As previously mentioned, we woke up to snow in Salt Lake City, Utah on Day 3 of 16 of our Autumn Road Trip. A very early snow day, according to locals. This day was also The Peacemaker’s 27th birthday, so the day was all about him and his choices of what he wanted to do. First, he chose brunch at a restaurant within walking distance of our downtown hotel. Again, masks and social distancing were required and the food was excellent. There were three other things he wanted for his birthday (1) a hike in the Wasatch mountains with his Uncle (The Listener) who works for us and lives in Salt Lake City, (2) to see the movie, Tenet, in a real movie theater that had proper covid rules, and (3) dinner at a quaint restaurant he had chosen from Yelp (his most trusted food advisor). Of course we accommodated him on all three, because, you know, he’s my baby.

Recap: the food was amazing, the movie was weird (although we felt infinitely safer at the movie theater than in the grocery store), and the hike was exhausting, exhilarating, and captivating.

The next morning we were in management meetings, but The Peacemaker and I bowed out of the afternoon meetings to take a hike up from our hotel to Ensign Peak Trail above Salt Lake City. The hike itself was a mere 8/10 of a mile with a 375 ft elevation gain, but the hike to actually get to the trailhead was a different story. The snow was long gone, and the day was warm and sunny with clear blue skies. I didn’t pay much attention to what The Peacemaker had in mind, but again, I was huffing and puffing as we traversed the streets of Salt Lake City on a 2.5 mile trek up to a residential neighborhood 1000+ ft above downtown to even get to the trailhead. Phew.

We had Blue Eyes pick us up from the trailhead as we had a dinner meeting to attend to. Thankfully we only had one day of meetings scheduled on our vacation road trip.

Off to Moab…