I have to admit that I went back to bed again after Chris left for work. I had breakfast with him, but then straight back to bed (clearly the coffee wasn't doing anything for me). Then, I worked on my blog and watched a lot of HGTV. I am addicted to HGTV whenever we are in a hotel room. Since we don't have cable at our house, I don't get to watch them. I watched a lot of Flip or Flop, and Property Brothers. I especially like them since we've been in the middle of our own home renovation.
I did eventually decide to go out and walk to City Creek Shopping Center. It really was just a few blocks over, so an easy stroll. The shopping center is beautiful with this long pool stretching down the length of the center with miniature fountains arching up in a single spray that didn't quite meet in the middle every so many feet. Standing at the end and looking down it made arches of water. It was very pretty. Inside the mall area perpendicular to the water fountain/pool, was an actual creek running through the bottom floor in the middle of the stores. It is also very pretty. That's about as exciting as that mall gets. All the stores were the same as we have in California, so nothing to spend much time looking at, other than Anthropologie, which I love but can't really afford. So, I just window shopped.
I was thirsty, it was a warm day, but I didn't want standard coffee from a chain, so I found a shop called Nostalgia a few more blocks down and even though it wasn't rated the highest on Yelp, people commented on the nice atmosphere. I began to walk and passed a pretty little Episcopalian church - actually the headquarters in Utah. It was closed, so I couldn't go inside.
Chris was done with work, so instead of walking back to the hotel, he was supposed to pick me up at the coffee shop. I told him where it was, but as I crossed the street I then saw a massive cathedral just up the road. I wanted to explore. I do love churches and cathedrals. I went to Nostalgia and ordered my iced coffee to go. It was a cute place with coffee house atmosphere, a lot of paintings of the area, big overstuffed chairs and couches as well as a lot of wooden tables and chairs. The coffee was not great - seemed kind of watered down to me, but it's a place I could see would be comfortable to hang out and chat with friends. I had located the church on my phone (just to make sure what it was and where it was), then walked up and over the few blocks to the Cathedral of the Madeleine. This was the "mother church" for Catholics in Utah. The plaque on the outside said it was completed by 1909.
I set the last quarter of my iced coffee down just outside the door before I walked inside. It was just exquisite and colorfully painted. The soaring Gothic arches inside always feel majestic. I'm in awe of the vibrant colors of the stained glass windows with their stories of the Bible every time and I could just sit there and stare. I sat down in a pew and took it all in. I also said a prayer. This type of beauty is inspiring to me. I understand the reasoning behind the evangelical churches getting away from the formality and the cost of building great cathedrals - God is not in the building. In fact, if you ask me the most inspiring place to have worship is out in nature, where God did the creating and building. But, each time I see the magnificent beauty of the cathedrals, I do understand the purpose of making your most beautiful and expensive building a place of worship, a place dedicated to God. If you read about the temple built by Solomon in the Bible, or about the Ark of the Covenant, you can see that same idea to give the best to God. For me, these cathedrals remind me of this and inspire me to this.
I had called Chris earlier and dropped a pin for him to follow, so he joined me within ten minutes. He wasn't sure he was parked legally (he was), and we wanted to get on the road, so we didn't stay. At the hotel, I changed into my capris and some sandals, grabbed my jacket. We stopped at R & R Barbecue, even though the last time Chris ate here he had to put the sandwich down afraid that the overall fat and indulgence of it would give him a heart attack (it helped get him back on track with his diet). We didn't order the "heart attack" sandwich, instead we chose a 3 meat plate to split and some extra sides. The line was super slow and we were only a few people back. It says on their wall though, this is not fast food, and to do it right, it takes time. I was just glad that we walked in when we did and not 10 minutes later because the line was out the door by then. We had pulled pork fresh from the smoker and pulled in front of us, beef brisket, and ribs, with baked beans, potato salad, hush puppies, and rolls. The meat was absolutely delicious. I slathered it with the sweet bbq sauce. The roll was so soft and slightly sweet, and the baked beans the perfect balance of sweet, tang, and spice. I can't rave about the potato salad because I like it more mustardy-tangy, and the hush puppies were too dry. That dinner may be my favorite we had though.
We drove down the freeway under a perfectly blue sky with crisp white billowing clouds that had just a hint of gray. Lining the freeway was the rather dry and brush filled hillsides that eventually grew into tall mountains. We turned off the main freeway and onto a highway that wound up into the mountains of Big Cottonwood Canyon. I really wish I knew the types of trees we were passing and I could explain the difference in them as we climbed the mountain. As the elevation increases and the canyon deepens into the mountain range, the trees turn to more evergreens. We rolled the windows down partly to smell the Christmasy scented air. We saw trees that looked like what we buy at Christmas time. I thought there might be a mix of fir, pine, and spruce, but I really don't know my trees...different shades of the evergreens covered the hillside. Different types of wildflowers filled the meadows and creek banks. There were clusters of white-barked, broadleaf trees that probably turn a beautiful orange, red or gold in the fall. One area was carpeted with yellow wildflowers between these trees.
We passed Solitude and ended our drive in Brighton, both ski resorts in the winter. We pulled into a parking lot for Silver Lake and decided to explore a bit. At this point, my chest was feeling a bit tight and I was a little dizzy. I didn't realize at this point how high of altitude we were, I later realized it was somewhere around 9000-10,000 ft. That would explain it. It was too pretty to not explore and there was a man-made walking path to take us around the lake, so we had to go. One of the first signs we came to talked about the moose and what to do if we saw one (I remember Naomi telling me how they were more problematic in Alaska than the grizzlies). I took note, hoping we would not see one...but kind of hoping maybe off in the distance.
I think we stopped every few yards taking
pictures. It was so pretty and every turn had a breathtaking vista. Much of it felt more like we were walking through swampland since there was more grass than water at first. We walked on a dirt path eventually along the edge of the lake. Parts of the lake were covered in pine needles so thick it created a woven blanket over the top. Wildflowers covered the hillsides and mountain peaks reflected in the still waters. It was glorious. There were some other trails we could have taken that were short hikes to more lakes, but our lack of appropriate clothing, low temperature of 50's, late evening (after 8pm) and the lack of oxygen making me dizzy detoured us from this adventure. We tucked it away mentally for some other trip. One patch of the trail was through the tall coniferous trees, and then back out into the path through the water and grasses of various colors and height. It was a really lovely walk and over too soon.
We returned to the car, turned on the heater, and headed back down the canyon and then realized we had driven this once before. I had visited Chris in Utah and we had spent the weekend in Park City. Upon exploring the roads, we had taken a connecting road (dirt in parts if I remember right) from Park City called the Guardsmen Pass and ended up driving down this canyon. Chris recognized it first and then I recognized it more as we descended. Things sure can look different depending on the direction from which you are coming.
Back at the hotel, Chris really wanted to play a game of pool. I discovered that I had married a pool shark. Okay, maybe he's not quite that good, but when he started to shoot behind his back on one of his first moves, I learned something new about my husband. I lost. I'm terrible. We enjoyed our delectables in our room and watched some HGTV as storm rolled in with it's lightening and heavy rains. In fact, I had a flash flood warning come across my phone, but being tucked away for the evening in our little mini-apartment hotel snug in bed made it nothing but enjoyable.
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