The Setup
A few years ago I started skiing. As an old man, starting skiing after 40 is a gamble to say the least. We stuck to small local hills, by and large. Eventually I made it to Tremblant, then some of the bigger NY and then VT places.
During that time, I stopped renting and got myself some equipment of my own. The idea of going on a ski trip was always there, but my skills, or lack thereof, always made it an iffy proposition. Why go if I’d be miserable?
Well we are finally here. Spring 2023, at the ripe old age of 51, I’m going on my first possibly epic ski trip. Utah for 6 days of skiing. The destinations & order are TBD. We’ll get there when we get there.
The Plan
The plan is to wake up at 4, get an Uber at 5 for the flight at 7:20. Then in Utah we land late morning, get a car, grab lunch & coffee, do some food shopping for the week, then head to the rental and get settled in.
Ideals.
Reality
Well the Uber was cancelled by 4:30 so we decided to drive, which meant taking the rack & box off the truck. As soon as we left the house, I realized we had no gas so we had to take 2 detours to find a gas station that was open. D found a parking lot that was cheaper than the Uber.
I dropped them at the departure deck of terminal A, then went to park the car and take the shuttle over. When I got there, they had checked bags and were waiting for me at TSA.
The rest of the airport journey was uneventful. We grabbed some bagels at Zarros, then made it to A17 to wait for boarding. The terminal used to be old & runfown but United has started taking this over and it looks a lot like terminal C, really well-done.
The Flight
The pilot kicks us off by saying we’ll be 34 minutes late due to headwinds. It is what it is. Expected trip time is probably about 5 hours, all told. 5:15 to be exact.
I read, write, read, check united.com since it’s free, and generally wait impatiently for the plane to get to SLC.
I consider this the real start of the year 2023. Up until now, we have been holding serve on the winter. Yes we did some trips already but I feel they were all mired in the blathering mediocrity of NJ winter. Now we are ready to move forward with the year.
The Landing
Eventually we hit the tarmac in SLC, 30+ minutes late due to strong headwinds. D and the boys go to get the bags and I head to the off-site car rental agency, which is a madcap adventure in any number of ways.
Long story short, I finally get a car and drive to get everyone, who are waiting outside of the gate for me to get them. We have more than enough room in this car.
SLC
First order of business is lunch, which we head into SLC to cover. D finds a Thai hole in the wall which is awesome. We actually eat outside because the day is remarkably warm.
Next door is a Belgian waffle place, where we get some Belgian waffles. They are tasty but expensive.
I then swing by Three Pines Coffee and spend $60 on 2 pounds of coffee and an espresso. This should cover us for the week. I hope.
Then we drive around the city a little bit to sightsee things.
Emigration Canyon
Took a guess and drove up Emigration Canyon just to check out some of the geography. It’s really cool here and Zac even stopped looking at his phone to watch the world go by.
We drive to the top where people have parked and are sledding. Very cool little sidetrack to the day. We had some time before we could check in and this was a good way to burn some time.
The House
We swing by a place called Smiths which is the local food store, and spend $250 on food which will last us a few days, I imagine.
We get to the house just after 4:00, right behind Alex & Mark. The cleaners are still there so we wait a few minutes for them to clean up from the previous tenants.
After we unload the truck, we make some hot liquids and sit around the house and talk. The place is nice at first glance – very good for our week here.
We talk some plans for the next day, among other things. It’s always good times to just hang out with these guys.
Dinner
Dinner is a low-key store bought pizza in addition to an assortment of snacks we bought earlier. We are all beat so the night wraps up early.
Traveling Normandy 