Salt Lake City Ski Trip-  December 2004

I recently went on a ski trip to Salt Lake City with Jill and Bill.  The trip got off to a bad start.  While walking up to the ticket stand in Des Moines, JP realized he had forgotten his wallet!!  The flight was due to take off in 40 minutes.  If anyone saw a flash of white on Thursday afternoon, it was probably JP's car flying through Des Moines.  JP made it back to the airport in time- just in time to wait in the security line with Jill.  We told Bill to go ahead, just in case we didn't make it on the plane.  Jill got held up in security because of one of her bags, but they wouldn't tell her what they were searching for.  They had already boarded everyone on the flight, except us two.  After a while, they finally said they were looking for something that looked like a nail file.  There was a small one hiding in one of the compartments in her bag.  Luckily we made the flight in time.  Bad things always happen in threes, and so far there had been two.....

We arrived at our hotel in SLC late.  The hotel was nothing like it looked in the pictures on Expedia.  It was fairly cramped, but we decided to make due, until....  Saturday morning about 5:00AM JP and Jill were woke up by what sounded like someone taking a shower upstairs.  We could hear the water going through the pipes.  This went on for quite a while, which seemed strange.  Finally, the sound got much louder.  Something was not right.  JP turned on the light, and Jill said there was water coming out of the bathroom.  The bathroom had a broken pipe and the room was flooding!!!  Unfortunately, this hotel wasn't the best- there was no one at the office until 7:00AM.  JP called the night answering service using a call-box, but it was a recorded message.  Bill finally found the shut off, but the place was a mess.  That was enough for us- at 7:00 we told the office lady we were leaving.  The Residence Inn gladly took us in and said they would have a hot breakfast waiting.

Strangely, SLC was covered in a thick fog most of the time we were there.  The mountains were just fine, as the fog was only in the valley.  Above is a view of the switchbacks at Snowbird- coming off of the gondola.  Also is a pic of Jill and JP at the backside of the mountain, known as Blue Sky Basin.  Below is the Mid Gad chalet on SnowBird, where we had lunch.

On Monday, we had some time to kill before our flight.  We took a short trip around Salt Lake City.  One stop was the new Library, which was designed by Moshie Soffdie.  We were able to make it onto the roof garden and saw most areas of the building.  The main atrium had a mobile-sculpture of a human head made of small books and butterflies.  There were many glass walkways and handrails near the atrium.  These were very un-nerving, as you felt like you could fall.