Utah, of course!
Six years ago I traveled to the great, mostly empty state of Utah a few different times to visit our friends Sue and Adam who had recently moved out there from Southern California. The first time I went to Utah to visit them in Layton, a suburb of Salt Lake City, we drove. When Sue gave me directions to get to her house she told me
” Get on interstate 15, drive 600 miles, and make a left.” Once you leave the glitter of Las Vegas, Nevada behind, there is almost nothing for the next six hours before you drive through Salt Lake City. Utah is nothing but empty desert with a few little towns here and there on the way. I guess its nice. If you like deserts.
And Mormon’s.
And prohibition laws
Yea Utah!
Doing this drive a few times convinced me I never need to do it again. This very long desert drive convinced me that next time I went to Utah, I would be flying.
In March 2006 six of us friends decided to visit Sue and Adam in Utah. Sarah and I flew out together from California, and everyone else drove out. Well Steven and Jenny had to drive because Steven had just made the first batch of his home brewed beer, and he had to bring the case of beer out for this trip. More about the beer later…
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| Steven’s super good gassy brew |
The Sue and Adam’s house in Utah was pretty awesome. It was like four bedrooms, with a huge backyard and a downstairs that Adam had turned into a movie theater with projection screen. When the they moved to the “Tah in 2005 our close group of friends were devastated. They were the first good friends to move far away. Well, Ryan lived in San Luis Obispo but that was only a four hour drive, hardly anything. California is just really expensive, and Adam has family near Salt Lake, so they sold their house in Colton and traded in sunny 100 degree smog riddled So Cal for Mormons, real seasons, More Mormons, and lower housing costs. After a few months we had to make a group visit. All of us missed the them so very much. Most of my friends ski, so it was decided we would do a “Tah ski trip, and I would suck it up, and at 25 years old finally learn how to ski like real mountain folk.
Sarah and I departed from sunny hot Cali on a typical warm, smoggy March afternoon. When we landed in Salt Lake City, Utah it was still winter. The trees were bare, the ski was gray and winter was here, cold wind, snow and all. Good thing I love, love, love the cold! The town they lived in was a suburb ten minutes to the north of Salt Lake City. Ten minutes outside of the biggest city in the “Tah, and we felt like we were in the middle of the countryside! Lots of houses had horses, the lots were huge and spread out, and oh yeah, being Utah of course there was a church on every corner. Literally, some church’s were across the street from each other. You can tell the Mormon churches because they do not have crosses out front.
These first pictures are from when Steve, Jenny and Ryan had just shown up at Sue and Adam’s house, and they had an awesome surprise for us… A for sale sign in their front yard! They had enough of the “Tah and they were coming home to Cali! That’s why we all look so happy in these pics. Not only because we are all together, but Sue and Adam were coming back!
The first thing we did, was toast to an awesome weekend with Steven’s first batch of homemade beer. It was a Belgian White, and it was really good. To bad that beer gave us all the worst gas ever. The weird thing was, our gas all smelled exactly the same. This is the trip where I earned my Manber nickname. While the girls were doing girl things (I still don’t know what those things are) I was drinking beer, burping and farting with the boys)
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| Steven and Ryan at Snowbird/ Alta |
Our second day in Utah it was time to hit the slopes. We drove out of town towards Alta Snowbird on Highway 160. It was snowing when we left. Being from the mountains I’m used to the snow, but not at freeway speeds. Utah is pretty crazy, they might not drink, but they are okay with driving 80 on the freeway in a blizzard! We headed towards the town of Brighton and there was a ton of snow! More snow then I had ever seen before in my life! It came up to the roofs of houses! It was an incredible thing to see.
My friends had warned me that it might be easier if I tried snowboarding rather then skiing, and Jenny, Sarah, and Hiroe were not experts at snow boarding either so they hung out with me for a while while I tried to learn.
Once again, let it be noted, I suck at sports. Yes, all sports. I give snowboarding an epic fail in my book, but at least I tried, right? After a few hours of miserable attempts on my part, I gave up entirely and ended up using the snow board as a sled to go down the mountain. That was fun! Luckily as I slid down the mountain on my snowboard/sled yelling
“Weeeeee!” There were no other snowboarders around to get mad at me. There was hardly anyone actually snowboarding near us. It was nice. For awhile I just sat on the top of the hill and watched the falling snow over the mountain tops. It was so pretty and peaceful. At any mountain in Southern California in the winter the slopes would be packed with snowboarders yelling at me for using my snowboard like a sled, so I give Snow Bird/Alto a huge plus for uncrowded-ness.
At some point I made my way down to the lodge and had some tasty chili. That’s when Steven and Ryan showed up. Check out Steven’s hair looking awesome! They politely told me I would be walking home. Uh oh, I forgot, I’m not allowed to have chili. Which explains this picture of Adam locking me out of the car.
Luckily my friends declined to leave me in Brighton forever. (Because they kind of like me!) And I was making dinner. We went back to Layton, had some more beer so everyone else would have some ammo, and we made some pretty tasty beef and corn burritos for dinner.
The next morning Adam made his famous waffles, and full of carbs we headed out for a day at Antelope Island. Antelope Island has buffalo roaming everywhere! You are not spose to chase them with your car or antagonize them, but well, we did both. Until Adam found this nice deer to take advantage of. Poor Bambi didn’t know what hit him! I’m so glad I could be there to witness Adam taking Bambi’s virginity. It was a defining moment in our friendship?
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| Bambi got over it |
And after that night out, we were ready to see what Utah was all about.
Jesus.
“We were going to the temple.
Gonna get Mormon.”
Usually those lyrics are sung to the tune of the Crystals Oldie, Going to the Chapel Gonna get Married, but this is how we sing it, “Tah style!
Take it from me, Mormon’s in Utah do not appreciate it when you take a ton of pictures of you and your friends high fiving and hugging Jesus in the Mormon Temple.
I don’t think Utah wants us back.
Ever.
As you can see by this last Utah pic, Adam is very confused by Utah… and he lives there!
Our last evening in the “Tah we climbed on the roof of Sue and Adam’s house and watched the sunset over the majestic Mormony state of Utah. We would be leaving our friends the following morning, but we did it with happiness in our hearts. A fantastic vacation was ending but they were coming home to California, Yea!
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| Where the buffalo roam… |