Salt Lake City, 2014
The yearly all hands meeting for one of my groups at work was held in Salt
Lake City again in 2014. My dad and sister came to meet me afterward to
ski again. There was the possibility that it would be the last year I'd go
there for work (grant ending), so I tried to hit up all the spots I really
liked.
Sunday January 5, 2014
I had a mid afternoon flight again, leaving Boston at 4:20 and getting
into SLC around 11pm. I had a chatty cabbie on the way to the airport. I'd
packed my skis in my new bag, a ski buritto like thing that folded up
much smaller than my previous overlong bag. I took the big suitcase and
got my ski boots in there, but carried on my ski helmet. Checked in at a
serve yourself kiosk, paying to check my bags (work covers the suitcase
but not the skis, which of course are more expensive as the second item)
and quickly dropping them off. Went through the scanner instead of getting
the pat down this time, I was feeling tetchy about waiting and being
groped (think I was coming down with a cold). Grabbed a bagel to hold me
over on the plane.
The flight felt long, I finished my book. The plane took a bit of a drop
right before landing as it hit a pocket of less dense air, that woke me
up. My flight number from Phoenix to SLC was the same as the Boston leg,
but it was a different plane, so I had to go from terminal B over to A to
get on my next flight. I ended up buying a book (fairy tale adaptations)
in the terminal to hold me over. I had a window seat again, with a tall
quiet lady next to me, but she got very twitchy as soon as we landed - I
hate waiting to get out of the plane too.
I had a bit of a wait to get my suitcase and skis, and had fun observing
a lady with a 1940's adventurous look: shoulder length curly hair with
bangs, a leather bomber/moto jacket, rust jeans and tall boots. Once my
stuff came out I was happy to see a short cab line, only one person in
front of me. Quiet cabbie this time, and a quick drive to the Mariott. The
valet/bell boy was off duty by then, I hauled my stuff inside, got checked
in and into my room and took a lovely warm shower. Asleep by 12:45am. No
sign of other conference goers in the hotel bar this time.
Monday January 6, 2014
The meeting wouldn't start until noon, so I was on my own for breakfast. I
hit up the hotel restaurant and loaded up on lots of tea and some yummy
huevos rancheros. Sonia joined me soon after I was seated, she opted for
the buffet. I think from there I wandered up to the meeting area to see if
the rooms were open. They were so I settled in to start working. We did
the project presentations that afternoon, summarising our expected work
for the week, and I made note of the groups that might need my support.
After we knocked off for the day, I hit up the gym to get a workout in.
It was a bit odd exercising with work colleagues, there is no dignity in
sweating. :-) They have a Smith machine there, tried out some barbell
squats in it, not a fan, but they didn't have space for free barbell
exercises (I had to move around to find space to do dumbbell stuff).
Stretched out well afterward, the cold in the conference rooms added to
the flight the day before had me stiffening up.
I decided to do dinner on my own that night, walking a block or so to the
Copper Onion to see if I could snag a seat at the bar. I could, though
there was a confusing moment when a guy walked in after me and plonked
down at one of the bar seats while I waited for the host stand to seat me.
I got a Blood and Sand on a separate bill, no problem, then dove into a
duck cassoulet. The breast was a bit tough, but the thigh with beans and
the duck pate smeared on bread were divine. The sherry and date ice cream
I had for dessert was also amazing.
Tuesday January 7, 2014
This was my day of meetings instead of coding. I had a database related
breakout and then a one on one meeting with someone working on dental
applications. After lunch I was on tap to help Sonia with the workshop,
helping out people during the hands on section when they got lost or fell
behind. Two more meetings after that and I was fried, done for the day.
I was hoping to go back to Sage's Cafe but after walking over there it was
shuttered and closed for good. :-( Oh, looking this up after the fact, it
just moved! *phew* I went across the street to Faustina's instead and
gorged on good food. I had the beet carpaccio, salmon chowder, buratta
with tomato salad, creme brule and an Old Fashioned cocktail to ease it
all down. Walking back, I realised that Bar X was on the way and stopped
in for a Violet Fix.
I did some work on my planned camping trip to Grand Teton as the
backcountry camping permits were going to become available soon. I needed
to pick which campsites I wanted to hit and when (ended up with Marion
Lake, Death Canyon Shelf for two nights, then Death Canyon on the way
out). Then I went down to the hotel pool (still not a fan of the full
windows looking out over the street) and swam and soaked in the hot tub
for a bit.
Wednesday January 8, 2014
I sat in on a breakout session for information, chipping away at my own
work and just listening for interesting key words - I may be on that
project later in the year. I made up a summary slide for Sonia to include
in her presentation the next day, but mostly just focused on my own work
this day.
I had time before dinner to hit the gym again, more dumbbell stuff. I got
cleaned up and read while waiting for Madelyn and Paul to come collect me.
They were delayed at a contentious neighbourhood meeting and I was pretty
hungry by the time we went next door to the hotel for Mexican food. We got
the tableside guacamole and that perked me up enough to be verbal again.
Had the budin and a mojito and shared some churros for dessert. It was
good to catch up with them, though Paul kept trying to convince me to go
to Burning Man. :-)
Thursday January 9, 2014
Thursday is always the all hands meeting, hours of presentations with all
the PIs present. I tucked myself away in the back and worked quietly
through most of it. It's also always the gathering at a dive bar for fried
food, but I decided to duck out and get some more healthy food first. I
ended up at Plum Alley, the sister restaurant to Copper Onion (very close
by too). I sat at the bar and had a Thai basil cocktail, tom ka ga soup
and a delicious duck bun. I always love taking advantage of how little
alcohol is in Utah cocktails. :-) After my dinner, I walked over to
Murphy's to meet up with the work crew. I had a gin and tonic with Donna
and spent quite a while chatting with her at the bar. Then a gimlet
sounded like a good idea and I chatted with Stephen about movies for a
while. People started filtering out, but JC offered me another drink as he
was staying, so I had a G&T and talked with him about climbing and working
out (dirtbag diary, gym pact).
Friday January 10, 2014
End of the work week, with project presentations taking up the morning, a
box lunch and freedom for the afternoon. I asked for late checkout so that
I didn't have to leave my stuff with the valet before transferring to
another hotel, and that worked well. I'd found a deal with Avis, and
walked over to the Hilton to the rental counter there to grab the SUV for
the ski portion of the trip. I was looking forward to doing the driving
this year. :-) Got the vehicle, back to the Mariott, checked out and got
my stuff in the back, then did the short drive over to Crystal Inn and
Suites. Sue and I were sharing a room again this year, so I made sure that
her name was on the room and that Dad had a room nearby. Both their
flights were coming in at around 4-4:30pm, but I'd asked if they'd mind
using the free hotel shuttle so that I could take off to go night skiing.
They said yes, and I switched to ski mode and took off for Brighton. It
wasn't horribly cold that evening, and they had a fire pit going, with a
fire spinner and stuff to make s'mores. I was using the singles line and
got a good 1.5 hours in before taking a break, then another 2hrs before
packing it in to head down the mountain just before they shut down at 9pm.
Knocked on Dad's door to say hi, he was pretty much ready for bed but I
wanted to set the breakfast meeting time as well, and chatted with Sue for
a while before hitting the hay.
Saturday January 11, 2014
Hotel breakfast buffet was as usual, I brought down my own tea and travel
mug. We got discount passes to Canyons at Canyon Sports (I think), then
headed through the pass to Park City. It was pretty warm, I was sweating
in the lift lines, and the cover was sparse. :-( Big change from -20C last
year! Did 2 hours in the morning, 3 in the afternoon, though that last was
longer than expected since they had the Short Cut lift closed and I
miscalculated my route and had to wait in a long line to take the gondola
down. I was also trying to avoid the arm wrenching rope tow, but ended up
there once. We met up for lunch at midmountain, I had some filling veggie
chilli, and lots of tea and water to stay hydrated. After I made my way
back down the mountain at the end of the day, I found Sue at the Red Tail
Grill and then went to find Dad, since he'd gone to check the medic tent
for me. :-/ The down side of splitting up with little cell coverage is
that it's hard to update with changed circumstances. :-(
We shared some fries there to hold us over and then went a bit down the
highway to Gorgoza Park for some snow tubing. Because it was so warm, the
runs were very slow, I don't think we made it even near the end, even with
racing on our own. I kept trying different runs to find the fastest one,
but it turned out that one of the shorter ones was the best bet. I don't
think we did our full 2 hours, it wasn't as fun when you can't go super
fast.
I'd half heartedly organised a group dinner for that night since Madelyn
and Paul wanted to see Sue and Dad. They met up after a reception so they
were all dressed up in a sari and Utilikilt while were were ski bums. :-)
Sonia and one of the visiting presenters joined us as well and we had a
lively time. I tried the turkey burger since for some reason I wasn't as
hungry as usual, but did have a martini and a G&T (yay Utah liquor laws!).
Sunday January 12, 2014
Sunday was Alta day! :-) We had the hotel breakfast again and were running
a bit more slowly, not getting onto the slopes until 10:30, then stopping
at noon for lunch. Dad decided not to ski since the wind was really high
and there were white out conditions due to snow and fog. I ended
up skiing mostly off of the Sugarloaf lift, it was the most protected. I
found a nice trail through the woods to Cecret, trying to hit lots of runs
and lifts on my possibly last trip there. Sue was skiing mostly off of
Collins on steeper terrain. I was sticking with known routes, less icey,
since I was skiing blind a bit of the time. I was getting better at
relaxing and just feeling the slope as advised by one chair lift
partner.
After getting back downtown, since I'd been noticing bits of my ski boots
falling off (mostly from the sole), I popped over to Ski'n'See and Canyon
Sports to check out their boots for sale. Turns out neither sold ski
boots. O.o Ski'n'See apparently has other non downtown locations that
sells boots but I didn't have time to check them out. I also never made it
to the Title 9 store to try stuff on instead of just looking at things in
the catalogue.
We went back to Market Grill for dinner so that we could get some seafood.
Dad and I both gave in to the salmon special (we just made the cutoff for
the dinner special time), and I had the boiled potatoes, clam chowder and
creme brule to go with it. I tried their St. Germaine cocktail for dessert
as well, nice to see that liquor getting play here. It was a chilly walk
back to the hotel, and the couple that we were walking near turned out to
be on our floor of the hotel, hope we didn't creep them out!
Monday January 13, 2014
Sue's flight was this morning, so Dad and I said our goodbyes and left her
to take the hotel shuttle to the airport while we went back to Alta. :-) We
got on the slopes a bit earlier today, just before 10am. I was starting to
slow down a bit on my record making fourth straight day of skiing, and
stopped just before 11:30 for lunch. Dad and I met up at the cafeteria off
of Collins after he stopped a bit early and I went to check out what the
conditions were like off of Sugarloaf. There was better visibility
over there, so I stuck with that area again in the afternoon. Dad decided
to stop at 2pm, but I did one more run off of Cecret because I'm stubborn
like that. :-) Took a father/daughter selfie before heading back downtown.
The car rental place closed at 6pm, so I wanted to be sure of getting the
SUV back in time. It wasn't a problem at all, and the desk clerk
intercepted me by the elevators and took the keys without my having to
wait while he checked out a car to another customer. Dad had come with me
after we both got cleaned up and we walked over to the Copper Onion for
supper. I treated him to dinner since he'd covered gas for the beast truck
I'd been driving us around in. I couldn't resist one more vacation
cocktail, and got the gin, juniper syrup and lime flip, so good. I went
with Mary's Roast Chicken this time, it was divine, I was so full. I still
found some room to split a chocolate pudding with Dad for dessert though.
Tuesday January 14, 2014
I had an early flight (yay finding the best price) and I was up
and checked out before the breakfast buffet was supposed to open. Luckily
they'd set up early and I had breakfast at 5:45am while waiting for my
airport shuttle. I shared the van with US Airways crew members, one guy
was very insistent on helping me, I had to say a fairly loud "no" after he
picked up my purse. I had to bring my skis and suitcase manually to the
xray machine, that's always a disappointment when I'm looking forward to
not carrying them any more. There was a small line there and at security,
and I went through the mm wave machine. *sigh* I stopped right after
the check point for tea and water and trail mix.
There was a bit of confusion over my flight, I had a connection in Philly
but the flight was listed as going to DC, then my gate was changed from A4
to A6 and everyone was jumbled together. I had to disturb my row mates to
get up for the bathroom and to grab a second book during the flight. Then
once I got to Philly there was another gate change, yay flying in the
winter. There was a very cough-y lady on the flight to Boston, I always
wish I had the guts to wear a filter mask on planes. In Boston my bags
came out quite quickly, but that was offset by a very long taxi line (it
looped). Then the taxi I got (after insisting that I get one that fit my
skis and confusing everyone of course) had a broken seat belt, but other
than that the ride home was fine, and the driver offered to bring my bags
up the stairs to my front door (nice change from leaving them on the
street as has happened before). It was nice to get home fairly early,
around dinner time, to have time to decompress a bit before heading back
to work the next day.
Back to my diary page.