Bagby Park City Retreat: Day 1 - "This is the place...I think"
The monument marks the spot where the leader of the settlers of Utah, Brigham Young, stopped his wagon, surveyed the valley that laid out before him and declared "this is the right place." For God had shown Brigham the destination for the Latter-day Saints, who settled Utah, in a vision. That valley was eventually called the Salt Lake Valley due to the large salty body of water that sat in the middle of it.
Our plan was to have a picnic lunch at the monument on our way to Park City. Armed with Subway sandwiches we arrived at a large field on hill with a tall granite tower at one end. The sun was blazing, so lunch was had quickly after seeking refuge in a gift shop so that Ashley could get her lunch in comfort.
We made our way through a windy canyon that separates Park City from Salt Lake City and found our accomidations at the center of town. Home was at the Park Station Condo Hotel, as mentioned above, and our condo was equipped with 5 bedrooms.
To get an idea, imagine two large hotel suites, each with a living room, full kitchen and two bedrooms. Knock out the wall between them and use the space between the walls to squeeze in a bunkbed. To be honest, it worked.
Shortly after arriving I returned to Salt Lake to cover an RSL game. I was delighted that Serge (Stacy's husband) decided to come along for the game. There were some great goals - although Salt Lake let their lead slip away as they got scored on in stoppage time to end up in a 3-3 tie.
Serge and I returned back to Park Station and were climbing into bed just in time to hear the fire alarms go off in the building. He and I went to investigate what was going on and found the the building had all evacuated - with the exception of our party.
We ran back in to get everyone when the alarms stopped. With everyone now awake we milled around in hallway for a few minutes before the alarms went off again.
This time Amber rushed back into our room to grab Ashley (soundly sleeping through the whole thing) and we all made our way out of the building in a rush. Ashley woke up once she felt the cool night air on her face.
If you haven't noticed, I haven't mentioned anything about a fire. That's because there wasn't one. The Fire Marshal came out to investigate and found nothing. We all returned to our beds and slept fairly deep into the next morning.
When in Park City, we got there and went out for Pizza for dinner (which was really good) and then some of us were going to walmart, until we saw it was closed. Hence the trip to smiths. We got all the food for our days in Park City plus a few other items (cough head wipes cough) :] This day was entertaining because I had to get up @ 5 in the morning so we could leave @ 7. We get back to the hotel around...what 12:15 or so? So then I get in bed around 1 and then the whole fire thing at 2. haha yeah that was an entertaining day.
Swimming was the prefered morning activity every morning we were there. I liked swimming. We had lovely chats in the pool along with a modified version of monkey in the middle. It was all very fun. And you wanna know the best part? I DIDN'T GET BURNED!!! lol unlike the last family reunion we had. :]
The way back to Albuquerque was pretty uneventful. Probably hit maybe 4 or 5 construction sites. We also desided to go another way home. When we got to Cortez, instead of turning south towards Shiprock, we continued east and went to Durango. I drove from Cortez all the way back home, so my dad was able to look out the window at the beautiful landscapes around Durango. We got home around 6.
So (wow i didn't know that I could type this much) I had a lot of fun on this year's family reunion! I'm already excited for the next one!! But hopefully no malfunctioning fire alarms... :]
<3 you all!
Melissa