Carpe Diem.
Seize the Day.
Spring has finally arrived here in my fair state, daffodil’s and tulips dot the gardens. Flowering cherry, plum and pear trees line the streets and the smell of fresh-cut grass wafts among the neighborhoods. We will most likely have another snow storm or two before Summer is here, but this week I am enjoying the warmer temperatures and sunny weather.
About a year ago the Capitol Building restoration project was finally completed. The scaffolding and plastic sheeting that had enclosed the Capitol Building for several years was carted off, the grass was replanted, new guardian lions were put in place and a running trail was built around the Capitol and Legislative complex. Last year I was shocked, surprised, and delighted to discover the trail is lined with flowering cherry trees. However, because this is Utah and because no spring weather lasts very long, approximately 36 hours after the blossoms burst open every single tiny pink flower was dashed to pieces due to a massive wind storm. The spectacle was glorious, but short-lived.
Last week I noticed the first hints of pinkness. This week the walks are something straight out of Anne of Green Gables, but, you know, with a giant granite municipal building instead of a quaint island town. Details…psssh.
Our trees are still small and spindly and immature; but they’re pink! At least, this week they’re pink. Unlike Washington, D.C. or San Francisco or Japan (or any older city with a well-established population of cherry trees and a moderately temperate spring climate) we do not have a Festival in conjunction with their flowering. In fact, I would venture to guess that most resident’s of Salt Lake City do not yet know of their existence. The Capitol Building is on the top of a hill overlooking the city and marks the origin of one of the busiest streets in the state, kind of like the head of the Mississippi. Most people don’t go up there unless they have legislative business or a wedding/engagement photo shoot.
I’m distracted. I’m rambling about traffic patterns and fluffy pink trees when I really wanted to talk about Seizing The Day.
Go ahead. Seize that Day.
It’s okay, I’ll wait.
Go on now; Seize It.
Except…well, there’s just one teensy little problem; I don’t really know what that means. I am having a mini-panic attack that some surly kleptomaniac will be snitching Wednesday right from under my nose, stuffing it into an unmarked van and driving helter-skelter off into the wild unless I somehow snatch it up first. Oh. That won’t happen? Well, you can’t be too careful these days. Alright, jokes aside (I wasn’t really joking about the klepto in the van) yes, I understand the concept, but I’m a bit iffy on how to apply it to my daily life. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t have anything to do with the pages and pages of lists of countries, cities and places I’d like to visit…someday. (To be fair I’d love to visit them tomorrow, or yesterday–but funds, timing, Icelandic volcanoes and other mundane things being what they are–those destinations will remain as simply lists for the moment.) I’m pretty sure that ordering the exact same thing at my favorite Mexican place every single time I have a hankering for pork barbacoa (their specialty) doesn’t really count either. And I’m pretty sure it doesn’t have anything to do with that adorable-and-possibly-crazy cardigan I bought on a whim (or does it?).
Does buying a plane ticket on a whim count? What about hosting a dinner party for a bunch of semi-strangers? Or going back to school? (University classes start in just under a month. I’m nervous excited nervous.) In your opinion, what exactly does it mean to Seize the Day? And have you done it lately? And–be honest now–did you need to fend off any shady characters with wit, elbows, and/or pepper spray?
Filed under: Utah: Life Elevated
Remember how I failed to go skiing last year due to, well, lack of trying really? It was on my List of things to do in 2009, and I failed. So I added it to the 2010 “Year of the Tiger” List. If you check, item number one is “Go skiing or snowboarding or snowshoeing with some regularity.” I went snowshoeing for the first time back in January, and again last weekend on my overnight backpacking-to-a-yurt adventure, and I have plans to go again on Saturday. I feel this qualifies as fulfilling Number One 2010 Resolution.
People have been strapping highly waxed sticks to their feet for centuries, it can’t be any more complicated than learning to ride a horse, right? As a native Utahan (a state that contains a dozen world-class ski resorts and training facilities for Olympic ski athletes) I should at least learn how to ski. Skiing is one of Utah’s largest tourist industries and we have some of the most amazing snow in the world in our mountains. After living here for 27 years I should at least attempt to be native-like, right?
Last week, Erin generously invited to take me to Solitude with her extra lift pass and when she volunteered to teach me how to ski as one of her New Things (she’s never taught someone before) I jumped at the chance to try it out. I borrowed some ski equipment (Thank you Ashley!!) and we headed up to Solitude in Big Cottonwood Canyon, about 30 minutes from Salt Lake City. It wasn’t until we were half-way up the mountain that Erin, a local journalist, mentioned she would be writing about the experience for her weekly outdoor column. Um, what? Suddenly I felt very nervous. What if I sucked? What if I was a wuss? What if there was no possible way I would get off the bunny hill? What if I was a complete and total embarrassment and now it would be splashed across a newspaper and saved forever in the archives–with pictures!–to my utter humiliation and shame. My posterity would whisper about that time when I shamed the family name with my marked inability to make it down a hill on skis. I would be outcast. I would…..I would just have to prove all my inner doubts wrong.
The good news is that I picked up skiing relatively easy. Sure, I took my tumbles, a LOT of tumbles–two days later and I am still feeling awfully sore and achey–but I was off the bunny hill by 9:45 am (the resort opens at 9:00) and by 2:00 I successfully made it down a blue run without falling (the easiest runs are green, then blue, then black diamond and double black diamonds). I feel the day was a success!
The other piece of good news is that Erin was incredibly kind in her column and the pictures she chose do not show me careening head over ski’s down the slope. Double Awesome. So, if you’d care to click over there and read all about my skiing debut, here’s the link again. (If you choose not to click over there, we can still be friends. But friends who do not read friend’s debut’s in newspapers are somehow relegated to second tier friendship. It’s in The Rules. Somewhere.)
Very few people would ever peg me for the “Outdoorsy” type. In fact, I don’t think anyone has ever volunteered the statement (or any derivative of) “wow heidikins, you just seem like an outdoorsy person.” It doesn’t happen. I’m sure the 4″ heels throw most people off. So it may come as a bit of a surprise to you (and myself, let’s be honest) that I spent my weekend being all outdoorsy and stuff. As in, I went backpacking. On snowshoes. In three feet of fresh powder. And I spent the night in a yurt.
That’s correct, a yurt.
What is a yurt? Well, the short story is that it’s the Mongolian/Central Asian version of a teepee. It’s a biggish tent-thing with wooden supports that can be folded up and moved fairly quickly.
This yurt was about 25 feet across with a wood floor and lattice-and-canvas walls. There was a wood-burning stove, a propane stove to heat water and some shelving. Additionally, there were four bunk beds that held sixteen people and a few extras slept on the floor.
It was a bit of a tight fit, but awesome all the same. The not-awesome part was the fact that it was freezing cold and a middle-of-the-night pee trip required coppin’-a-squat next to a tree a few hundred yards from the yurt in three feet of fresh snow. It was cold, yo. Really cold.
I’m actually getting ahead of myself. Let me tell you a bit more about the actual getting to said yurt. Our group left Salt Lake City at 6:45 pm on Friday night. We had about an hour-and-a-half drive up into the mountains before we could hike into our camp spot. By the time we got to the parking lot, loaded up our gear and strapped on snowshoes it was almost 9:00 pm. (This means it was really dark and really cold…I am unashamedly fishing for sympathy.) Hiking a mile and a half in the dark, in the snow, in the cold was both the hardest and most awesome part of this trip. We all had either headlamps of flashlights so we could see, but the moment when we turned everything off and just looked at the stars was, without question, one of the most amazing things I’ve ever seen. The stars! There were millions of them!
[Pause to think of the blackest sky possible, smother it with twinkly white stars, framed my a mountain meadow of fresh, untouched snow and tall pine trees....beautiful, right? Now multiply it by a hundred to start to see how it was to actually be there taking it all in.]
…And then the hiking continued. It was so cold that my hair actually froze. My legs ached–even in snowshoes I was sinking almost to my knees in the fresh powder. My back ached from my pack (I’m not used to carrying my bed, my snacks, my water and my toothbrush on my back. That stuff can get heavy!).
When we got to the yurt we had to shovel/scrape away the snow to open the door. And inside was just as cold as outside, only now we weren’t traipsing about carrying all the heavy stuff. We were standing around watching steam come off of our backs and shoulders and heads. It took a few hours before the little wood-burning stove generated enough heat to make things comfortable. Until then, we bundled up, had some dinner, and huddled together to stay warm. Luckily, my brother-in-law (the one who can be described as “outdoorsy”) set me up with a really great sleeping bag and sleeping pad. I was warm and snuggly all night long, even though I was sleeping on a big slab of plywood. A million thanks, S., for keeping me toasty!!
Those are my pretty, new snowshoes.
The next morning after breakfast and cleaning up, it was time to play. Snowshoe races, snowshoe angels, snowshoe hikes…the weather was gorgeous and warm. Well, warm-ish; no more frozen hair.
After a few hours, it was time to strap on our backpacks and head back home.
This was one of the better weekends I’ve had in a really long time. And I’m actually hoping to get another in before the snow is gone for the year, so if you’re in the area, are not a psycho, and would like to spend a night in a yurt, let me know. We could maybe work something out.
Filed under: Utah: Life Elevated
West Side of Timpanogos, Utah County, Utah
It is a well established fact that Utah is a snowy state, take a peek out my window if you think otherwise. Sure, there are tons of deserts and gorgeous red-rock scenery and lots of hundred-degree days during the summer, but in the winter? It’s cold, yo.
Sundance Ski Resort, Provo Canyon, Utah
I am not here to complain about the weather, I used to be one of those “I hate the snow and the cold and the ick!” people, but in the last year or so I have become more in the “Snow is okay, as long as I can still breathe, am warm and snuggly, and don’t get caught in bad snow-traffic” types. I don’t mind snow any more. I have a snuggly coat, lots of scarves and gloves, I even ventured to purchase my first pair of snow boots. Not a chic leather flat to wear with tights a la The Sundance Film Festival, I’m talking about serious snow-worthy footwear here. To my credit–like I ever need to justify buying new shoes–I have never owned snow boots and with my new-found-love for snowy outdoors I felt it was time to invest.
Besides, I had a date with Andrea to go snow-shoeing. And a girl just can’t go snow-shoeing without the proper footwear. So, boots were purchased, snow shoes were rented, additional snow gear was borrowed (thanks Pink Suede Shoe), and Andrea & I set out on our adventure.
Big Cottonwood Canyon, Utah (photo credit: Andrea)
Turns out, snow shoeing is just hiking in the snow. We had a blast. The weather was perfect, the snow was powdery, and the few times we got lost turned out to be alright as well. (We weren’t Lost Lost, just a little disoriented. Lots of people around meant we would not have frozen to death or anything scary like that.)
This is something I will be doing again and again, I even am thinking of purchasing my own snow-shoes in the End of Season sales. Do you snow shoe? Ski? Snow board? Snow mobile? Enjoy the frosty flakiness from the comfort of your living room with a steaming cup of cocoa?
Big Cottonwood Canyon, Utah (photo credit: Andrea)
Filed under: Utah: Life Elevated
In Mandarin Chinese, the character for America is supposed to resemble a buffalo. Kind of. If you squint at it a bit and pretend it’s a stick-figure buffalo. Somehow this always makes me smile–America, land of all sorts of things, is represented by a quickly fading icon of the American West.
Have you ever seen a buffalo in real life? Not at the zoo, but in the wild? I have, but I happen to life Out West where buffalo roam freely. Ok, that’s not entirely true, but there was a family who raised buffalo in my hometown and I would gawk at them all the time. They’re just SO BIG and HAIRY and WOOLLY MAMMOTH looking! They are bizarre. But, looking at buffalo in a pasture in the middle of a neighborhood is a bit different than seeing them in the wild for reals. But, on Antelope Island–the largest island in The Great Salt Lake–there is a fairly giant herd of buffalo, and I have gone to visit them twice now. The first time was for an Environmental Science class field trip when I was in high school, and the second was for another field trip of sorts to watch the sun set over the Great Salt Lake from the shores of Antelope Island.
It was just a week or two after the Buffalo Round-Up and I was hoping to see a lot of the herd. I did not. I only saw one, lone buffalo, minding it’s own business and being very bison-like; you know, eating and grazing and ignoring the raving idiot 20-somethings that were gawking at it. Quite bison-like.
We parked on the east side of the island and had a bit of a walk to get around to the west side before the sun set. The hike was lovely, I sometimes just can’t get over the natural beauty of my state. There was a faintly marked trail meandering through some fairly intense rocks, and after an hour or so we made it down to the water.
The Great Salt Lake is somewhat infamous for “Lake Stink”, which is this overpowering stench of sulphur that wafts over the Salt Lake valley if the wind is coming in right. It’s horrible. It comes from decaying brine shrimp on the shore of the lake. Brine shrimp are not something you would eat with cocktail sauce, they are minuscule little buggers that I am quite certain only live in the Great Salt Lake. Lucky us. That being said, Antelope Island does not smell like sulphur. In a few places if you disturb the crusty salt surface you get a whiff of it, but for the most part it is just lovely. The “main-land” smell is stinky, the island is delightful.
I haven’t watched the sun set for a long time–I was amazed at just how gorgeous it was. I took something like 47,000 pictures and a thousand more mental snapshots. The water of the lake turned pink, which doesn’t show up with my little point-and-shoot but was perhaps one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. Sigh. Le Gorgeous.
I have another crush. My last crush was on a vast expanse of salt, and while I still have strong feelings for the Salt Flats, at this point they have been momentarily moved aside for a 400-pound bundle of joy.
Zuri, the baby elephant at Utah’s Hogle Zoo was born almost 3 months ago and is perhaps the cutest thing I have ever seen in my entire life (she’s not really pink, lest you were confused by the title). She will melt your heart in about 3 seconds and can wrap you around her (proverbial) little finger and keep you there forever. Don’t believe me? Spend the next 3-minutes of your life falling in love. Seriously. I’ll wait.
Did you watch it? Do you have warm fuzzies? Did you hear me squealing laughing in the background? I apologize for the squeals, but she is just so stinkin’ cute! Do you agree?
Britt went to see go baby elephant peeping a month ago and I’ve been wanting to see Zuri ever since. My friend Fred needed to interview a zoo worker for a class project, and I jumped at the chance to go check it out. And, if you’ve been a good boy/girl like I told you and watched the video clip, you will want to immediately jump in your car, on your scooter, on your bike, or strap on your rollerblades and go see Zuri.
(I was there in the early afternoon, about 1:30-2:30 or so, and she was super playful. Just do it.)
Robert Frost has become one of the more quoted poets in my world via his line “I took the road less traveled by and it has made all the difference”. I may be loosely quoting, but you know the thing about woodsy paths diverging, right? Ok, good.
For the most part, I don’t know if I could be described as a person who takes the less traveled path, I like neat little trails with markers–a cairn will do–and signs and stuff. I like knowing what I’m getting myself in to. That being said, I don’t think anyone would describe me as someone who refuses to leave the neat little path.
Case in point: my weekend adventure. Oh, you thought this was going to be all philosophical and deep? No. No philosophy. Just Awesomosity. Does anyone remember that time I crawled through pokey bushes to find hidden lava tubes in Hawaii? Yeah, not so much a “neat little trail” kind of adventure. This is kind of like that.
Andrea and I had some incredibly vague directions from a friend of hers on a mostly hidden slot canyon not too far from Cedar City (location of the Shakespearean Festival, for you non-natives). In fact, the directions were so vague I made an emergency call to my sister to verify we were actually going to find this secrety place. According to the information behemoth that is Google, this is what we got:
“You just get off the freeway, hang a leftish, and drive until you find it. There won’t be any signs.”
Seriously? “You just get off the freeway…” No exit number, no mile marker, nothing. Just get off…alrighty.
Andrea & I made our best guess and as we hung a “leftish” we drove past a psycho-thriller abandoned gas station that I am positive Quentin Tarantino has scouted for his next on-location horror movie. It was creeptastic. At this point, I was almost ready to turn around. But, we had been talking about this slot canyon for several hours already, and decided to continue along.
Several miles later we came to a very small, very quaint, very un-horror-movie-like town. This had to be it, right? Well, there weren’t any signs, so apparently we were dead on. We headed in the general direction of the canyon and found a road we assumed would take us to the slot. We parked and headed that direction, wandering through the small town and enjoying the sunshine.
For those of you unfamiliar with the term “slot canyon”, it is any very narrow canyon, we’re talking less than ten feet wide in most places and as narrow as two feet in some. They are fairly common in Utah due to massive quantities of soft red sandstone, rivers and streams cut through this soft rock and leave behind absolute gorgeousness. The most famous slot canyon is in Zion National Park, it is a long hike and you need permits and technical skill to complete it. There are parts where you may actually have to swim and others where you will need rock climbing gear. It’s intense.
This canyon was not nearly as technical, we knew there were two waterfalls to climb over, and that you could turn around at any point. Waterfalls? Redrock slot canyon? Sold!
As we hiked up the canyon, there was no slot. It was just a regular canyon with lots of reddish sand and sage brush. We were both disappointed. I was expecting gorgeous naturally carved canyon walls! Nope, nothing. Just dusty paths that criss-crossed every-which way. After a while Andrea and I decided to just stick with the paths closest to the creek and hope for the best. And on we walked. It was pretty, but not what we were expecting.
Then, out of nowhere, we turned a corner and found this.
That, my friends, is a slot canyon. And the trail/creek we were walking on weaves through the base of those giant formations. Photos just don’t do any kind of real justice.
We kept walking, stopping to look up every couple of feet. I was speechless. I was giggling. I was ecstatic. I have another crush on nature.
Are you seeing this, people? Talk about a hidden gem! We wandered through the canyon (with only a few half-joking comments about how if a serial killer wanted a place to drag his victims, this would be a doozy of a place to hide), splashed around in the creek, climbed up and over the first waterfall with only a little hesitation and kept hiking.
The gorgeous views didn’t stop. Every turn was something new, something stunning, something other-worldly. My heart is actually up in my throat again just thinking about it–this place is just so beautiful!
I really wish I had the photography skill to make you understand how massive these cliffs are–easily 100 feet high and absolutely smooth from thousands of years of weather. After an hour or so we stopped for lunch at a small waterfall and pool and just could not get over Nature. A couple of hundred yards up we came to the next waterfall, which was scaled with a bit of difficulty and a LOT of getting drenched. After navigating the falls we decided that due to our running short on drinking water and general tiredness from getting up at 6:00 am, driving several hours, and then hiking we would head back. That being said, next time I am anywhere in the general vicinity of this canyon, I will be making a stop to fall in-love with it all over again.
Note: You may have noticed that I have not actually named the town, or the canyon, where these photos were taken. That is on purpose. Andrea & I decided that we wanted to keep it as secret as we found it. If you are heading to Southern Utah and would like to try this hike, just email me and I’ll happily tell you how to get there. However, on this blog, this will lovingly be referred to simply as “The Hidden Canyon of Secrets”.
Filed under: All the World's a Stage..., Proof that I'm a Nerd, Utah: Life Elevated
It is a well established fact that I can be a total nerd. And a snob. And I feel like my complete love and adoration for all things Shakespeare is a pretty good summation of both of those traits.
My weekend Adventure started at o-dark-hundred in the morning, I picked up Andrea and we headed south towards Cedar City, UT for the Utah Shakespearean Festival. On the docket: Henry V, performed in the fantastically reproduced Globe Theatre at Southern Utah University. People, it was a-may-zing! We managed to score fairly decent tickets for closing night and had even studied up on the play the week before, watching the Kenneth Branagh film-version and read along–she in her book, me on my fancy-pants phone–to make sure we understood all the plot points. (By the way, this version was released in 1989 and I’m pretty sure was one of Christian Bale’s first films…he’s The Boy and he’s handsome, even in 1989.) Andrea was so kind as to translate all the French bits for me, which was fantstic. My memory of junior high French has somethig to do with a massive crush on a blonde boy in my class and a teacher who moonlighted as a country western star.
I don’t reall know how I can explain how much I loved watching Henry V. The play follows Henry V, Prince of Wales and King of England as he takes over France. There are battles and a whole slew of side characters that will inspire you or make you laugh. Henry V uncovers several treasonous plots against him and has the scurvy knaves put to death to preserve his country. He loves his people and on the eve of their big battle against the far more numerous French army, he prays for them in one of the more moving speeches I remember seeing live. Brian Vaughn plays Henry V and after about 2 minutes I not only had decided that he was better than Kenneth Branagh, but I also had a huge HUGE crush on him. Oh my goodness, that man can act! Swoon! (See: heidikins is a nerd.)
Now, some of you may know that I volunteer at a local high school in their theatre department. I am kind of a “Jack/Jill of all trades”, I direct, I design costumes, I make costumes, I boss high school kids around…it’s great fun. I’ve been doing this for three years and have absolutely loved it.
That being said, as part of the Utah Shakespearean Festival there is a high school competition that goes along with it–I have coached a team with my best friend–who is the theatre teacher at this particular high school–the last two years and they have brought home a lot of trophy-hardware and some amazing memories. The Shakespeare adventure for this year started over the weekend and our first meeting is this afternoon, and I’m thrilled. Admittedly, I’m probably still on a Henry V-Brian Vaughn-induced high, but I am really excited for this next adventure. We compete in mid-October and there is a TON of work to do between now and then, the least of which is turning 45 high school students into warring Greek and Trojan soldiers, fighting to the death during the Trojan War. (Yes, Shakespeare wrote about the Trojan War, it’s all in Troilus & Cressida. Unfortunately, Brad Pitt will probably not be making an appearance.) I’m scared, I’m not gonna lie. That’s a lot of armor and a lot of swords given to minors.
So, I’m curious–do you like Shakespeare? Can you name more than 3 Shakespeare plays? Does your knowledge of The Bard extent past Leonardo DiCaprio and Mel Gibson? Am I out on my own here? Someone, please admit you are as nerdy and snobby as I am and actually like Shakespeare. Anyone?
Filed under: AwesomeSauce, Favorite Things, Proof that I'm a Nerd, Revvin' Red Roxy, Utah: Life Elevated
People, I have a crush. A really big one. There are times when you just can’t get someone out of your head, you think about them all the time. Thinking about them gives you butterflies and you are constantly reliving the last moments you spent together. You secretly hoard any shred of evidence you have of your time together and make grandiose announcements like “This will change my life!” You feel like doing cartwheels and are perpetually googly.
I’m totally there.
Did you see my crush? Frankly, I don’t know how you can miss it. You know how I get nerdy-obsessed with things like bridges and buildings and dams, right? Well, you can now add “vast expanse of salt” to that list.
Isn’t it beautiful? I’m afraid I’m falling in love.
The Bonneville Salt Flats are about 120 miles west of Salt Lake City and I can’t believe, as a Utah native, I had never been there before. Kind of on a whim, HRH and I woke up early on Sunday morning and headed toward Nevada. By 9:00 am we were on the vast expanse of sparkling white salt, a place so flat you can actually see the curvature of the earth and my crush hit me full force.
The Salt Flats are really left overs from an sea bed from Lake Bonneville, an ancient lake the size of Lake Michigan that covered the bulk of western Utah and small bits of Nevada and Idaho. Over time the lake mostly disappeared–the Great Salt Lake is the only remaining puddle–creating the Salt Flats of the West Desert, which is the best place in the world for land speed records.
I seriously considered taking Miss Roxy out for a spin on the Salt Flats. Their dry and flat nature makes them perfect for breaking speeding records. My next trip I’ll detour over to the speedway and see what she can do without speed limits and cops and the like.
I am already planning my next trip west, I would love in the evening and watch the sun set behind those mountains. I would love to lie in the middle of the flats and watch the stars come out. People, I’m seriously crushing.
This may not surprise you, but I’m not really a big “let’s go to a sporting event!” kind of girl. I’m even less of a “let’s watch a sporting event on T.V.” kind of girl. Shocking, I know. I used to have to go to basketball and baseball games as part of my job, wine and dine my clients in a company-sponsored suite. In my opinion, this is the only acceptable way to go to a sporting event (yes, I’m a spoiled snob). However, I think I may need to revise this statement–to be even more snobby. See, I have a friend, Her Royal Highness (HRH), who has The Hookup on sporting events, and when she gets tickets, regardless of the sport, I jump at the chance. Several years ago we went to a Utah Jazz game, and it was fantastic. On Friday we went to the Real Salt Lake game, Utah’s Major League Soccer team (pronounced REE-all, something about being “Royal” in Spanish, we’re the sister team of Real Madrid.) People, it was a girl’s night for the books–we had a BLAST!
To start with, there was there was the pre-show fancy buffet dinner down next to the locker rooms…with a perfect view of the tunnel where the soccer players enter and exit the field. That, my friends, is the way to have dinner. All you can eat chicken tacos and German chocolate cake with delicious athletes milling about. Yum!
Us girls enjoyed drooling over the hottness of the soccer players and teasing the plethora of mascots that kept wandering in and out, teasing/attacking/mauling us and generally being, well, mascoty. At game time we were escorted through the fancy “Athlete’s only” tunnel to our seats. Plushy, red leather quasi-recliner seats in the center of the field, front row.
People, plush red leather chairs may be my new weakness–they were delightful! Ditto on being close enough to the players to actually see their faces and toned muscles. HRH and I entertained ourselves by choosing which players would be on our team, we both ended up with a really hott team. I wish I could tell you something about the actual game; I know it was 90-ish minutes, 2 halves, and no score. I know a couple of players got thrown out for not being sportsmanlike, or something, and I know that soccer players pretend to be much more hurt than they actually are to get a “foul” called (do they have foul’s in soccer? do they call it something else? I have no idea). When they do this they look like pansies, despite the muscles.
It wasn’t until the game was over that HRH, the other girls and I had our real fun. Apparently, the red plushy leather seats also come with a Meet the Players reception under the stadium. We took full advantage, getting pictures with the hottest ones and due to some miraculous twist of fate I had both a new white t-shirt and a Sharpie…you can see where this is going, right? My brand new ($3 dollar) t-shirt is now covered with eight or nine signatures, and will be retired after it’s first wearing. I promise I am in my twenties, not my teens…despite evidence to the contrary.
I’m *pretty* sure this is Tony Beltran…but that could be incorrect. Anyone know?
Kyle Beckerman, pure hotness.
Real Salt Lake mascot, Leo the Lion.
The University of Utah mascot, Swoop. Go Utes!
I’ve been tattooed…and I liked it!
