Hello from Salt Lake City, UT
Saturday evening July 25, 2015 (First post of this travelogue)
We have made our way to Salt Lake for Pat’s Stampin’ Up! convention. We are staying at the Hiltion this year (the Marriott was booked up).
We left Evergreen Tuesday morning and had planned to make our usual stop in Green River, UT. While Green River is a very small town, it is about the only stop between Grand Junction and Salina, UT and as such is it a fairly popular place to stay for the night. We tried to get reservations at our two favorite hotels and they were booked up. We ended up driving to Price, UT for the night. We stayed at a very modern Holiday Inn Express and it was great. It made for a longer first day, but the drive to Salt Lake was less than 200 miles.
I have planned to visit an IHC truck collector in Green River after we had settled in. Because of the situation, Pat and I drove to his house and I did a relatively quick “survey” of his collection. He had maybe 15 IHC vehicles of various models at his house and apparently has a bunch more stored south of town. His collection is pretty rough. Each of the vehicles could be restored, but each would take a lot of work. His main focus is on what is called the Travelette truck which was about the only four door truck made in the 60s. He had several of them along with some Scouts and other misc. vehicles. It was fun to see them, but he must be about my age and will never get even a small part of his collection restored. Oh well, he is having fun gathering them up.
We are making this trip in a rented car. The PT Cruiser transmission has been acting up. On the way home from Fairplay (to see granddaughter Isabella show her pig at the county fair), it really acted up and finally set a fault code. I replaced the indicated sensor, and it seemed to cure the problem, but we did not want to trust the car without more test miles. It is a ton more fun to drive something that you don’t have to worry about.
Pat’s convention is a day shorter this year. The attendance seems to be pretty good (about 3,000 demonstrators). Last night Pat (we) hosted a dinner for her “downline” at the Olive Garden. In total there were 14 people (see photo) and everyone seemed to have a good time.
Thursday I drove to Hooper, UT to visit my friend Kent. Kent has had stage 4 cancer for several years but seems to be doing reasonably well. We are friends as the result of bus activities and always have a good time BS’ing about all kinds of stuff.
Friday was a state holiday: Pioneer Days (link). They celebrate the arrival of Brigham Young and the first group of Mormons into the Salt Lake region (1847). When I say celebrate, I mean it. They have a huge parade and many of the businesses close for the day. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir has a major concert as a part of the celebration. We have attended the concert in years past, but it was held a couple of days before we arrived this year. I have attached a couple of pictures of participants waiting for the parade to start.
We will be leaving tomorrow and taking our normal route home via US 40. It is a beautiful drive.
That is all for now.