So I know the blog has been a little empty lately, and I feel bad about that, and hope to get some more posts up for people to read. We are still here in Utah; Salt Lake City specifically, and I have a great work schedule where I work seven days in a row and have seven days off! It is magical and totally worth the frustration that I have since my job is much harder than I thought it would be. I am not used to such manual processes, and I am not used to struggling at work, so this is a change for me.
The transition here was not the best either, so that didn’t help. I flew home to visit family and Jesse left CA to head to UT without me. I almost missed my flight because I woke up at 6am for a 7am flight! I still can’t believe I made it. Along the way Jesse stopped in Vegas, and that was when someone broke into our trailer and stole 85% of my clothes, and some of Jesse’s nicer clothes as well as a whole bin of stuff very important to me (Twick’s collar, our race medals, and some other things I have acquired over the years and all of our magnets!!) That was awful and very upsetting. On the plus side for Jesse, MoeJoe was very good in the car.
Also, as Jesse has alluded to, this is not exactly his favorite place on earth (that would be a state with a beach and sun 364 days a year and no winter ever) but he loves me, so here we are in Utah. We have settled in and we have an apartment with furniture that we picked out and bought. There are even wall decorations. I found a thing on amazon where I could upload some of the awesome pictures we have taken over the years and have them printed on canvas. They came out pretty good and I love to reminisce about our adventures. Jesse had a job cooking at a restaurant but the hours he was working was insane and he was never home so now he found a new job teaching kids how to do gymnastics. It is fun and different for him, although he went from working 60 hours a week to 20 hours, so he is thinking of finding another fun thing to do to help keep him busy.
MoeJoe has settled in nicely here; I think he likes all the space to run around since this place is much bigger than our studio in CA. We have a porch that is covered in mesh so he can’t fall off and he likes to sit out there and watch the ducks. Our apartment has a bunch of ducks that are protected and can’t be bothered. They had a bunch of baby ducks when we first moved here and they are adorable!
Utah has so much to offer and so many wonderful things to do. During my week off while Jesse was working his crazy hours I had to do some exploring on my own. I found the library pretty quick and have probably read close to 15 books since moving here. I spent a lot of time those first few months down by our really nice pool reading my book. We did find some time to head downtown to see Temple Square and the Mormon temple. It is a beautiful place that was in full bloom when we first got here in the spring. It is close to City Creek mall which is an indoor/outdoor mall that has a roof that can be closed up in the winter. It also has the only Nordstrom’s that is closed on Sunday!
We have managed to find some really great places to eat. Utah is known for their bonkers booze rules but there are a lot of breweries and even some distilleries nearby. We have found Porcupine Grill, Bohemian Brewery, Prohibition and Laziz. We have gone to Bohemian often and they have fun german style food that is pretty good. Prohibition is a crazy place, when I first looked it up I thought, “This is not very Utah.” They have a lot of great cocktails and food, as well as burlesque shows most nights. They also have karaoke on Thursday and we go just about every other Thursday with some of Jesse’s previous coworkers. Laziz is a Lebanese restaurant with some awesome food. We also love to go up to High West in Park City. It is a distillery that makes some very good cocktails and their food is pretty awesome too. It is a lot cooler up there also so it is nice to escape some of the heat in the Valley. Park City is such a cute town with lots of shops and restaurants.
As usual we offset the eating by running and of course there are lots of places to do that here in Utah. One park I am quite fond of is Sugarhouse Park. It is a paved loop that has a few small hills and is just a great place to go and get a few miles in. We have been on a few hikes of course as well and I have even volunteered at some local races.
We did get Utah driver’s licenses and registered our cars here so we have Utah plates also. That makes us pretty official so I made the huge leap and traded in my very beloved, fast, super fun to drive Scion FRS for a Subaru Crosstrek. They might as well give out a Subaru when you get your license since there are so many of them here in Utah. The car has a lot going for it; better ground clearance, all wheel drive, it sits up higher so I can see over signs and guardrails now. Plus it is bright orange so the giant bubba trucks can see me; I was pretty invisible in my little FRS. But good God is that car slow! I did buy a six speed manual so it is a least a little fun but jeez it does not move like my FRS did. And it has this crazy hill clutch that keeps it from rolling backwards but also keeps it from moving forward when you step on the gas; it holds it for a second or two. That will take some getting used to! I do like that I am not limited in where I can go so that is nice. Plus she will come in handy for when we car camp in CA in October and May.
Overall I love it here and my drive to work is so beautiful. I love the giant mountains and the view I get of the Valley from where I work. It will take some time, but I think we will find ways to enjoy being here, and exploring our ‘for now’ home.
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