Day 4: the Ice Skating and Eating Events

Thursday I had planned to be our "down day," without significant driving. The original plan was to have a quiet morning, then visit the Wheeler Historic Farm because it was a) free, b) close, and c) covered pioneer history. When I learned of an ice skating rink at Millcreek Common within walking distance and featuring Dear Husband's favorite--a pizza place--I decided we would do that instead.

It was a beautiful spring day, sunny and temps >60. We played a game of Memory while waiting for pizza, which I was so hungry to eat that I didn't snap a photo. Afterwards, we picked up our rental skates and hit the ice. Not literally--there was only one fall, and it was onto a padded surface. We skated a handful of times at the University of Illinois hockey rink but somehow have not managed to put on skates in the decade since we moved to Pittsburgh.

The experience reminded me of nothing so much as the time on our anniversary trip to Milwaukee that we rollerbladed on the shore of Lake Michigan, a trip so old that I wasn't blogging at the time. This time we shared the looping track with half a dozen other skaters of various ages and abilities. With the pop songs blaring and the sun shining, it was a great day to move our bodies, develop blisters on our ankles, and get sunburned on our faces (eep!). I packed sunscreen for tomorrow's wildlife adventure. Guess I should have applied some today.

After another couple of hours of down time "back at the ranch," we got dolled up for a fancy dinner at Monte, a restaurant that is rumored to be angling for a Michelin star. (However, the Utah chef who has been a James Beard finalist for three years running is Nick Zocco of Urban Hill.) The experience was sold to us as a chef's table*--it would have been our fourth--but in actuality it was a pre fixe menu. Online reviews are mixed, so we were a little concerned to be the only customers on a Thursday if it really were a simultaneous seating event (another couple came in 45 minutes later).

Drinks: rose lemonade (from a bottle, but the best lemonade DH says he's ever had) and a glass of brut to celebrate my book dropping in just five days.

Left: the best thing DH has ever eaten made out of beets (which he doesn't usually like) and a light green puree with trout roe that made me exclaim out loud. Right: so much bread (breadsticks, sourdough, brioche). We couldn't eat all of the bread, so we packaged it up for breakfast and lunch the next day. The brioche was realllly good, especially with some house-made butter.

Left: a sort of French onion soup I didn't finish because I didn't think the onions were caramelized enough; however, DH prefers his onions less cooked and liked it. Right: quail ravioli in a sauce that didn't have enough salt, but was balanced if eaten with the pasta.

Left: a two-bite squid ink beignet with rabbit in the center (you just eat the round ball with the leaf on it, not the rest of the charred wood!). Right: a really excellent 3 ounces of beef with two sauces. The last chef's table we did (for Valentine's Day) had portions that were too large. These were just right.

* Looking back at the website, it's described as "chef-driven" and "changing with the seasons," as if those were unique qualities that no other fining establishment had thought of. So while we never talked to chef Martin Babio, our server did tell us about each of the seven courses.

Left is the palate cleanser that was the best tasting "green" we've had (mint, lime, cucumber, and some other things). Between that the dessert--the silkiest chocolate tart imaginable--the dinner was worth it. Staff are attentive but let you enjoy the meal. The setting is industrial with a side of woodsman-naturalist. The music was loud but fun. My only real critique is that the restaurant is located in a distillery, so when we arrived via Google Maps, we thought we were at the wrong building, and I had to double-check the address. Otherwise, 5 stars, would do again for a fancy occasion.

After all that, we scrambled back in the car and headed up to Temple Square to catch the last hour of the Mormon Tabernacle choir rehearsal, which is free and open to the public. That was a lovely way to end the day.

Did you miss our mountain adventure on Day 3? Up next: a wildlife tour on Antelope Island.

Day 3: Coming Down the Mountain and Natural History Museum

Overnight the temperatures in the mountains plummeted. Anticipating this, I had left the wall thermostat on 72 when we went to bed--figuring the furnace would have to work overtime to counter the 22-degree low we were anticipating--but in the morning, I don't know if the AirBnB was even 60 degrees inside (since Dear Husband had to get completely dressed AND put on all his outdoor gear to feel warm). Apparently, our host had re-set the temp on his app, which we found out when I messaged him that we were so miserable we would be leaving early. He helped us set up a couple of space heaters that made the loft bearable for the morning.

Above, the view from the balcony, complete with our Jeep. Left, view of the barn-garage loft. We had some time before lunch, so we decided to head back to Park City to see the Park City Museum. For fun, we put Robert Picardo's Star Trek Voyager Doctor on Waze. This turned out to be a mistake, because he directed us up and over Silver Summit instead of down the roads that we knew were clear of snow. Actually, the ice turned out to be worse, and we got stuck. On a one-way dirt road. With a drop-off to our left. Using the ice scraper like a shovel and some dried brush for traction, we did eventually manage to get unstuck, turned around, and back to drivable roads. The aggravating part is that I had asked our host about this route before we came, and he had never answered my question. At that point we scrapped the museum and made the 45-minute drive to Emigration Canyon, pulling over to take the selfie above at the Little Dell Reservoir. Destination: the iconic Ruth's Diner, on our way through Donner Pass. Alas, that was not to be either, because they are closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays! So we regrouped and headed for the aptly named Emigration Cafe, where we enjoyed juicy, messy "handhelds" (burger for him, breakfast sandwich for me) and hot drinks (decaf mocha for him, golden chai for me). Then it was on to our final destination: the Natural History Museum of Utah, since we thought it was too early to visit the Red Butte Garden & Arboretum.

I really like the asymmetric, naturalistic architecture of the building. Above, entrance to the ticketing desk; below, the "Canyon" lobby. There are four floors of exhibits, and we managed to cover the two with the the larger half of the content.

We started by ogling the minerals and gems, because how could you not? Most are raw chunks of crystal in varying shapes and shades, but these pieces have been turned into art. Then it was on to their temporary exhibit, "Bug World," which we shared with some schoolchildren on a field trip. If it looks expensive and highly (overly?) designed, that may be because the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa commissioned it from Wētā Workshop, the five-time Academy Award-winning special effects masters behind the The Lord of the Rings movies and the Avatar franchise. 

We learned about camouflage and how the nanostructure of iridescent blue butterfly wings has inspired currency designs that can't be forged (above right). Orchid mantises look like flowers and then eat other, unsuspecting insects (I bought the commemorative socks). We learned about how dragonflies (older than dinosaurs!) catch their prey, and how Japanese honeybees beat their wings to create a ball of heat around a hornet that has invaded their nest. The lower left image is of a complicated sculpture of a jewel wasp injecting venom--here represented by a moving blue light--into the brain of a cockroach, which she will then lead to her nest to serve as food for her offspring (singular!--they must do this repeatedly for every egg they lay). Finally, the lower right image is of the Schmidt Sting Pain Index. Justin Schmidt has let 83 Hymenoptera sting him and then rated the pain. For instance, honeybee and bald-faced hornet stings are a 2: "similar to getting your hand mashed in a revolving door," while a tarantula hawk sting is "blinding, fierce, shockingly electric. A running hair dryer has been dropped into your bubble bath."

Next we appreciated the craftsmanship of Utah's First Peoples knapping arrowheads; weaving textiles, baskets, and sandals (above); coiling and decorating clay pots; making a variety of beaded jewelry; and growing corn and keeping turkeys. 

Then we wandered through the Great Salt Lake exhibit. 30,000 years ago, Lake Bonneville covered 20,000 square miles and was 1,000 feet deep in places. Under a colder, drier climate, it shrank to a relatively consistent size 13,000 years ago. Its high point in recorded history was an unwieldy 8,500 sq. kilometers in 1985, but it has shrunk rapidly to 1,600 sq. miles and a maximum depth of just 33 feet. The cause is not climate change but diversion for irrigation, which threatens the migrating birds who stop here to fuel up on brine shrimp. The salt has many uses, but not for human consumption.

Finally, we sped through prehistory with dinosaur walkway and the controversy over the Cleveland-Lloyd Quarry, where hundreds of juvenile carnivore skeletons were found, but why?

After a rest at home, we finished with dinner at Cosmica, which The New York Times rated a top-100 restaurant in 2025. Our original plan--to drive back up to the mountains and snowshoe to a yurt for dinner--was canceled because they had too few reservations. :-(

Did you miss our bobsled ride on Day 2? Looking ahead to ice skating and a chef's table on Day 4?

Day 2: Park City and a Need for Speed

The most common follow-up question people asked when we told them we were flying to Utah for Spring Break was whether we ski. Alas, Dear Husband and I have gone a handful of times each in our lives, most recently at Seven Springs in the Laurel Highlands, PA. That day ended with near catastrophe, and since we both value having intact knee ligaments, we have decided not to ski again. However, my research uncovered a unique experience of speed on ice that would be easier on our joints: a bobsled ride!

In 2002 Salt Lake City and Park City hosted the Winter Olympics, and they will do so again in 2034. Utah Olympic Park in Park City now has two small museums and both free and paid outdoor activities year-round.

The Alf Engen Ski Museum on the first floor requires some patience to get into, because many of the initial displays feel very "insider"--a who's-who of famous skiers, trainers, and organizers unknown to non-skiers. However, the Barbara Alley Simon Collection of ski fashions over the decades was eye-catching; check out the brown ski outfit from the 1930s above right with a bare midriff (?!). It is next to what look like ski-scrubs, while the two on the upper left date from the 1980s, natch.

The museum is named for a Norwegian-American who immigrated to the United States in 1929 and is famous for ski jumping (below) and for setting up skiing areas around the US West. Other displays explain how Utah's "greatest snow on earth" is attributable to a deeper layer of heavy, wet snow made at warmer temps followed by lighter snow created at colder temps. As the climate warms, less of this famous powder will fall on top.

Park City's silver and other ore mines attracted Norwegian workers, who used to go about on "miner flip-flops"--simple skis 14-16' long. They would entertain each other with ski jumping. The mining dried up early in the 1900s, and commercial skiing took off in the 1960s. Snowboarding was invented in the 1980s and was initially banned at some resorts due to the young rowdies.

Upstairs is the Eccles Salt Lake 2002 Olympic Winter Games Museum, which has artefacts and photographs. Below left is a puppet buffalo head and below right is a Child of the Light costume, both from the opening ceremonies.

Below left is one of Bode Miller's skiing costumes; below right is a signed buffalo sculpture.

We also watched a video about the extensive process of designing and manufacturing the Olympic medals (O.C. Tanner). The exhibit closed with a wall display of some of the hundreds of pins that attendees collected and swapped with each other.

It took 30-40 minutes to see each of the "museums," so after we checked in for our bobsled ride, we still had half an hour to wait for our orientation to the bobsled ride. We sat in the theater to watch the Para-Olympics medal ceremony live stream; among other things, we learned how people with low vision ski with sighted guides.

After promising that we did not have musculoskeletal or medical problems and weren't pregnant, we were divvied up into sleds of 3 guests + 1 driver. A shuttle bus ferried us up the hill to the foot of the track, where we got another orientation and were fitted with balaclavas and helmets. Otherwise, we could wear whatever we wanted as long as we finished the outfit with closed-toed shoes. I had brought our snow pants in case we wanted a wind-break layer, but the temps were warm enough that we didn't use them. Each sled team was loaded into a truck with the bobsled and carried to the put-in point (star on the left).

For safety reasons, guests don't do a running start. Instead, we loaded into the sled from tallest to shortest, except the pilot, who sits before the second person. Then the crew pushed us down a ramp!

The video (from their livestream on YouTube) should start at minute 23, and we're done by minute 28. It was a bumpy, uncomfortable ride--I can't imagine doing it 1/4 of the distance longer and 30 miles per hour faster like the pros do--but I'm glad we did it! We reached speeds over 60 miles per hour and 3-4 Gs on the turns.

Afterwards we drove into Park City for a nice dinner at Kaneo and then patronized a woman-owned souvenir shop before driving home under the direction of the Star Trek Voyager Doctor (Robert Picardo), whose voice is now available on Waze. The temperature was dropping, but I wrapped up in a comforter to watch the sun set over the mountains.

Did you miss our visit to downtown Salt Lake City on Day 1? Up next: real and historical adventures on Day 3.