first day

October 4, 2009, Sunday. We woke up to big thunder and spectacular lightning out over the valley, having brought our Terrible Weather Karma with us (sincere apologies to all Utahans – we really meant to leave it back on the east coast). Then it started raining, and then it started pouring rain, and then, around 9:00 a.m., it started to hail. There was a HUGE clap of thunder, nearly simultaneously with some lightning, and then all the fire alarms in the motels erupted. Awesome. And incredibly ear-piercing. Poor Becky, already scared by the morning’s thunder, was completely traumatized. We escaped to the truck for our day’s errands … but not before I noticed that SLC firefighters (there to shut off the alarm) = cute.


The first thing to do was to get some breakfast. We decided to go back to a diner we’d found on our first trip to SLC, The Other Place, an unobtrusive, rather local place located at 469 East 300 South. It was packed, full of families, students from the U (University of Utah, which is just around the corner) and neighborhood folks. I had the “Greek breakfast” which is eggs scrambled with feta, tomato and onion, plus coffee and toast, and H had a Denver omelet and diet Coke. The service is prompt and friendly; the food is hot, tasty and reasonably priced; and we plan to go back again and again.

We put another 100 miles on the poor truck on Sunday, doing drive-bys of nine different apartment complexes (and ruling out at least five of them as potential domiciles), completing the paperwork at our storage units, taking a stroll through Sugarhouse Park (one of the city’s many lovely public spaces). Finally, our work done for the day, we retired to Squatter’s (147 West 300 South) for several well-deserved and well-received beers. Big shout-out to the Quiet Dan Ski Club for their generous Squatter’s gift cards!