We'd already planned to spend about a week or so around Salt Lake City for Michael to get as much paragliding time, for Lisette to drop into a few dance classes, for us to relax, and to also take advantage of some bigger city offerings (such as Asian grocery stores, Thai restaurants, diverse food options, and boring-but-important services like going to the bank, post office, washing Sheila etc).
Rather than write a day-by-day entry of what we did, here are a few highlights of these past 9 days, spending most of our time in Salt Lake City county, based in the city of Draper (we also covered a bit about our stay already in the previous post).
Paragliding at Point of the Mountain
Michael hasn't done any paragliding since we embarked on our road trip, so he had already been planning to get as much flying time here. Point of the Mountain in Draper is a world-renowned site, with paragliders, hang gliders and paramotorists all flocking here whenever wind and weather conditions are favorable. The south side is the Flight Park State Recreation Area, a Utah state park, where we camped for most of the time we were here. We simply needed to lift the blinds up each morning to see if people were out flying -- and if they were, Michael would have a quick breakfast and walk a mere 100 feet to join them! The north side tended to be better for flying in the evenings, where we'd drive through a residential area and find ourselves among the crowds of other folks walking their dogs, sitting on blankets having dinner, and enjoying the beautiful sunset while watching those flying up high along the horizon and into the sky.
While there were a couple of no-fly days due to rain and strong wind, overall the conditions were favorable for Michael to fly and do some ground handling (kiting). Mornings started fairly early, with many students arriving before 7am to the south side before the wind blows out around 10am. In the evenings, even though it was hot on some days, Michael was still able to fly well into sunset, between 8.30-9pm. Lisette would often take Sheila for long walks, do some yoga, or read while Michael was paragliding, taking advantage of the warm and sunny long days.
Dinner with Brian and Lydia
On one of the nights we went to dinner with Michael's paragliding friend's Brian and his wife Lydia at a nice Mexican restaurant called Sol Agave. It was great to hang out and have some "normalcy" with great folks. To be fair everyone we met in Utah has been super friendly and hospitable.
Bollywood and West African Dancing
Lisette took several classes Repertory Dance Theatre: an Intro to West African dance class followed by a Bollywood Dance Class one evening (Lisette's first-ever Bollywood class). She loved both classes, so sne went to another Bollywood dance class with the same teacher in Draper (an intermediate level class this time), and two more West African dance classes that were open to all levels. She also made friends with a couple of students there, including going out to dim sum for lunch after one class with Jen and Justine. If you're reading this, thank you for the treat and your kindness! Rosie, the West African dance teacher, was a fun and energetic teacher, who broke down the steps well for beginners, while also challenging more experienced students. Next year, the West African dance community is celebrating 30 years in Utah. Lisette loved the Bollywood and West African dance classes, and would definitely have kept going back if we were here longer!
Virtual BASE Jumping
On one of the rainy and lazy days, we checked out JUMP, a virtual reality BASE jump. We wore an actual wingsuit and then put on a custom VR helmet, to experience a BASE jump that was truly as realistic as if we were leaping off a 4,000-foot cliff.
Michael and Lisette were in adjacent rooms doing several BASE jumps, and we'd both have to physically shuffle our feet forward to the cliff's edge and then be prompted by a teammate to jump! Our bodies would then shoot up into a horizontal position, and we'd be able to maneuver our wingsuits to turn, speed up and slow down as we started to descend, with a parachute opening up as we got closer to the ground (and we'd even have to grab the risers to lower ourselves down). There are several jumps in the experience, which is about 15 minutes total. It was super fun to see the detailed 3D landscapes, and feel the synchronized wind gushing past as we zoomed through the virtual sky.
At the end of the experience, we chilled out with the free drinks provided to watch the videos of our jumps. The JUMP business is fairly new, opening in Utah several years ago, but we could both imagine t being a really popular franchise in many other cities around the world, from Dubai to Sydney.
Loveland Living Planet Aquarium
When driving on the freeway, we noticed a huge claw, which turned out to be part of the Loveland Living Planet Aquarium--and was previously part of U2's 360° tour back in 2009. The aquarium features penguins (including two new penguins); a South American rainforest environment with anacondas, piranhas, poisonous dart frogs; a section with Asian flora and fauna including clouded leopards, a Komodo dragon, birds like the Luzon bleeding-heart dove from the Philippines; and a Utah section with local wildlife such as desert tortoises and endangered fish.
There's also an area with sharks, where you can sit and watch them and different fish swim all around you. The aquarium offers a regular yoga class in this area, although we're not sure we'd be able to concentrate on the yoga poses if we took this class! We also went to watch a 4D experience in the theater, but oddly it was a 2D documentary, which was still interesting but definitely not as advertised!
World's First KFC
The site of the first KFC: Who knew that the first KFC, called Harman Cafe, came out of Utah? In 1952, Colonel Sanders franchised his recipe to Pete Harman, a local restaurateur, and today KFC is over 31,000 restaurants in almost 150 countries worldwide. This site has a lot of fun and fascinating memorabilia -- from an actual white suit that Colonel Sanders wore, to a chicken-scented KFC-branded sunscreen (yes, KFC actually made this)!
Salt Lake City Highlights
Some additional places we checked out around Salt Lake City included:
Out of the Blue Statue
"Out of the Blue": A multicolored whale sculpture in the middle of a roundabout that polarized locals
This is the Place Heritage Park
This is the Place Heritage Park: An area that commemorates the arrival of the Mormon pioneers in 1847. While we didn't go into the village (recreated with old-timey buildings and people wearing clothes from that era), we did walk around the pristine grounds to see the various monuments. The grounds were immaculate, with a number of statues and plaques. There's a large gift shop there that for some curious reason sells a lot of random items that have nothing to do with Mormon settlers, from branded BBQ sets to candles and Christmas-themed items (even weirder because we were there in May).
Gilgal Sculpture Garden
Gilgal Sculpture Garden: A small garden tucked away from the road, the Garden contains 12 original sculptures and over 70 stones engraved with Mormon scriptures, poems, and literary texts. The creator, Thomas Battersby Child, Jr., spent 20 years developing this garden, which also features a striking Sphinx sculpture with the head of Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon faith.
Salt Lake City Public Library
Salt Lake City Public Library: A beautiful library with a glass atrium, letting the sun ray's beam into the building, which also includes a library store (where you can buy old library books for cheap), a salon, and other stores. There was a group of people playing classical music inside when we went and lots of people in the library, which includes a novel seed library (where you can "check out" and exchange seeds), a giant chess set, and thousands of books.
Salt Lake City Temple District
Salt Lake City Temple: The largest Church of the Latter Day Saints temple loomed high in the city, but it was unfortunately closed for renovations when we went, reopening in 2027. However, we wandered around the surrounding buildings and grounds, which are spotless and pristine, with lots of colorful, beautiful flowers in bloom.
The Up House
The "UP" House: If you're a fan of the Pixar animated movie, this house is a replica of the one that was featured. The house was constructed with permission from Disney to look exactly the same both outside and inside--with the every piece of furniture custom-made.
Eating Out
While Lisette considers herself to be a bit of a "foodie", we haven't tended to eat out too much on this trip, preferring to spend money on experiences. We will eat out on occasion, mostly to satisfy Michael's Thai cuisine cravings, or try dishes unique to the place we're visiting. The places we ate at included:
- Sawadee Thai: Solid Thai place with friendly staff and fresh ingredients we mentioned in our previous post.
- Curry Pizza: A chain with several stores in Utah and Idaho serving up Indian food, pizzas and specialty Indian curry pizzas. We mentioned this in our previous post but loved the Indian pizzas that we went here twice, getting the butter curry and tikka masala pizzas (chicken for Michael, paneer for Lisette).
- Tea Grotto: A specialty tea shop with over 160 loose leaf teas from around the world, and tea-infused desserts. Lisette got her tea fix, and also tried a chai bundt cake as a special treat.
- H Mart: While not a restaurant, we were happy to see this Korean grocery chain, where we stocked up on staples like rice and noodles, and also purchased ready-to-eat foods like fried chicken, mochi, and dessert made from purple sweet potatoes.
More Repairs
While driving one of the days the door to our shore power flew off, meaning that the cable was now exposed and accessible. We ordered a replacement on Amazon and had it sent to our friend Brian and Lydia's house. Michael managed to take the old frame off and change out the new one without too much difficulty thankfully.
Bonus: Stinky Sinky and Saggy Back
Okay, maybe this isn't a bonus, but one evening toward the end of our stay, we were driving in the RV and the air smelled like rotten eggs. We both wondered why Salt Lake City stank so bad and even searched online as to why this was the case.
After some sleuthing, Michael realized it was our kitchen pipes that were emitting this foul smell, which was because of anaerobic bacteria growing thanks to food waste getting stuck in the pipes from washing the dishes. This then released sulfur-based gases, creating that rotten egg smell. After several bouts of baking soda and vinegar followed by hot water down the pipes, the smell has thankfully gone (and we smelled it disappear down the sewer drain when we emptied our grey and black water). It's probably a good idea for us to proactively do the baking soda/vinegar/hot water treatment every month or so to prevent this build up from happening in the future.
Another time I went to get some shoes for Bollywood dance class from the back of the RV, and as we were moving things around, noticed that the right hand side was sagging, to the extent that there was a gap and you could see the bottom hanging out from the outside! We had to take everything out and noticed that some of the screws that held the bottom in place had popped off, most likely from all the different bumpy and terrible roads we've been on. Michael was able to hammer the bottom back up and screw it back in, but it certainly feels a bit jiggly still, so it's something to monitor.
Final Thoughts
We absolutely loved our time in Salt Lake City, and were kind of sad to be leaving. The city catered to our hobbies, offered a ton of outdoor activities, and we found the people to be some of the friendliest that we've met so far on our travels. We were surprised to often find that people would smile and wave to us as we drove past in our RV (we have not encountered this until now!), and we'd often have random conversations with people that we'd bump to on the street. It's so wonderful to have experienced this hospitality, and it's these little interactions that make a big difference.
[…] is a major tea lover (her last teahouse visit was in Salt Lake City), and she immediately fell in love with the store upon walking in, with its walls of rooibos, […]