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: