nachos prior to some local Rain­bow fresh water trout; all lovely but shame about the over pep­per­ing. The meat loaf was also palatable.

With morn­ing pan­cakes and syrup I packed my bag for a trip up Mount Tim­pano­gos to view the caves. Of course, no one else in my fam­ily was up to the 1300ft hike up the paved track, so I did it alone. The thin windy road towards the entrance of the path granted stun­ning beau­ti­ful views of the moun­tains and foliage com­plete with autum­nal colours — at the cost of nail bit­ing cor­ners; Eleanor was hav­ing none of it and was later glad to escape to the safe con­fines of another shop. Mean­while I trekked up the moun­tain­side for 90 min­utes, past sheer drops, rat­tlesnake habi­tats, chip­munks and spray painted red areas you aren’t allowed to stop in, to reach the three large cave sys­tems at the top. Through the ragged lime­stone for­ma­tions, out the other side and back down in half an hour and I rejoined the troupe. In the evening we met a local named Elaine and her fam­ily in Ogden where we were treated to turkey and other tasty treats. Back at home I caught the high­lights of the Vice Pres­i­den­tial Debate, impressed by Biden.

The week­end brought with it rain, lots and lots of rain. In it we drove around Heber City and up the mon­u­ment for those in the region that have fought in wars, before going down the val­ley and stop­ping at Uni­ver­sity Mall to buy yet more things — Eleanor find­ing that Nord­strom had in stock some beauty prod­ucts she’d been look­ing for.

Luck­ily enough, the sun made its return on Mon­day in time for a day out with an old friend of Stuart’s; from peanut but­ter and jelly sand­wiches and views of the Wabash front we were taken down into Salt Lake to see tem­ple square and the other lat­ter day saints mon­u­ments and the view from the top of state street. Then a stop off at Rocky Moun­tain Choco­late Fac­tory, a quick trip to the air field to see the air­craft he pilots ($25m Chal­lenger) and back home for a fine BBQ and a game of Ticket to Ride with the family.

After Stu­art hurt his ankle, prob­a­bly play­ing table ten­nis with me, the rest of us drove down to Heber (after top­ping up the rear tire with a lit­tle bit of air, fol­low­ing the prompt on screen warn­ing we were given) to go on the val­ley rail­way. We didn’t get the steam train, instead a more force­ful look­ing engine, and for $30 we each rode down into the val­ley. Hav­ing dri­ven this route a cou­ple of times now this wasn’t the most exhil­a­rat­ing of trips though it did give a wel­comed break to the road, and from the rear cart, which was open to the ele­ments, you could see the snow capped moun­tains (they had a dust­ing overnight it seems) and the autumn leaves.

That evening we tried out the Hapa Grill; a sushi bar. Here I was treated to a very tasty thai beef salad; the beef and crushed peanuts really did the trick. I also took the oppor­tu­nity to intro­duce mum and Eleanor to the won­ders of sushi, start­ing first with the much loved Cal­i­for­nia Roll (crab, cucum­ber and avo­cado) and later try­ing the Eel which didn’t go down too well. Stu­art of course stayed well away from it all; instead stick­ing to his faith­ful root beer and refills.

It was about this time that Eleanor devel­oped a severe pain in one of her rear teeth, lead­ing to severe agony, many painkillers, sleep­less nights and an even­tual trip to a den­tist on our last Fri­day. For $350 we found out that her root canal was infected, needed clean­ing out and refill­ing. Loaded with pow­er­ful but nau­se­at­ing painkillers, antibi­otics, a syringe and some X-rays, Eleanor made it through the rest of the hol­i­day dosed up, docile and puffy faced. Though noth­ing but pos­i­tive things to say about the den­tist she saw.

That kind of put a damper on our plans for the end of the week; later that day Eleanor caught up on her sleep whilst we vis­ited the Utah Olympic park; I con­ceived of many ways to beat the ball bear­ing slalom games at the vis­i­tor cen­ter and get the top scores before check­ing out the freestyle ski jumps and the bob­sleigh run from a distance.

We ate at Squat­ters along the way from West­gate towards PC, the Polygamy Porter ale was scrump­tious but the food was dis­tinctly lacking.

Fri­day turned bit­terly cold and with Sat­ur­day came snow. A cou­ple of inches falling in just an hour. Armed with a list of tar­gets to be met, we set off with a mis­sion; first head­ing North to a “Super Tar­get”, then back down through Salt Lake, Provo and even­tu­ally Ogden, to visit a proper Steak­house and see Elaine again; Eleanor and I opt­ing to do some last minute shop­ping and pick­ing up some fan­tas­tic bar­gains in Aero­postale. The suc­cu­lent 9oz filet with jacket potato was deli­cious. Before pack­ing we made one final stop at Wal­mart for treats and the Vans out­let so I could buy 3 more pairs of radi­ant but glo­ri­ous shoes at cheap cheep prices.

More overnight snow led to our death defy­ing down the moun­tain trek into Salt Lake to catch our 8:30am flight, where the lanes were unclear, the tracks hard to fol­low and the car ready to escape from beneath us, though help­fully warn­ing of icy con­di­tions. Through mum’s excel­lent dri­ving and nerve we made it to the rental drop off point, boarded our plane and we were fly­ing away home, this time with in flight enter­tain­ment (Indy 4, Must Like Dogs and The Baker) and empty seats to lie down on — oh what a dif­fer­ence it makes.

The end.

P.S. … Pump­kin Ale is disgusting:

And this guy is really cool looking: