Brighton's Brightest

Utah. Interesting.

I was surprised, to be honest.  I loved it.  Salt Lake City was where I learnt to ski when I was young.  

My dad's brother, John, lived there and we visited in the 80's.  We skied above the clouds.  I had no idea how vast in beauty that experience was.

Since then, my love for Utah has diminished.  I have no distain for Mormons, but it seems the subtle prejudice of society against them has crept into my sub-conscience.  My experience of SLC was all-encompassing and all-fulfilling, but it's taste of Mormonism was prevalent in the common society of the Salt Lakers.  

Examples ahead:

This list mostly deals with alcohol and bars...it does not directly reflect on my SLC experience (meaning: I wasn't a bar toad):

*every pour of liqour was passed thru a metered device that let out exactly 1 oz. of liquor (1/2 oz. smaller than regulated shots) AND counted the quantity of pours.

*no pour must leave the bar without being drunk in front of the tender of that liquor

*in order to enter a bar, you must purchase a membership

*there are no happy hours b/c the Mormons-in-charge do not want intentional times when people purpose to drink more than usual.

ok.  there are actually more rules....a lot more, but I am thinking the Mormon-measurer of SLC is solely based around its control of the night-life....and that was only about 25% of my vaca (vaca=vacation, Mom)

Let's focus on the edifying aspects...briefly and with 3 pictures:

Curtis Sigoda and myself at the Hogswallow.  

A local happy Sandy pub.  Oh yeah! Despite the intense alcohol laws, smoking inside of bars is completely legit.  Bars get shut down for a few weeks as a penalty for not abiding by liquor laws (this being one of them), but smoking inside and creating a massive cancer cloud for all to partake is completely legit.

I skied like a bastard (cuz bastards ski...sorry, Mom), real-estate is cheap, mountains are all around, there is ease in and out of the city, above par NBA games, white sidewalks, expensive liquor habits, smokey interiors...it can go on.

Utah was great. 

 Thanks mostly to my friend Curtis and his parents.  My legs hurt, my hips hurt and my ego hurts.  Go support the Utes.