This year we wanted to stay downtown or even out by the airport. As usual I used Hotwire to book the hotel. I found a three star by the airport for $57.00 and a four star downtown for $89. We opted for the four star downtown. Once we purchased we saw that the hotel was the Little America Hotel. I had never heard of that chain before and I was a little afraid that we had gotten stuck in some old rundown hotel. I immediately went to Trip Advisor and was pleasantly suprised, most of the reviews rated the hotel a four or five.

The flight from Minneapolis to Salt Lake city was uneventful and that is good. The jet was a smaller regional version, I didn’t check to see who the manufacturer was but it was a comfortable jet. All of the seats were leather, not just first class, and there was more legroom that a larger jet.

I booked the rental car through Hotwire, I do this because I save from $50 to $100 booking through Hotwire compared to booking directly with the rental car company. The downside to booking with Hotwire is you cannot use your your Preferred or Gold Club memberships so you have to stand in line to get your car. After completing the transaction with Hotwire I saw that I would be renting with Hertz. We got to the rental car center and Hertz was the only one that had a line and the line was moving slowly. Half of the people in line did not reserve ahead of time and had to fill out all of the paperwork at the desk. Are they crazy?? I would never travel without booking a rental car ahead of time. When I finally talked to a representative they said that they were slow because Hertz had just laid off 4000 employees. I felt sorry for him, they were working through breaks to help people.  The wait for the car was longer than I would have liked but it was tolerable.

It was a short drive from the airport to Little America. Despite the positive reviews in Trip Advisor, I did not like what I saw when we pulled up. The hotel is split into a main building and four or five small two story buildings called lodges. The lodges resemble motel type structures. Check in is at the main building, the lobby is large, warm and welcoming.The staff is friendly and professional. The main building has clothing stores and several other shops. It also has several restaurants.

My fear of the hotel being run down was baseless. We were in lodge 5, our room was large and well decorated. The furnuture in the room was very nice and the room had a flat screen TV tucked into an armoir. The bathroom was the most interesting room, it had floor to ceiling pink tile, a marbel vanity and from shopping a Lowes I happen to know that the toilet was high end (not that it really matters). Don’t let the pink tile scare you off, it wasn’t that bad. The room was very quiet, we barely heard other people.

Jerry took us snowshoeing, we went north of town and pulled off the road and hiked/snowshoes up a revine. The scenery was beautiful and we discovered that it was easier to hike than it was to snowshoe. Unfortunately Karen’s brother did not know the canyon as well as he claimed. We climbed up the side of the canyon because he claimed that there was a road out just over the next bluff, and the next bluff, and the next bluff… We finally backtracked and walked out the same way we came in. It was still a beautiful hike and the view from the top of the bluff was incredible. Unfortunately I was just getting over a minor bout of the flu so I did not have a lot of energy. I had also accidentally stepped into the stream so both of my feet were cold and wet. Despite not feeling my best it was a good hike/snowshoe.

We went skiing on Monday, we opted for Alta this year. It turned out to be a very good choice, Alta has a few things going for it over Snowbird, no snowboarders for one. It isn’t that I don’t like snowboarders but it can be hard to ski around them. I like the runs at Alta especially the Ballroom bowl to the right when you get off of the Sugar Loaf lift or Collins lift. The weather was beautiful, it was spring skiing weather, 50s in the afternoon, at the top of the hill and at the bottom. It was warm enough that we saw many younger skiers wearing shorts, even one in ‘T’ shirt and cape.

We did split up once in the afternoon and according to Murphy’s law, all hell broke loose. Jerry and I were going to ski the bowl and Karen wanted to take a slightly easier way down. We were going to meet at the chalet mid mountain for lunch and a beer.

We traversed to the bowl and I discovered on my fist cut that my legs were already at lunch, I missed the cut and picked up speed and I flew down the hill with my arms waving in the air.

I eventually gained control and almost finished the run without wiping out. I caught an edge when I hit the flats and did a less than spectacular wipeout.

Jerry and I met up at the aptly named Mid Mountain Meeting Place. Jerry decided that he was going to do one more run while I waited for Karen. So I waited for Karen, and waited, and waited… I started to worry because she should have beat us to Mid Mountain.

As I stood waiting at the lift I listened to the skiers going past to see if any of them were talking about a blonde in a black and white Spyder jacket being carried off of the mountian, luckily they were not.

I waited about ten minutes and decided that I would get a beer and wait from the deck of Collins Grill. I walked throught the door and swore because Karen had all of our money, that’s the last time that will happen!

I waited patiently on the deck without beer or food. I had my cell phone to call Karen but no reception.

Karen showed up about five minutes later. She seemed to be fine, no broken bones. I walked down to help her stow her skis. She told me that she had done a spectacular wipe out and had to climb back up the hill to get her skis and poles.

When we got to the chalet she discovered that she had lost her sunglasses. Jerry showed up about ten minutes later and we took a short lunch and finished out the day.

Likes:

Alta was great, don’t get me wrong I like Snowbird but Alta fits my style of skiing better. The ultimate would be buying the lift ticket for both areas.

I was pleasantly suprised by Little America, I would stay there again.

Probems/Dislikes:

Do not plan on eating breakfast in downtown Salt Lake City on a Sunday morning, there were only a few restaurants that were open. We finally went back to Little America for breakfast.