Hello from Salt Lake City Utah.

Hello from Salt Lake City Utah.

Thursday afternoon July 14, 2011 (first travelogue of this trip).

Before we get started on documenting this trip, I want to mention that I have not given up on adding more details and photos for our family vacation in Dillon, CO. We had a blast and I want to tell the readers a bit more about our great time. Maybe next week.

We are in Salt Lake City for a Stampin' Up! Convention. Pat attends each year. I have accompanied her twice. The last time was in 2009 (documented here). We are again at the Marriott Downtown (map).

As was the case last time, we have a corner room that overlooks the continuing construction of the huge reconstruction of downtown Salt Lake (details here). Most of the huge cranes are gone, but the construction continues. I am still able to do a little “sidewalk supervision”.

We left Denver about noon on Sunday (7/10) with the intention of taking a leisurely, scenic drive in the PT Cruiser. We chose to take US 40 through Colorado and Utah. We enjoy this route as an alternative to the interstate. We stayed the first night in Craig, CO at the Hampton Inn. It was a great experience as the room was very nice and the employees were quite friendly. They even gave us a tip about a great Mexican food restaurant.

Our next stop was Park City. We had decided to try the Hampton Inn again, but it was booked. We decided to fall back on our “normal” choice: Holiday Inn Express. It was your typical Holiday Inn experience which is just kind of OK.

The drive from Park City to the Marriott is about an hour, so we did not leave Park City very early. As usual, Pat was a bit behind in getting her swapping cards read for the convention, so she worked on them at each of the motels.

Swapping cards is quite a tradition at these conventions. Most attendees prepare between 100 and 200 cards and then trade them with other demonstrators. It really gives them a large base of ideas for cards they can prepare for their workshops.

Pat qualified for the VIP level at the convention. That gives her access to a large room in the Salt Palace Convention Center where she can relax (yeah, right). It also qualified both Pat and I for a special tour of the Stampin' Up! headquarters and distribution headquarters. It is a huge, beautiful new facility that Stampin' Up! paid cash for. The distribution facility is huge and extremely well equipped. At the time of our tour, they were filling two large UPS trailers for the day's shipment. We were transported both ways in beautiful Prevost Buses (for the readers with buses, that is our bus content).

Pat is on the go from basically sun-up to sun-down. There are tons of activities and, of course, meeting new and old friends. While she is attending the activities, I am trying to catch up on a bunch of work/projects. I have also been taking long walks and viewing the amazing Temple Square which is just a block from the hotel. On the walks, I was able to scout out a great historical, local restaurant for breakfast, and a pub with sidewalk tables and a huge variety of beers and good sandwiches for dinner.

That is all for this post.