Getting to spend time with friends is such a great treat.  First of all we have someone else to talk to!  Not that we’ve run out of things to say to each other, but it’s nice to have someone else in the mix.  And exploring with friends is fun, too.  And then, when those friends happen to let you sleep in a king size bed (after a month of sleeping on a foam RV mattress), and take unlimited hot showers, and they have a pool….well that’s like being on vacation, really.  In fact, it was kind of a shock to our system I think…we’d been going so hard the past month that it was hard to slow down for a minute. 

Mel and Vivi met us at their place in Park City, which is a beautiful city/resort town and also hosted some of the events for the 2002 Winter Olympics.  One of our first stops was the US Olympic Park there in town.  At the park, they have lots of ropes courses, zip lines and even downhill tubing off the long jump courses during the summer.  But cooler than that is the summer ski jump training.  They have 5 ramps for aerial ski jumps that land in a swimming pool.  Before the jumper comes down the ramp, they flood the area where she/he will land with bubbles so that they land on “soft” water.  Pretty ingenious.  The “skiers” come down in full gear, do flips and twists and land in the water with all their gear on.  It’s really cool to watch them practicing.

We also spent some time in the Park City ski resort, where they have a terrific alpine slide and alpine coaster as well as more zip lines and some mountain biking trails, but only rated “blue.” The boys scoped out the mountain biking trails and quickly figured out that the trails were a bit out of our reach.  So for the most part our adventure that day was all about sliding down the hills as fast as we could on the sleds and rails.

We also spent a day driving up to Mirror Lake, which sits at about 9500 feet.  Gorgeous views, a beautiful lake and an easy walk around the perimeter.  So many pretty flowers to look at.  Although the best part was probably on the drive when we came to a pullout for Upper Provo Falls.  Because of the sedimentary/slate rocks in the area, the falls was more of a cascade-effect with multiple 6-15 foot drops separated by sections of the river that were shallow with flat rocks…in other words, perfect for wading in the water and climbing on the rocks.

Another “local” friend, Susan Scales, suggested we visit Jordanelle Reservoir to use our SUPs….well that was a terrific idea, but we went on the WRONG day.  With a short summer, and a huge holiday in the middle of the week (Pioneer Day…more about that later), the hot weekend meant PAR-TAY time at the reservoir.   Here we roll up, innocent tourists, expecting your normal lake scene.   Well, jokes on us….the entire beach area was covered in pop up tents and huge families having cook outs.  Boats everywhere, kayaks and SUPs all over the no-wake zone.  We passed on the SUPs, but the kids did get their thrills in on the inflatable obstacle course.  Right up their alley.

Mostly though, we just enjoyed the company of friends.  Mel and I went to yoga one morning, we worked on an insanely hard puzzle, we hung out at the pool and ate a whole bunch of food.  We went downtown to the farmers/craft market.  Stuff like that.  And on our last night Susan and Bobby met us for a great dinner at Chimayo (thank you Vivi and kids for letting us go out on an adult night!)…and she brought our mail!  Shelley has been compiling mail for us, and sent us a box with some sweet letters from family to each of us….we all went to bed with smiles after getting our notes.  🙂