All Things AP: Utah Trip

I went to Utah for the 5^th time again for work last week. If you haven't heard it from me before, I love it there, and I think it's so beautiful…so it's always a treat for me when I get to travel there for work. We were treated to yet another one of a kind experience while there, dinner at The Yurt at the Solitude Resort. We drove from the offices to Solitude, about 15 miles outside of Salt Lake City, the direction of up in the mountains. There was a small hike, about ¾ of a mile to the yurt. A yurt is a Nordic hut type thingy that they used to build to live in cold climates. I am pretty sure that is right, but look it up if you want more info. Anyways, we were spoiled with a 5 course meal, all delicious I might add, and a great night of company with the people that I get the pleasure of working with every day.

I decided to extend my trip over the weekend, and invited Lora to join me. I was so excited to show her around, and give her the chance to see why I enjoy it so much there. Funny enough, in the few times that I've been to Utah, I can make it around without a map better than I can in any other place that I've lived before. So, I headed to SLC to pick up Lora up at the airport on Friday night around 9, and after barely slowing down to let her get in the car, we were off to Park City. When I was trying to convince Lora to come to Utah, I was trying to find things for us to do over the weekend. When I realized that it was Sundance Film Festival that weekend, she didn't need much more convincing. So, we were headed to Park City for some fun!! We were anticipating it taking us a bit longer than it did to get to Park City from SLC, but that might have been because we were gabbing the entire drive, and admiring the beauty of the snow capped mountains. When we saw the Best Western (aka "B Dub") in front of us about 25 minutes later, we didn't realize that it was ours! Woohoo, we were there! We checked in, got freshened up and were back downstairs right at 10 to catch the shuttle to Main Street. We wandered around trying to find a place that was still open and serving food, and after 4 tries, were pleasantly surprised with our food, and service, at Red Banjo Pizza. The night was still young after we ate, so we walked around to see what was going on down Main St. There was a club called Harry O's that made it look like we were in LA. There were cocky bouncers, wanting to know who you were, which guest list you were on, how much you were willing to pay into their pockets to get in, etc. After standing out there and being ignored for about 10 minutes, we headed up the street to a place called Sidecar. We walked in behind this crazy girl and her friend. She was cracking us up from the minute she started to talk to us. When we got to the bouncer, he wanted $10 each to get in, no biggie, but Lora and I hadn't stopped to get any cash yet. BUT, our new friend was trying to persuade the door guy that he needed to let 3 cute girls into the bar just because. He wasn't that convinced, so he pulled out a Trivial Pursuit card and had us pick a category. Lora got the question right, so we were let in – woohoo!! We followed this girl, Nikki, and her friend, Kevin, to the back area of the bar where there were couches and it wasn't so crowded. She went and plopped herself down on one of the couches and we had more instant friends. We hung out that night with her, and also Justin, Jake and Steve from Orem. We had a really good time, got some amusing pictures, and closed down the place. The boys were nice enough to give us a ride home, but not without a quick stop along the way. Justin's last name is Shepherd, so when I saw a sign with his name on it on the way home, I told Steve to make a u-turn for a classic photo moment. I think that picture is my favorite of the evening.

After getting home after 3am on Friday night, we decided to sleep in a bit on Saturday. Another friend of mine from work, Jamie, happened to be in Park City for the weekend too, so we went and picked her up and all headed into town for lunch and to see what else we could see. Lora and I really wanted to try to see at least one film while we were there, so first stop was the ticket office. We were able to snag two shows, but more about that later. Lunch was next, and we decided on the No Name Saloon. I'd been to this place last

time I was in PC, so I knew it was good. We had a yummy lunch, a few drinks, and then took off to our next place. Along the way up Main St, we stopped and chatted with some of the folks outside Harry O's…the place we couldn't get in to the night before. We ended up meeting Roger and Doug. Turns out that Doug was the producer of Deal or No Deal and invited us to come back at 4pm to watch Jason Mraz and would try to get us in the front row. Yeah, right. He was real nice, and sounded sincere, so we said we'd come back that afternoon. We had some time to kill, so next stop was Wasatch Brew Pub. At this place, since we were just headed to the bar, we had to become "members" to get in. It's a weird Utah state law, but oh well…just knock it up to being a cover charge. I paid to become a member, and I could bring in 5 other people on my new membership. There were 3 guys in line right behind us, so I joined them to ride my coattails into the bar. They in turn bought us a round of drinks. They were on an annual trip, this was the 10^th one I believe, to Sundance from Missouri. After we got to talking to them for a bit, we learned that one of the guys, Andy, and Jamie, actually worked with the exact same customer out in LA. Small, small, world. Lora and I wanted to take a quick stop at the Music Café where Meiko was playing a set that afternoon. We left Jamie with our new friends, and popped next door to catch her

show. She was AMAZING, and Lora and I both have a new music crush. :) If you like singer/songwriters, then definitely check her out. She's adorable and her music and voice are fantastic. We ran up to say hi to her after she was off stage to see if she was going to be at the Houston show of the Hotel Café Tour. Turns out that she'll only be in Austin, so I might get to see her perform again, IF I can get tickets to the show during SXSW. Fingers crossed. She's so good. We rejoined Jamie, but not before being accosted by a large group that was outside of the bar taking a group photo. Of course Lora and I joined in, since when have we ever been ones to pass up a photo opportunity. It was almost time to go back to the meeting spot for the Jason Mraz show, so we said bid adieu to our friends, and headed over to The Zone Bar. We waited outside for almost an hour, and then the folks came to announce that there were technical difficulties and for us to come back at 6pm. It was getting pretty chilly, so we decided to just head down the street back towards our ride home instead. Side note however, we chatted with a guy that had a VIP badge on while we waited in line. When we were there, he mentioned that he was from LA and that he was an actor. He didn't seem that open to telling us what he'd been in, so we

didn't press him on it. BUT, last night I was sitting at home watching TV and he was in the latest Subway commercial that was on!!! It's the one where the girl asks what come with the cheeseburger combo and the cashier goes on and on and says something like "with a side of regret"…..well, that was David Blue, and we stood next to him in line. Turns out that he also plays Cliff on Ugly Betty. Of course he was on the one show that I don't watch! Anyways…..we left and decided to make one last pit stop at Zona Rosa for a margarita. The food there was so NOT Mexican food….I think Jamie, Lora or I could have done better. But the marg was good. Jamie went to join her crew and Lora and I took a dip in the hottub. After that, we decided that we needed a little nap if we were going to make it back out. Neither of us were really that pumped to go back out again, but Lora and I are really good on vacations, knowing that "hey, we're on vacation!" and after a quick nap, we got ready and caught the 10pm shuttle again.

This time, the shuttle was full. There were two guys on the bus with us that we'd met briefly on the e

levator when we'd arrived the night before. Neil and Justin were from DC and NY. They had told us to go to Harry O's the night before, so we asked them "Ok, how in the hell did you get in that place???". Turns out that Justin works for Maxim and had a little bit of a hookup. So, we decided to see if that would work again, and hung out with them outside the club for about an hour….and then whala! We got in!! It was worth the wait. The place was packed and the DJ was awesome. It was a little hard to get around, but we managed. Justin disappeared for a bit, but in the meanwhile, Neil, Lora and I were invited into one of the VIP areas. We met the folks that were in there, they were totally down to earth and nice. Cheri and Morgan are the VP of Business Development and CEO of Maverick Films (Madonna's production company), Norman and Nikki worked for some VC Firm in Miami, and Jordan has some other company….bottom line, these people were smart and loaded….but also so great. They were so nice, and we had a really great time hanging out with them in their VIP area. When the club shutdown, Cheri's assistant came to get us and we all crammed into a Jeep and went to hang out at their 4500 sq ft condo in Deer Valley. Lora, Morgan, Jordan and I stayed up chatting about dorky

computer stuff until almost 6 in the morning. We all kind of crashed and then had the poor assistant guy drive us all back to the B Dub at 830.

Turns out that Neil and Justin had tickets to the exact same film that we did, so we grabbed a bite to eat in the lobby, went to get ready and check out, and then headed to see "Ballast". It was one of the award winners, so we didn't know what we were seeing until we got there. It was a very slow, dark, drama, but very good too. It was kind of hard to stay awake on only a few hours of sleep in a film that was soooooo slow, and not a lot of talking, but had a good story line. Loco Lizard was the next stop for lunch; the guys had to catch a shuttle to SLC to the airport. After we rushed through lunch, we realized that we could just take them since we were headed that way anyway, so we all drove to SLC and I took them on a mini tour of the city when we got there, pointing out all the major landmarks. They commented on how I didn't need a map to get around….funny. :)

After we dropped them off and got checked into our hotel, we took off to south of SLC to find Saltair. I had seen this really neat abandoned trolley car on a photographer blog that I read, and wanted to find it for ourselves. We did, and it was so neat. Lora and I got some really cool shots, and Lora even
got to play with a dog while we were there.

We went to see "Birds of America" in SLC that night……much more mainstream movie, quite funny actually. BUT, the funniest part about it was that we saw a lady that we had met on Friday night at Sidecar, and we did our best to avoid her because she was a nutcase…but again, small, small world. We popped across the street to grab a bite to eat at Squatters and took a chance at Kilby Court (an all ages music venue in SLC) to see what was happening. I was glad to take Lora to see Kilby, but we didn't luck on out on the talent. The band we saw was amusing at least, and on our way out we met the lead singer of the band that we missed, The JV Allstars. I showed Lora around SLC a little more, we got a few night time pics of the temple, and then called it a night. On Monday, we drove to Provo to see the BYU campus and got back just in time to SLC right as the storm was blowing in. We made a quick stop at the mall, and when we got back to the car, the storm had already knocked out power to half of SLC. We had to go to 4 different gas stations to find one that had power to fill up the rental. It was crazy driving to the airport, looking out the smallest part of the windshield that I could actually see from, but we made it nonetheless. Sorry for the long recap, but I didn't want to forget it for myself either.