Ringing in the New Year with Utah Adventures

I’m back! I had a glorious week and a half off where I haphazardly checked my social media and email, but not much. It was major road tripping week for me as I drove from Magrath to the Tri-Citites, Washington, to Salt Lake City and back!

My family Christmas was amazing filled with lots of laughter. I won’t go into too much detail, but between the presents, the program, and the talent show, we all had an amazing time.

I headed to Salt Lake City to ring in the New Years with my brother Bruce and his wife Lauren and cross something off my bucket list. We didn’t go out and get crazy for New Years Eve, we stayed in and watched The Office and went to bed early.

The next day we headed off to Homestead Crater (a full post is coming soon). I had seen a segment on the Travel Channel about Homestead and have been obsessed with it ever since, especially since my brother lived so close to it. I’ll tell you more about my experience in another post but it was seriously such an amazing way to ring in 2015.

Just outside the crater, we stopped at some cool ice sculptures of some sort. There was a sprinkler on top of each column spitting out water which would freeze on its way down. It wasn’t until later that someone mentioned the Midway Ice Castle, so I’m guessing that is what it is going to be.

On the way home from Homestead, I insisted we stop at this giant horse statue so I could climb on top of it and get a Napoleon-esque picture. But when I got to the statue it was to slippery to climb on to and the resulting picture is one of my favourites from the trip. It looks….twisted.

We stopped in at Park City on the way home to check out the Olympic Training Centre which was unfortunately closed for New Years. But we went to the downtown area and walked around and checked out several art galleries. The Christmas lights were beautiful and though it was freezing, there were a ton of people out enjoying the town.

The next day, my brother headed off to work and Lauren and her sister Caroline and I went to iRock in Ogden, Utah. This facility is seriously amazing! iRock is in this amazing facility that has Flowrider (indoor surfing), iFly (indoor skydiving), an arcade and a Gold’s gym all in one stop! It’s like the ultimate indoor playground. I would kill to be able to be near a facility like that!

Rock climbing was a blast and I couldn’t believe how easy this facility made it for complete beginners to go on their own. The belay equipment makes it brainless to belay your friends and the wall has a huge variety of levels. We started off on the medium level but found it too hard and moved down to the easiest. That’s when I was able to actually reach the top.

After just a few climbs, our arms gave out (man I need to hit the gym) and we were ready to pack it in. There was a kids climbing boulder that all the kids were climbing on so of course I had to as well.

I was impressed with how fast I got up there but when I looked down I got scared to climb down. Ha ha! I asked a couple little girls on the top what the easiest way to go down was.

After climbing Caroline and Lauren took me to a place called Fiiz  for a drink. I was in shock an awe because we stepped into a diner-like environment with booths and a counter top with stools, but no food was served. This establishment was literally just for custom pop. That’s it! It’s a pop restaurant! it’s doing well because the drive-thru was super busy and there was a line inside. I couldn’t get over how a place that serves just pop could succeed. Caroline made a good point and said that with all the mormons in their area, people don’t drink alcohol or a lot of coffee, so this is an option to go out and socialize and have a drink. I had a coconut-lime Dr. Pepper and it was fabulous!

And just to cram as much fun and adventure in a two day trip as possible, I picked up Bruce after work for some night skiing at Brighton Ski Resort. Salt Lake City is amazing because there are ski resorts galore within 30 minutes drive from the city. While I hate city living, I wouldn’t mind it if I was THAT close to the mountains and activities.

I was really nervous for snowboarding because I hadn’t been since January 1, 2012! Two full years ago! There wasn’t a lot of snow either, so it was a little choppy. My first run was shaky, my second I started to feel more at ease and on my third run I took a bad fall and I was good to go. See, I had forgotten how little a bad fall hurts in the snow! Once I fell, I lost my fear and started to really enjoy the ride. It was AMAZING! It wasn’t very cold, the runs were empty and Bruce and I had a blast.

I definitely have the snow bug now and all I can think about is getting out to ride more. The snow sucks at our local hill right now and it is WAY too cold (-30C) so I’ll have to bide my time, but I need to get out there.

And just like that, my two days were over and I had to wake up early and hit the road home. I told Bruce I would like to come down once a year for outdoor adventures because there is so much more in Utah I want to check out (especially Moab!).