This is our annual trip to Salt Lake City to visit Karen’s brother and his family. We usually spend several days visiting them and then spend a day or two skiing. Last year we were in Park City over New Years and Karen came down with a killer sinus infection, I am sure that she felt like she died or wished she would have. She spent New Years Day morning at the Urgent Care getting antibiotics. I tagged along and got my flu shot. It was actually cheaper than in Minneapolis.

We used Hotels.Com again this year to book a room at the Hilton Garden Inn in downtown Salt Lake City. I love Hilton Garden Inns, they are always have spotless rooms that are large and the furniture never looks worn. We did have a problem with HGI this year. We noticed a strange smell when we entered our room. It was so bad that I went to the front desk to complain. They offered to change rooms but we were in a hurry to meet Jerry so I declined. While we were gone they put an ozone machine on our room. It helped a little but there was still a strange odor present. It was tolerable for about a day and when we woke up that morning the room reeked of sewer gas. I complained again and they offered to move us again, so we moved. The rest of our stay was fine but the sewer gas incident left a bad taste in our mouths (no pun intended) so I am not sure that we are going to stay at HGI next year.

This year we spent the first couple of days with Jerry and his family and skied on our last full day in Utah. It was Marianne’s birthday so we went out to a great Brazilian steak house called Rodozio. I was skeptical when we entered the restaurant. Usually a restaurant where you can eat as much as you want is an indication quantity os substituted for quality. Not the case with Rodozio, the salad bar is huge and everything was good. Once we finished with salad the waiter started their rounds with skewers of chicken, beef and pork, each prepared many different ways.  Then there was dessert, not that any of us had any room left for dessert.  It was also excellent. We were so stuffed we could hardly move by the time dinner was over and we had to leave.

After dinner we wondered around the huge shopping center. We went into a little T-shirt shop  and Marianne like but didn’t buy a t-shirt that said SL,UT then in tiny letters underneath it said Salt Lake Utah. I bought a t-shirt that had one of my favorite Utah beers on it- Polygamy Porter.

We went skiing at Alta this year because Karen was run over by a snowboarder last year. She suffered a sore shoulder and a broken thumb. Also, I had many close calls with snowboarders at Park City last New Years. I hate to sound like my parents when I was growing up but those kids were boarding to fast, not looking where they were going, had their Ipods cranked and so on… Alta does not allow snowboarders so we will probably ski there or Deer Valley in the future.

It was a good day of skiing. The conditions were a little icy and it was a little cold on the chairlift ride up the hill but nice compared to Minnesota.

I didn’t bring my camera this trip but I did have my IPhone. I talked a couple of Canadian guys into taking the picture of Karen and me on the right. You can tell from the picture that it was not spring skiing.

Our last day we got up and had breakfast at the bayleaf Cafe, it had been recommended to us by one of the guys at she ski rental shop. The food was excellent.