Utah Trip Day 5: 7 Feet Really Means 7 Feet

Day five was the second non-major travel day of our vacation. And not a minute too soon.

8:02 a.m. - The little boy with the little bladder cracks open the door to our room (OUR ROOM! OUR OWN SEPARATE ROOM! More beautiful words have not been spoken.) and slips into the bathroom to go pee. Probably a good thing he did because the threat of missing out on the free breakfast looms over us yet again and so our day begins.

8:52 a.m. - After just short of using a cattle prod to rush and herd the family down to breakfast to beat the 9:00 a.m. deadline, we realize this hotel leaves it out until 9:30. This left me the opportunity to have both literal and figurative egg on my face.

8:54 a.m. - Try breakfast enchiladas for the first time. The fact that I am trying a mexican food dish at a free hotel breakfast in Utah as opposed to Arizona does not bode well for this entree...and...they are not so good. Oh well, at least they are filling and there were other food options as well.

10:03 a.m. - Head out to ride the light rail to temple square. Think back to our last post regarding what time Kate went to bed. Add to this that she hasn't had a regular nap now in four days and she was most unceremoniously awakened this morning loooong before she would have preferred. Two days previously we got an appetizer of what we could expect with this combination. Today she is ready to give us the full course meal. (How about a little recognition for a well played restaurant analogy right there. Not everyone could have pulled that off, but I just did.) Kate is full on screaming at anyone who dares look at her. She is not above full on screaming at people who don't look at her, but it is guaranteed if you should mistakenly glance her way. Also, she has really taken to the phrase "Stop It" delivered in a gruff nasty sounding voice that reminds me of that scene in Teen Wolf where Michael J. Fox's eyes go red in the convenience store and he says, "I want a keg of beer." If you haven't seen that movie, this is not a recommendation, but if you have, you get a pretty clear idea of what Kate is sounding like this morning.

10:17 a.m. - Step off the light rail and begin walking to Temple Square. It already feels like we might be the subjects of a reality program with the following premise: Take an unsuspecting tourist family and place them in a climate controlled bubble that will remain around them where ever they go. Next, turn up the heat and humidity and see how long it takes before they begin to go all Gladiator on each other. If that had actually been the case, it would have been a short show. As we step off the train, I have to ask Abby for the 6th time to please not look at, speak to or in any way acknowledge that Kate exists. Parents, you know how you sound when you ask a child to do something for the sixth time. Not pretty. I actually felt very bad for Abby. All she wanted to do was help and console her little sister. Unfortunately, little sister was having none of that.

10:32 a.m. - Visit the Tabernacle. They had the organ playing and it got extremely loud. I am pretty sure it scared Braden and Logan.



10:41 a.m. - Go to the North Visitor Center and visit the Christus. Big hit! Then we head downstairs to see all that is down there. Braden, Abby, Logan and Shannon took their time and really enjoyed the different exhibits. Things with Kate were not improving so we sat down and tried to weather it out. In retrospect, I am sure it would have been funny to observe if one were not intimately involved. But Kate would get down and be ok for a moment or two or just cry a little bit and everyone coming by would comment how cute she was. (As an admittedly biased parent, I have to admit she is pretty darn cute most of the time.) As the parent at wits end with her, I wanted to glare and stare down all of these people making those comments. My thoughts were something like, "You think she's cute? Take for five minutes and let's talk again." But I would just smile and say thank you. I think one old man recognized my beaten, exasperated, "just shoot me now and put me out of my misery" look because he winked at me and then chuckled to himself as he walked past. Finally, I get up with her and went to the little quasi theater that shows a movie on the welfare system of the Church and let her lay on my shoulder while I watched the presentation. I think she might of fallen asleep...until of course Abby found us and for some reason felt the need to pat her back and speak to our sleeping baby. Now I was ready to give both of my daughters to passing individuals.



11:35 a.m. - Kate has now become white noise so we decide to go to the Conference Center and take a tour. I will now try harder to be more compassionate to those parents who seem completely oblivious to their out of control child. I had joined their ranks and found denial to be a pretty nice place to be.

11:40 a.m. - Begin tour of Conference Center. Definitely one of the highlights of my vacation experience. That is an amazing building. We got lucky (as did everyone else coming for a tour that day) to be in a tour all by ourselves.

11:47 a.m. - Highlight of the tour for the kids: The light from the skylights of the Conference Center were making rainbows on the seats. The tour guide let them go sit in those seats and the kids were "rainbowed".

11:49 a.m. - Clay Christiansen is practicing the organ while we are there. Only in Utah would a young family get excited about a middle aged(?) man playing the organ.

11:54 a.m. - The artwork is absolutely stunning. However, can't help but wonder how long it will take our tour guide to realize my wife and I are going to be the only ones interested in the art work. She's a trooper though. She keeps trying to get the kids interested. Alas, they are for more excited about the fact that they can walk behind the busts of the prophets which I am pretty sure they aren't supposed to do.

12:06 p.m. - Mild irritation. We have stopped and taken a good amount of time at just about every painting in the building regardless of interest level from us, but when we hit the room that has all of the paintings of past members of the twelve and I get excited to look for different Apostles, suddenly our tour guide takes on my persona and it is all about making time.

12:13 p.m. - Our sweet tour guide just can't figure out our camera. The picture below is the best of several of her efforts.



12:19 p.m. - Find myself in the mountains in a meadow. It truly feels that way. The roof of the Conference Center was simply one of the most amazing things I have seen. A little sad we came too late to see it all in bloom. But still.



1:03 p.m. - Meet Jerry back at the hotel to go to lunch at The Red Iguana Too or Two, I am not sure. Neat little Mexican restaurant that actually seemed to be on target with actual Mexican food. That would be a first in SLC for me. Very good meal. I had tacos with spicy beef that were served in soft taco shells spiced with Cinnamon. It has been almost a month and I can't decide if I would ever get them again. I loved the meat, but not crazy about the shells.



2:39 p.m. - We are rushing back to the Planetarium right down the road from our hotel because a 3D Imax movie about the Hubble Telescope is going to start at 2:45. We are in the parking garage and we are going to make it until...why would anyone go into a parking garage that has signs that say 7' Clearance and the signs are at 7 feet so if you are taller than seven feet you are hitting the signs? That was the question I wanted to ask the guy right in front of us. He had a pickup with a camper shell. Had that been it, he would have been fine. Unfortunately for him, the spare tire he had strapped to the top of the camper shell is what did him in. We followed him at a very slow rate of speed and watched as the tire would hit each sign and move it up out of the way. Then, he got to the point where the pipes of the garage were right behind the sign and it was all over. I'm freaking out because we now have two minutes until our movie starts and this guy has completely blocked the road in a parking garage. It almost felt a little clausterphobic. Thankfully, he could back up to one side and let people past. I felt a small tinge of sadness for that man. He was bound to have a very long afternoon. That was until he spoke. He said, "I don't know why they would let me in if I had something over 7 feet." Umm...aren't those what the signs are for? We move on.

2:46 p.m. - Make it into movie right as the presenter is speaking. That movie was AWESOME! Highly recommended. Kate did very well and seemed to be fascinated through the whole show. Logan sat next to me and kept reaching out to try and grab at things on the screen.

4:00 p.m. - We go to another show in dome theater. Pales in comparison to Hubble movie and Jerry and I both fall asleep. I mean reclining chairs, darkness and scientific explanations of...stuff? I had no chance.

5:03 p.m. - Spent way too much time in the gift shop. They had every cool toy you can imagine. They even had the old metal slinkies...Yeah I know. They also had a massive marble track that was like three stories tall. I think Logan spent over 1/2 an hour just watching that thing go.

5:42 p.m. - Jerry offers to take kids for ice cream while Shannon and I look in a store or two. I immediately start the paperwork for Sainthood for him.

5:58 p.m. - Kids play in the Centennial Fountain and get soaking wet. It actually sounds like a pretty good idea.

6:09 p.m. - Jerry, Shannon and the kids start the walk back to the hotel while I go get the van. Interesting thing I learned. If you refer to Salt Lake City as just Salt Lake and combine it with Utah and then shorten it to just their abbreviations and place a comma between them but no space, you get SL,UT. Now imagine the comma very small. Isn't that nice? I learned this because two teenage girls that couldn't have been more than three or four years older than my daughter were wearing shirts that had this unique tourism marketing campaign on them. Downtown Salt Lake is not the SLC I remember from my youth.

6:37 p.m. - Jerry, Shannon and the kids swim while I play the role of stick in the mud and don't swim. I have played pack mule for four days and I would just like to relax. Fortunately, no one gives me too much grief about this. Again, thanks to Jerry for running interference for me.





8:00 p.m. - Kirt comes and we have pizza and visit.

9:34 p.m. - After all the excitement of the day, kids are ready for bed before 10 for the first time all vacation. It still takes a little bit, but everyone is down and tonight, Kate is with the sleeping program. Shannon and I should have just gone to sleep ourselves, but Seinfeld was on. Then another one. Then The Nanny.

11:30 p.m. - There is no doubt Shannon and I will hate ourselves in the morning.