Trip to Utah Part B (2015 Summer Adventures Part 3)

At this point, I just want to skip ahead and tell you all about backpacking in the UK, but I also teach math (and am an istj), which means we must go in order:

On Friday, we broke camp and headed north towards Salt Lake City.  We stopped by Utah Lighthouse Ministries and met Sandra Tanner!  This has been on our (Ian's) bucket list for about 5 years, so it was really an amazing privilige to be able to meet Sandra Tanner and chat with her.  She was so nice!  We got to stay with some friends in the Salt Lake City area. Neal, the pastor of Mountain Road Church, and his wife, Christie, are such sweet people!  We had such a good time getting to know them.  Since we were staying with them, we stopped by the church and helped take down decorations from their week of Vacation Bible School.

On Saturday we enjoyed a slow morning of breakfast, coffee, and visiting with Neal and Christie.  We decided to head to Antelope Island State Park and go for a hike.  Antelope Island is a really cool little island.  You drive across a long bridge to get to the island.

Thank you Google Maps for showing us where Antelope Island is

We stopped by a the park office to get a map and buy postcards.  They have bison, antelope, mule deer, and bighorn sheep.  We tried to see some (or any) of these animals while we were driving to the trail head.  We did not see any animals (foreshadowing?).  The first thing I noticed when we parked at the trail head was the lack of trees.  I think Salt Lake City has a similar elevation of Denver and the sun is powerful in June.  We had already slathered ourselves with sunscreen so we set off.

We started hiking.  I said, "Wow!  There are a lot of grasshoppers!"  We kept hiking. We tried to talk, we tried to play games, we tried to pretend that the trail was not the incarnation of the plague of the grasshoppers (I am stretching it a bit...locust and grasshoppers are similar), but it.was.not.possible.

There were so many grasshoppers!  Each step there were 4 or 5 grasshoppers jumping up - which may not sound bad when you are at home in your jammies, sipping coffee and writing a blog post, but there is a reason that God sent a plague of locust/grasshopper. {Lordhavemercy, they are so annoying!} After about a mile, we stopped and tried to decide what we should do: Hike 6 miles with grasshoppers or turn around and do something else.  Since we were on vacation and there was no prize for enduring the grasshoppers, we turned around and headed back to the car.

We did take a picture before leaving Antelope Island.

We decided to drive east and check out Park City, Utah.  Ian drove the 2ish hours to Park City while I complained about dehydration and feeling nausea.  As soon as we arrived in Park City, I thought, "We are back in Colorado - this feels like a mountain town".  I am not exactly sure how to explain what that means, but Park City did not feel like the rest of Utah.  It was a cute town (by cute I mean, very clean, up to date, and suburb white girl).  We found the Wasatch Brew Pub and caught a World Cup Soccer Game while sipping a Polygamy Porter (actual name of the beer - no comment) and learning about the history of the Wasatch Brew Company.

So surprising/shocking that it is funny (that was my reaction at least)

We headed back to Salt Lake City - it was a pretty drive.  We enjoyed a fun evening of grilling out with Neal, Christie, their son, and grandkids.  It is so special to hear stories of God's faithfulness and mighty power.  Any time we have heard stories about God moving in great ways, we have also heard about the challenge, difficulty, and pain of following God - it helps keep our feet planted firmly.

Sunday we packed, headed to church, and then started our drive back to Colorado.  We took Interstate 80 back (instead of Interstate 70 which we drove on our way out).  This took us more through Wyoming.  I love driving on interstates in the west - it is so relaxing (to me).  I was somewhat concerned as we kept getting wind warnings (gusts of 60 mph!?!?) but we were fine.

One more picture from "Grasshopper" Island

I think we got home around 10pm and just went to bed.  It was so fun to camp and vacation in Utah.  The culture is different than Colorado.  The scenery is different than Colorado. We had a great time and made fun memories!

Up next: Our trip (in 25 blog posts probably) to the UK!