Hello from Salt Lake City, UT

Hello from Salt Lake City, UT

Saturday afternoon,  July 19, 2014   (First post of this travelogue)

We are in Salt Lake for Pat’s Stampin’ Up! convention.   We were able to get reservations at the Marriott (Downtown) again this year.  This hotel is right across the street from the convention center.  We got a corner room, conveniently overlooking construction of a new building {grin}.

We left Evergreen Tuesday (7/15) and stayed in Green River, UT (our normal stop).  Wednesday we arrived in Salt Lake in the early afternoon and Pat started her meetings that night.

There are about 4,000 SU demonstrators here this year.  In years past there were as many as 7,000 demonstrators and they had to have two sessions of the convention.

I have been holed up in the room quite a bit working on a computer project for our Eagles club.  I have spent lots of time learning database management, software program code modification and all those fun things.  It is a fun challenge, but I have spent way too much time of the project (probably 300 hours over the past several weeks). 

Today was the last day of the convention.  Pat has been going almost non-stop.  The last meeting just got out and there is a huge line waiting for the elevator.  As I draft this, I am stuck in the lobby until the crowd clears.  I had to come down here when they cleaned the room – I knew the timing was terrible.

Yesterday, I drove up to Hooper, UT (about 35 miles north) to visit with a good friend.  It is always good to see Kent and talk about buses and cars.

Tonight we have tickets to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir performance.  This will be the third time that we have seen them and it has been an amazing performance in the past.

Tomorrow we will start home.  We are changing our route so that we can stop in Gunnison to visit our two grandsons who go to college there.

That is all of now.

Hello from Gunnison, CO

Hello from Gunnison, CO

Tuesday morning ,  November 19, 2013   (ninth travelogue of this trip).

Sunday we drove about 400 miles to Green River, UT and stayed at the Holiday Inn Express (on points {grin}).  Monday we drove to Gunnison (a bit over 200 miles) and got here about noon.  We are staying at the Roadway Inn (map). 

Last night we went to dinner with Thomas (grandson) and his girlfriend Klara.  We also did a bit of catching up in the rather tiny motel room.  It is great to hear about their lives and frustrating to hear about the challenges of being a college student on a tight budget.

We planned this trip for several reasons.

First, we wanted to just plain get away.  I was tired of flying to Seattle so often and fighting the airport logistics.  That also meant a lot of time away from Pat.

 Second, we wanted to take a tourist-type trip through the north west part of the US.  We have seen some magnificent country, visited some great friends and drove a lot of miles (close to 4000!).  I think we did pretty good on that goal.

Lastly, I wanted to pick up a sleeper I bought for my ’59 IHC BC-150 truck (link to background).  If you visit the linked site, you will find out that this truck is very special to me.  I have been collecting parts for a complete rebuild for several years.  One of my crazy goals was to extend the frame and put a sleeper on the truck.  It was never built that way from the factory, but I think it will look neat and give me some storage room.  I had looked all over the US for a period-correct sleeper and finally found one that was about 5 miles from the hotel in Kent, WA.  I went to see it a couple of months ago and bought it.  Then I had to figure out how to get it home.  The photo below shows my methodology {grin}.

That is all for now.