I flew back to SA around lunch last Thursday and then we flew out a few hours later. Prior to the flight out a few of her friends from work decided to take the afternoon off and have margaritas at an place along the SA river. (Jim this place is across the street from the BBQ/Beer joint.) About an hour in these folks walk in and everyone starts whispering and pointing. No clue if they just bought the stuff or have been on an actual "mission."
One the way out we flew on USAirways. Not a regular customer of theirs but since they merged with AA I guess I will spend more time on them. Let me say I was not impressed with the quality of their planes. Condensation forming on the inside of the fuselage and then running down thru the emergency exit isn't a good thing:
USAirways was also the first time I ever saw an airbag on a seat belt:
The first day of skiing was at Snowbird. Decent shot down Little Cottonwood Canyon with SLC in the distance:
Backside bowls of Snowbird:
Snowbird has a magic carpet that moves you thru a tunnel that gets people from the front side to the back side.
Lefty ready to attack the mountain:
After a good day of skiing it was time for a little sight seeing. We stopped at the Univ of Utah where the Winter Olympics opening and closing ceremonies happened at the football stadium:
Olympic flame once came out of this, now who the hell knows what they use it for:
Pretty sure most of this board would be escorted out of the stadium on a game day:
Then we headed downtown towards our hotel and a few other sights. The Mormons will allow you on the grounds, but not inside of any of the buildings:
In case anyone forgot where they were this type of sign was everywhere, this one happens to be in front of the Capitol:
Any downtown cross walk that wasn't at an intersection controlled by a traffic light had these flags and this sign:
The next day the snow started falling and we were off to Deer Valley. Nice thing about Deer Valley is they do not allow snowboarding. Snow was constant most of the day so only got a few shots of Deer Valley on our last run of the day to Happy Hour at the St Regis hotel.
One of the B-Day girl at Deer Valley:
The St Regis was nice, but I don't understand spending that much for a hotel room when Marriott and Hyatt are 20% of the price and will upgrade members with status. We had a few cocktails and the wife really enjoyed the bloody mary. Utah has strange liquor laws and we had to order food and could only have one drink at a time. The wife wanted to try two different bloodys but they wouldn't bring them out together so I "ordered" one of them and when she was done with one of them, the waitress brought my drink:
The next two days we spent skiing at Canyons. Only about a 6 minute drive from Deer Valley. It snowed off and on both days but was pretty warm. Lot's of slush on the bottom both days, however the upper half of the mountain was great. Canyons also had a covered lift, a first for me:
Canyons is huge and it was hard to cover all of the mountain in two days:
The Hyatt Escala Lodge is slopeside in Canyons. We stayed there on points and the nice lady at the front desk gave us an upgrade to a suite:
After a full day of skiing we made the short 45 minute drive to the airport and from our AA flight home I was able to get this shot of Canyons, Park City, Park City Ski area and Deer Valley. The town is Deer Valley, Canyons is just visible at the far right, Park City resort is in the center of the photo and includes the illuminated runs and Deer Valley is the top left of the photo:
Got to love American Airlines for having this for the flights home:
Good trip for the 'Seaters. Some of it we had done before in 2010 and some of it was new. SLC is such an easy ski trip since you can be between the airport and great skiing in less than an hour.
