A Weekend in Park City

For the last few years, our friends Tim and Debbie have been spending their holidays in Park City, Utah. They go in the winter for the skiing, and they go in spring and summer for golf and bike riding. They love the fact that a 90 minute plane ride gets them to a town where they can shed the stresses of their jobs here in SoCal...

...and each time they go, they ask us if we would join them.

Unfortunately, their Park City visits usually coincide with family obligations of our own. We always spend our Thanksgiving holidays with my family, and our last few Christmas vacations were opportunities to visit my husband's family in the UK.

But this year, with the first two nights of Passover falling at the very beginning of Megan's spring break, we realized we could swing a few days in Utah. So the morning after my sister and her family high-tailed it back to Sacramento, we boarded a plane for Salt Lake City.

It was our first time in Utah, and I wasn't sure what to expect. Our 7:00 a.m. flight didn't give me any time to grab my usual latte, and I was afraid that Mormon restrictions on caffeine intake would mean that coffee would be hard to find in the Beehive State. I was pleasantly surprised to find a Starbucks in our terminal... and plenty more could be seen along the highway leading to our destination.

"Say hi to Bob for me," my sister joked. It took me a couple of seconds before I understood that "Bob" was Robert Redford, whose Sundance Film Festival occurs in Park City each winter. That's actually pretty much all I knew about the town -- along with images of the festival from the episode of Entourage that was filmed there.

That was enough to make the little downtown area seem familiar.

Tim had reserved us a room at the beautiful Hotel Park City, where they always stay. This beautiful 4-diamond property is adjacent to both golf and skiing (at the Park City Mountain Resort). And since this year's snowfall was lighter than usual, it was possible to do both on the same day, as the golf course had opened the day before our arrival.

The resort reminded me a lot of Montage, the Laguna Beach hotel where we celebrated Debbie's birthday last year. It has the same kind of Craftsman styled buildings, centrally located pool and amazingly comfortable feather beds and high thread count linens. The bath in our suite was amazing; gorgeous tiling on all the walls and floors, a jacuzzi tub and a separate shower with three different kinds of shower heads. Only instead of a gorgeous beach view, we got to gaze at magnificent mountains (and skiers and ski lifts).

We spent the first afternoon wandering around the rustic downtown area, home to good shopping, restaurants and a cute little museum located in the old mining town's original police station and territorial jail (which the kids really enjoyed). We pet the cats who reside at Dolly's Bookstore , where Debbie picked up a book on Utah lore and legends -- then bought goodies next door at Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory.

Lunch was at the charming Cafe Terigo, which had terrific food that could be enjoyed by both the kids and the adults. (I am writing to Bon Appetit magazine to see if they can obtain the recipe for the restaurant's amazingly light and tasty onion rings, which they serve with a homemade berry ketchup. It was out of this world!)

The next two days were spent skiing -- by everyone but me. I am not athletic, I need to lose weight, and I have really bad acrophobia. And I've attempted downhill skiing before -- 20 years ago, when I was younger, lighter, and less afraid. Believe it or not (and my husband has a hard time believing it), my idea of a great winter vacation is to be able to spend some time by the fire, with good reading material and decent movies to watch on TV -- and no housework, shopping or cooking duties to worry about -- especially after all the work I did getting the house ready for Passover.  So while Gareth and Megan were having a wonderful time with this new (to them) sport, I got to do exactly as I'd dreamed of doing. We all got the weekend we needed.

Over our four-day visit, I did discover that you had to jump through some hoops to drink anything stronger than fruit punch. Debbie has been visiting the area regularly for a number of years now, and she says she still doesn't have a complete handle on all the rules regarding alcohol. For instance, we could drink in the part of the hotel that's designated a bar -- but when it was closed because they were accommodating a wedding party, there was no other place to get a glass of wine, except through room service... and even then, because they cannot deliver anything "open," we had to order half-bottles. Not full bottles, because there are rules about serving someone a second drink before the first one is finished (no such thing as a "double.") Our room had a kitchenette, so we thought of buying some wine at the Albertson's across the street -- but discovered that supermarkets don't carry it. You can only buy it at state-licensed stores and they are hard to find. (The Albertson's did, however, have a Starbucks, which I did take advantage of.)

All in all, we had a terrific time, and returned to SoCal last night, refreshed and happy. "I hope this means you'll join us again," Debbie said over Easter brunch yesterday. I think we will.

Comments

[TamMom]

You were in the *most* liberal part of the state m'dear. But still, you encountered some of the same that we endured for 7 years. I don't drink coffee so that was never an issue for me. I don't drink, either, but my husband loves his wine - and since there was only ONE state-owned liquor store in our town and you can't get wine shipped in via mail ... he had to endure the local fare until we got the heck outta there!

Glad you went - it is beautiful and we miss (a teeny, tiny bit) the mountains and kids definitely miss the skiing. Would we move back? Not on your life!