Sunday I returned from a short little weekend road trip out to Salt Lake City to enjoy some of the Olympic festivities. Here is my little story for those who are interested.

We left from Denver on Thursday evening at about 6:00 PM. The trip is exactly 500 miles to Provo where we were staying Friday night. We made it there by 1:30, but we stopped for probably 30-45 minutes. The drive was lovely. I don't know if any of you have experienced Glenwood Canyon on I-70, but it is a very well designed 20 mile stretch of highway that is a blast to drive.

We woke up Friday and headed up towards Soldier Hollow to watch the Nordic combined event. I had never been to the Olympics before, so going to an actual event was quite a treat. I didn't think that skiing would actually be fun to watch, but the cross country race was quite exciting. Finland won the gold metal, followed by Germany and Austria.

After the race we walked around the little Pioneer and Native American displays that the state of Utah and perhaps the Mormon church had erected. I found the Native American displays to be a little offensive because they were so stereotypical, but that aside everything was quite interesting.

That night we went out to Salt Lake City. I never imagined that the city would actually be so busy. There was a concert, numerous clubs and bars, and lots of international people (which was the best part). We hung around SLC for a while then we headed up to Park City to party. Park City was supposedly the big party spot for the area, but we were unable to find a single thing to do. We drove around the town then just decided to head up into the mountains by ourselves. We grew bored and drove back to Provo.

Saturday was my grandparent's 50th anniversay, so we spent the day at activities relating to that. We had a great time, then decided to head out around 3:00.

As we were leaving we decided to stop at one of Utah's state liquor stores to purchase some beer. As we pulled up to the liquor store we saw two middle aged men standing in the parking lot chugging Sam Adams lager (big no no on the streets of Salt Lake). I noticed them looking at my German plate as we pulled up, so I got out and talked to them. It turns out that they were Russians, and were quite accustomed to drinking on the streets. I thought it was great. I just love fun cross-cultural interactions.

There is a brewery in Utah that makes this beer called "Polygamy Porter." The beer itself does not taste very good, but the packaging is humerous enough that I needed to buy several packs of it. Unfortunately, the liquor store is state run. Many of the members of the state liquor board are Mormon, so it's not surprising that the state liquor stores do not carry Polygamy Porter. Incidentally I had to go to a grocery store to buy the stuff.

Well, I'm droning on, so we left that afternoon and made it home by midnight.

__________________
Ben

The MBs:
1976 300D (W115) - 330K and still going (sort of)
1991 300D 2.5 Turbo - Sold at 221K
1983 280SEL - Sold at 206K
1981 300SD - Sold at 232K

A big no no to drink on the streets?

__________________
... Kerry

126 tailed by a 203, 129 leading the pack.