Destination: SLC

We took a little vacation over the weekend. It was a Salt Lake Extravaganza. Thought I'd share. I'll put pictures in later.

On Friday when Paul got home from work we headed to "This is the Place" Heritage Park. I was surprised at how big it was and it was more interesting than I thought it'd be. We got there about an hour and a half before it was supposed to close, so there wasn't nearly enough time to see and do everything. If you haven't been there, each house has "pioneers" that tell you about the house and then involve you in some kind of activity - carding wool, beating rugs, playing old pioneer games, etc. The kids loved it. To me, the dressed-up pioneers were landmines that were impossible to avoid. We were in a hurry and they had all the time in the world (no clocks, you see.) It was hard to tell the old guy giving the 15 minute speech on how some Ebenezer guy built the church like a ship, to shut it and let us leave already! Actually most of them were fine - that's just my anti-social personality talking.

Now on to the scariest hotel in the valley. I picked the cheapest one thinking - how bad can it be? We'll save money. Note: When a hotel is 30 bucks cheaper than all the others - THERE IS A REASON. The lobby manager was in a security officer uniform - that was our first clue. At the top of the stairs on the way to our room, there was an old broken vending machine, with an overhead fluorescent light that was flickering like it would in a horror movie. That added to the ambience. Our room was tiny and had the worst smell of FART. You'd get used to it and then go out to the van to get something, and as you walked back in it would hit you hard all over again. Paul took a shower and not only did the water reach the height of his stomach, the shampoo bottles had peeling labels like they had been around for years, and were the weight of something very empty. The air conditioning unit had the silence of a freight train and made the curtains billow out and trap all the cool air inside of them. That was one cooled-off window. Too bad for us in the humid fart room. The kids liked the swimming, though, and were thankfully oblivious to the creepy old men standing up on the balcony watching them. And don't forget the 50-year-old lesbian trucker that winked at me and said, "How you doin'?" in her gravelly cigarette-lowered voice. She was probably just being nice, but I still want to think of it as a come-on, just to top off the whole experience.

The next morning we promptly made reservations at a different hotel, and headed to the zoo. Here's a word of advice - when it's 100 degrees outside, don't go to the zoo. You'll be hot. A couple of those exhibits (butterflies, reptiles) are really humid and reminded me of Ecuador. We always romanticize Ecuador and talk of living in South America one day, but this made me remember how much it sucks to be hot and sticky all the time. It really sucks. But the zoo itself is pretty awesome now. They've made things pretty and nice to look at (much different from when I was a child.) It's almost got a San Diego Zoo vibe now. It was fun. Just real hot.
Paul and I were reminiscing about those wax animal figurines you could get from that machine when we were children. Remember that? That was such a highlight. They should bring that back. I remember a big toucan snatching the wax gorilla out of my hand and eating it. Back then I was only concerned with the tragedy of losing my gorilla, but now I'm sure that bird most certainly died and prompted the removal of the wax figure machine. TWO tragedies from one event. (Ok - the bird dying is a tragedy, too - make that three.)

After the zoo we checked into our new expensive hotel, which was WELL worth the money after our previous night. It was all two-bedroomed and two-TVed and had a huge jacuzzi in the room and was clean and SO nice. Well, clean for about 1 hour. Oliver got a hold of Paul's huge bag of kettle corn, and Alex was trying to be helpful by taking it away from him. That would have been great, if only Alex had realized the open side of the bag was facing down. He didn't. So the entire bag of kettle corn spilled onto the floor. He picked most of the big pieces up, but the crumbs were many and quickly tracked through all areas of the room. Aaah - home sweet home. We all had a great time swimming. Oliver is the funniest kid in the pool. He thinks he should be able to swim unassisted like the other kids. He'll be all excited and jump to you from the side of the pool, but scream angrily the SECOND your arms catch him. He likes to play on the steps and walk down each step all confidently until the water finally gets to his mouth and he begins to drown, but he SCREAMS when we pick him up and save him from death. He's the silliest.

The next morning I made Paul go with Maddie to the Music and the Spoken Word taping. They don't allow kids under 8, so I stayed with the young'uns at the hotel. I read on the website what the program was going to be and knew it was musically right up Paul's buttcheeks - I mean alley. They did two songs he absolutely LOVES, and he really enjoyed it, so I'm glad he went. I wanted to tour Temple Square with all the kids, but Paul complained and didn't want to. I gave in with only minor fighting, because the thought of walking around in the heat again made me want to cry. So we ended up going to Cabela's, of all places. It was pretty cool, but not really a vacation highlight. We were basically killing time until Jaime got home from church so she could tend Oliver while we went to Boondocks. Yes, it was Sunday, but Boondock's was also blessedly uncrowded. It was really fun that I got to do stuff for a change, without Oliver there. Thank you Jaime! I was a little bit saddened to find that I'm now too old to enjoy the race cars. They just don't do it for me anymore. Sad. But laser tag is still fun. Whoo-hoo! Solidly middle-aged!

Wow - that was kind of an exhausting trip. Glad to be home, but it was nice to get away for a bit.