Rest Day in Park City - Day 2

Took the day off from driving to enjoy the little ski town Park City, Utah. A rest day if you will from logging miles and gathering bugs on the front of our car and bikes, ewww! Park City is quaint beyond quaint. We intended to use this day for road biking but being at 9000 feet proved too much for me. The altitude kicked my butt! Maybe I will acclimate by the time we get to Denver.

It was a beautifully sunny day, so we headed into town to take a stroll through their annual Art Festival and grab some grub. The Festival was an exact replica of Sausalito’s Art Festival. I could have sworn they were all the same artists selling the same kitschy crap. My apologies to collectors of kitschy art, but we all know that clutter is my enemy (have you ever seen my anti-clutter shirt?) and I am art school bound, I’m supposed to be jaded : ).

Midway through our stroll I saw a woman clutching a black flat metal cut out of a cartoonish cat with the word ‘meow’ scrawled across it. She was very proud of her purchase. The funny thing is that not five minutes later, down a side street, I saw the artist whip up another ‘cat thing’ in about two minutes with a can of black spray paint and a white marker. I’ll bet she paid at least $50 dollars for that “original piece of art”.

On the brighter side, we stayed in a ridiculous resort named after the famed Norwegian downhill skier Stein Erikson. He is a local hero and according to his biography he is the grandfather of downhill skiing, has taught over a half a million people to ski, and among many other awards won gold and silver medals in the 1952 Olympics.

Enough about him, the resort is nestled at the base of the Deer Valley ski lodge. It boasts several breath taking views of the surrounding mountains (which we confirmed), beautiful wildflowers everywhere, true Swiss Chalet style, and a staff that is so nice it makes you suspicious (there I go being a jaded city person again). With no snow in sight downhill mountain bikers have commandeered the mountain. Now that is a crazy sport.

The main lift to the top of the mountain was in our backyard, which meant we could hear the screams of the bikers blasting down the mountain all day long. Adrenaline junkies! Being as accident-prone as I am, I took a big pass on that activity. It was fun to watch between taking a dip in the pool, deep tissue massages, then grabbing a bite in the lounge while watching Barry hit his 755th home run to tie Hank Aaron’s record. (To * or not to *, good fodder for debate) We’re on vacation; we’re allowed some indulgences!

Besides tomorrow we get up bright and early to start the long leg to Denver, Colorado.