2021-09-12
UTAH ROAD TRIP DAYS 2 AND 3
Day 2 was a marathon, as it turned out. We had a 7 hour drive and I drove the entire time. This couldn’t be helped as we both thought there would be mountains to drive throough and Lisa does not like to drive those hills and curves, especially at elevation. We arrived around dinner time, which was perfect.
Park City is a tourist town, but not too cheesy, which makes it palatable. In the winter it is all about skiing, of course. During the summer, the area around Park City has tons of parks, campgrounds, lakes, trails, etc., enough to keep anyone very busy. We decided to take advantage of my lifetime Marriott platinum status and stay at a Marriott resort. This place is huge! The main street of town is surrounded by the resort hotel. I have to say that it is a very nice hotel and we got ourselves a nice room.
After checking in, we walked to main Street to find a restaurant. Main Street is literally outside the door of our building and finding a decent restaurant only took a few minutes. We did our standard search – Trip Advisor and Yelp reviews. We opted for a favorite food of ours: Thai! There are so many restaurants here, it’s remarkable!
Here’s what I had for dinner:
Fried Calamari
Panang Curry
The calamari was delicious and the panko crust was nice and crispy. The curry was, well, curry. Not spectacular, but as I would have expected. Lisa had Tom Yum soup, but we both agreed it needed more lime, lemon grass and ginger. The price was okay compared to a number of other restaurants on main street. This is Not an inexpensive place to hang out!
We made plans for day 3 and both crashed early on Day 2. We were bushed!
It turns out the only real benefit I got from being a Marriott platinum guest was a guaranteed room and a card that would give me a discount on food and items on main street. No bit whoop, but we’ll take what we can get. I don’t even want to think about how many nights I spent in Marriott hotels to make platinum. Ugh. Still, it remains my favorite hotel chain. Home away from home.
Day 3 is finally here and the weather is beautiful! It is our only day here, so we did some research and decided to do two things today: the scenic drive from Park City to Mirror Lake and then do drive up to Guardsman Pass.
The area around Park City leading to Mirrort Lake (about 1 hour from our hotel one-way) is absolutely beautiful, as you might expect. And Mirror Lake was great, too, although it was way too windy to get the mirror-effect on the lake. Boo! Somehow though, I suspect that the mirrored lake effect is not too frequent, as I have to believe it is windy there most days.
Mirror Lake, by the way, is at 10,000 feet elevation. Whew. I’m glad I had my inhalers with me! Even Lisa was feeling the altitude! I’ll post photos of our day below. Guardsman Pass is also at 10,000 feet! It is only 20-30 minutes from our hotel and the road goes up and up and is one tight hairpin curve after another. I enjoyed the drive a lot. Our audi enjoyed it too, after all it was built for roads like this. Woo hoo! Lisa said she felt very “uncomfortable” at times. LOL! Our buddy Jim would have fainted.
Guardsman Pass was also kind of a disappointment, to me at least. I took a few photos with my camera, not my phone, so no one will see those until I get home. The road down from Guardsman was hairy! Steep, curvy and very narrow.
Tomorrow we are off to our destination – Moab. Yay! We might be leaving just in time, too, as it is supposed to rain in Park City tomorrow. It’s only a 3.5 hour drive, supposedly, so I should be up to getting some photos and posting again tomorrow evening. We’ll see what happens!
Park City Sunday Market
Park City Sunday Market
Park City Market
You’ll notice that no one is wearing a mask. We carried our masks with us and put them on when we entered any building. Others, we’re hit and miss. Our hotel, at least, made masks mandatory inside the office, but again we saw some following it, some not. I do not believe there is any indoor mask mandate in Utah. One reason why there hospitals are almost full, no doubt. We are trying to remain careful and diligent, but when I’m outside, unless there is a crowd, I go maskless. It wasn’t too difficult to keep 6 feet away from most folks today at the market.
Park City street art
There was some interesting art on display around main street. As well as a guy with the most amazing-looking owl and a crow that knew how to take money and put it in a slotted box, lol.
On the road to Mirror Lake
On the road to Mirror Lake
A beautiful forest Sprite. She played tricks on me and took all my money!
One of the many lakes around Park City
A glimpse of the road to Guardsman Pass
You are right Jim would have fainted! Looks interesting! My sister-in-laws daughter lives inPark City. She is s as great photographer!
Cool!
Great pics. Thanks for sharing!