A Few Hours in Salt Lake City

Travel is never easy, and Thursday's travel day to Salt Lake City proved that. About ten minutes before boarding our American Airlines flight from O'Hare was cancelled. We scrambled on the phone and with the gate agent and got ourselves on a United flight. We had trouble tracking our suitcase for transfer since American's new self-print machine cut-off the number of our bag code. Lots of running around between two terminals to ensure the transfer took place. We land in SLC to find no suitcase. It never went to United. It ended up coming in on a later AA flight, then was transferred in Salt Lake to United, whom then delivered it to our hotel.

By the time we finally got in the rental car and to our hotel we were tired and hungry. Luckily, Dave booked our hotel in the downtown area and we had a 2 block walk to a few microbreweries. Not-so-lucky was the fact that we were on the "fringe" of downtown and our long 2 block walk showcased the social-economic issues plaguing Salt Lake City.

We compared the dining menus of Squatter's Pub and Red Rocks and chose Red Rocks for dinner. This was our first introduction to Utah drinking laws. If you looked on-the-border of 21 the server had to write down your ID information into a log book. Beers on tap were a maximum of 4% alcohol. If you want something stronger it's coming from a bottle. We tried their Stout and Nut Brown on tap first - impression was they were watered-down. Tasted ok, just weaker versions of the styles. Dave stuck with the taps and tried their amber - same thing. Holly got another brown ale in a bottle and it was much better.

We ordered individual pizzas: The special of the day had pineapple, pulled pork, BBQ, and Serrano peppers. We also ordered a Gorgonzola, pear, candied walnut pizza. Both were very good.
Overall not a bad experience, just kinda average. The place had the charm of an Applebee's without all the flair on the wall.

Our next stop was over to Squatter's Pub. This place had a lot more charm and seemed to be a bit more popular with the Univ. of Utah students (campus was a mile or two away). We didn't stay long - just enough time to have a beer and prepare for another walk back to the hotel. We tried on tap the famous Polygamy Porter and Dirty Bastard Oatmeal Stout. Both had a lot more body vs. Red Rocks products. Liquor was on display here, whereas Red Rocks bartenders had to go to a backroom to make a liquor drink. Overall would have been a fun place to hang out for a few rounds. One thing to note, Wasatch Brewing and Squatter's are two separate businesses that got together to produce beers in a more cost-effective way. Both businesses have each others beers on tap, but not the full list. At Park City's Wasatch we had an Oktoberfest - which was not available at Park City's Squatter's.

The next morning we were planning to head out of the city early to get to Pocatello, Idaho in time for the race expo start (Holly was running a marathon) but had a couple minutes to spend touring Temple Square. This area is home to the Salt Lake City Temple and Tabernacle (where the Mormon Choir perform) of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Other surrounding buildings make up the rest of the square and serve as the church's headquarters. Temple Square is Utah's #1 tourist attraction.

Couldn't they put the trash can on the other side of the organ?

Once you left downtown the landscape slowly turned from mountain to desert. The 3 hour drive to Pocatello was desolate, but at times very pretty.