Category Archives: Park City, Utah

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Becoming Utahn: Story Three

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Utah is a funny place, make no doubt about it. After living in Seattle, San Diego, and Austin, well, Park City is special. I love my home town, it’s the cool hip island in an ocean of talk about ‘special undergarments’…I’m gonna let you look that one up yourself.

What I will share with you this week (while I’m on vacation!!!!) are some things I’ve noticed about ME here. Your location undoubtedly changes you, I’m proof.

How I Know I’m Becoming A Utahn

  • I have muscles.

I quit working out last summer, and was really burnt out from the effort I’d put in before that. So it’s been a loooong break. I lost all my muscles. But moving to Park City beefed me way up. While bike riding and beach volleyball is fun, I wasn’t really getting a good workout with any sort of activities in San Diego.

But now I shovel snow.

I think real activity/doing things is a better body workout than going to a gym. It’s how we were made. My hard work after a snow storm is (probably only for this year) a super fun thing to me. It’s fun to go out in the snow and come back inside hot and cold and exhilarated all at once.  And I’m ending up with muscles, total bonus. MK too. We get out there after a big storm and clear our decks. Utah is for workouts!

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Becoming Utahn: Story Two

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Utah is a funny place, make no doubt about it. After living in Seattle, San Diego, and Austin, well, Park City is special. I love my home town, it’s the cool hip island in an ocean of MORMON JELLO– seriously, they are serious about their Jello. I think we used to call it Ambrosia as a kid – the weird concoction of fruit and cream and vomit-inducing Jello. And yes, I’ve been to a party that featured some…

What I will share with you this week (while I’m on vacation!!!!) are some things I’ve noticed about ME here. Your location undoubtedly changes you, I’m proof.

How I Know I’m Becoming A Utahn

  • I love Musak.

I mentioned in my last story that I ran in to the mall the other day.  I was wandering through racks of SHOULDER COVERING shirts when I wondered why I was so at peace. I haven’t been to the mall in Utah since the last time we lived here and I was also shopping desperately for SXSW.

I love music. My droning on and on about SXSW every year should tell you that. Well, in Park City I get npr, and three Clear Channel radio stations. In Salt Lake you get that plus one more Clear Channel station that is usually playing the same song as one of the other three Clear Channel stations. If you’re not aware, that means there are 10 songs that make my ears bleed in rotation. HOLY MORMONS the radio SUCKS.

Our car is too old to have an AUX IN. We have a 6 CD changer in the trunk. I don’t even know what happened to the 1000+ CDs I used to own. MK says he has them but can’t get them for me. He must have lost them, if I was him and was getting this much grief, I’d find the CDs. I bitch every time we get in the car. Especially when in the off chance a good song is on, and we lose reception halfway from our house to the ski hill. UGH.

So in the mall, breathing slowly and feeling so abnormally good I take note of it – I try to figure out why I’m happy. Why? BECAUSE I’M HEARING A SONG I HAVEN’T HEARD BEFORE. Don’t get me wrong, I was at Macy’s. It wasn’t a good song. But it didn’t have the words “carry out” of “tick tock” or “call me Mr. Flinstone” in it. It was sheer pleasure. Living in Utah will make this year’s SXSW even better than ever- you might be able to force me to listen to anything and I’ll find the good in it!

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Becoming Utahn: Story One

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Utah is a funny place, make no doubt about it. After living in Seattle, San Diego, and Austin, well, Park City is special. I love my home town, it’s the cool hip island in an ocean of FUNERAL POTATOES – much like Austin was the trendy surrounded by the redneck. I’m not going to tell you all that I’ve learned about the state, the idea you have in your head is pretty close.

What I will share with you this week (while I’m on vacation!!!!) are some things I’ve noticed about ME here. Your location undoubtedly changes you, I’m proof.

How I Know I’m Becoming A Utahn

  • I’m feeling leggy.

I’m 5’2″. On a good day. And it snows a lot here. I’ve spent the whole winter getting used to the idea that I’m a short bundle of nerves and giggles that most people think might be a little person. Snow boots are not slimming, and they don’t have heels.

So the other day, when it was warm and sunny in the valley and I was going out to meet some friends, I put on HEELS. Skinny jeans and some of my highest heels. Well, to tell you the truth, I put boots on at my house and changed in to my heels after I got away from Park City.

I ran into the Mall to get something (read more about that tomorrow) and walking back to the car I felt like a hussy. I’m almost positive I got some weird looks from Mormon mommies in track suits. I looked down and my tight jeans and sky high heels and then caught my reflection in my car, which was clean for the first time all winter…and I saw this tall crazy lady leering back at me.

I almost changed. But since I wasn’t really going any place special, I went with it. I was in a T shirt, for crying out loud. If I had put the boots back on, they would all KNOW I was from up the mountains, and I decided that bugged me more than looking like a giant. I reminded myself I was normal at 5’7″ with the heels and rocked them until the wee hours of the morning. And woke up with feet cramps…

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Deer Valley Visa Freestyle Invitational

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Holy forever ago, this was Jan. 15th!

The night after The Bravery concert I mentioned here. If you recall, I was too worked up about something else to even tell you about our night. It happens.

We were running late due to house work, and only made it to the tail end of the women’s finals and got to see the men’s finals and the fireworks. But it was worth the hike up the hill. It was packed but we found a spot on the far right and got a great view. They had a fun DJ and like I mentioned on Twitter, I’d go every night for fireworks at the resort, too cool! Kids and adults alike were running around and sliding down the hill.

MK took a ton of pictures, too many to post here, so here’s an album:

Click for the Deer Valley Visa Freestyle Invitational Photos.

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Everyone Loves A Good Open Bar

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Our Friday night out last weekend for Sundance wasn’t much, it was late when we got to the St. Regis and the bar there closes early. We met our new friends BK and JK and some company they had visiting, drove down Main Street, and decided to try our luck again the next night.

Saturday we got stuck running late for our cab pickup, so we figured he left us and we hopped on the bus. It was a great decision not to drive because the snow was really coming down. We went to the Spur and happened upon a locals discount and a really loud band. JK’s visiting buddy disappeared and returned frantically waving at all of us to find the back side of the bar, a room I wasn’t even aware of. There was a party hosted by someone (Yahoo?) that no one was at. The one lonely guy invited us all in. Then left. We took over and made ourselves at home. It was perfect because some of the girls hadn’t eaten, and hello, all the food and drinks were free.

All our group.

All mine.

As fun as it is to live like a VIP we wanted to run around and see what was happening. Another bar party, a takeover called Crown on Main, was 850$ for the weekend. So I hadn’t even considered it. Until the door guy waved us in. So we had a drink there too.

We stopped at a coffee shop for Mr. MK and decided our next action plan, as fun as the free stuff was the music from both places had really hurt our ears. The Stanfield Artist Lounge was supposed to be where the good stuff was, so we headed there next. We were badgeless, wristbandless, and not going to pay to get in. We waited in the line figuring since we’d had such luck so far, we could talk our way in.

Then we noticed the reality of the situation. Anyone could get in for free. The ‘out’ door was closer to the line than the ‘in’ door, and people were just wandering right in. *shrug* We had to try it. We got in and up to the bar when a big dude asked to see our wristbands, as they had finally become aware of the flaw in their door system. I still had my coat and gloves so I fumbled around as we made our way out the door to safety. That was close. At least we got in long enough to see we weren’t missing anything, it wasn’t much of a party.

So we got a ride to our car from a sweet guy that didn’t know what he was getting into. The roads had not been plowed and the highway was just stopped. We were stuck for about 30 minutes, then had our own drive to our place to contend with, which was the craziest thing we’ve ever done. I didn’t want to scare my Mom with this one. We almost didn’t make it. But, we did.

Through this:

It was a super fun Sundance weekend considering we didn’t plan anything. MK even saw a movie, thanks to BK.

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One Month Late

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This is the second year that we attended the Park City Ski Swap.  (I don’t think I’ve written about it – couldn’t find anything by searching but not sure how well that even works.) Anyway, last year MK and I went with BB. Some strangers gave us beer. It was hilarious. Like I said, maybe I told you.

This year, BB didn’t need anything. It was just us. MK got us coffee, which was sweet, and we met some nice neighbors of ours in line.

The line is crazy. I took one picture of the line to pay inside. Pretty much everyone you see is in line.

The line is totally worth it – I got a pair of skis that retail right now for over 800$ and only cost me around 120$.

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Winter Weekend

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The Santa suit pub crawl took us all over Park City Friday night.  We might have been to every bar here now! It had only barely started snowing so we figured we were all right. We made some friends and decided to meet them out the next day, but it was starting to snow quite a bit. We made it out to dinner at Shabu, which was a ton of fun. I got talked into trying to ski Sunday, since the storm was really picking up.

MK and I had to go and get my skis, which were being tuned in the Valley. We thought the roads out of our neighborhood weren’t that bad. So we went for the skis. It really started coming down when we hit the Valley. We had left the house at 9am, and it took about an hour to get down and two hours to get back up. Our car held up great, but there were other people out there that must be crazy. I can’t fathom getting in a little car without snow tires or AWD, you really probably needed a 4×4 to be out there. People were skidding out and making us nervous, we took our time.

We finally made it to Deer Valley to meet my friend KS and ski. She was super patient, as of course, I had no ski legs from last year. She was also super patient since she was the awesomest skier I’ve ever seen. She happens to be the SIL of a world famous skier. It was amazing to spend the day out with her. We met MK for an Apres Ski drink, and ended up meeting KS’s hubby AS too. He made it up in time for us to all meet up at the brand new St. Regis resort, after a ride up the 25 MILLION DOLLAR FUNICULAR.

What is that you ask? Wikipedia can tell you here. And then there’s the ton of pictures I took all weekend, there’s one photo of it there.

View the pictures.

It is the ride from the base to the resort. Not sure if it was worth the price tag, but it was a thrilling 2 minutes up or so. We had a snack and decided to hit No Name Saloon for some burgers. That put us home at about 7pm and we had left the house at 9am. We’d shoveled about a foot of snow to get out, and there was over a foot waiting for us when we got home. I already told you about that here.

It was totally worth it for a day out like that, and MK and I skied Monday too.

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The First Big Dump

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You can say things like that when you live in Utah and it means something good.

As you can kind of make out (trust me, ton more phone pics to come, might have to create an album, I was so excited I took about 90 photos) in this picture we shoveled a foot of snow, and there’s a new foot of snow. This was before the THIRD foot of snow that was waiting for us when we got back from Sunday Funday. Because when it’s like this – you go ski.

I’ll tell you more tomorrow about the weekend, the drive, the adventures, and the snow. We went and skied at Deer Valley, which looked like this everywhere:

And I know it was a little too dark but if you can imagine at all we hiked up the stairs and in the door while it looked like this around 7pm, and we spent about an hour and a half playing in the snow, shoveling and snowblowing, digging out our trash can and mail box.