the start of the weekend

Hooray for long weekends!  Friday night we cruised on over to the Cotton Bottom for burgers and beer and ended up chatting with a family who'd just gotten back to the city after a camping trip in the Bryce / Capitol Reef / Escanlante / San Rafael Swell area.  The father was celebrating his 70th birthday with his two adult kids; his daughter, who'd gone to school at the U, was now a dance professor at an upstate New York college near where H grew up.  They'd had a great trip and were fun to talk with, especially since they gave us some recommendations on a couple of slot canyons to check out in Escalante.  Stacy, the on-duty bartender (who is one of the nicest bartenders around) chimed in with some camping/fishing suggestions near Orangeville and Electric Lake, two places we'd never even heard of before.

On Saturday we just puttered around during the day. H went for a road ride and came back reporting really windy conditions - one gust almost stopped him as he was riding downhill from Little Cottonwood Canyon; - while I did some yard work and took a walk up the Little Cottonwood Canyon trail.  There were tons of songbirds, especially down at the start of the trail, and lots of folks out walking, trail-running and MTBing.  I don't think I'll ever attempt that trail on my MTB: it's sandy and rocky and there are no flat spots.

Blue skies above Little Cottonwood Canyon

Saturday night we headed over to Rio Tinto stadium to watch Real Salt Lake play the Chicago Fire.  We had similar seats to last time - east side, upper section, near midfield - which gave us a great view of the field.  RSL should have won as Chicago has not been doing that well, but at least they didn't lose.  Our boys finally put one in the back of the net with about twelve minutes left in the game, then Chicago answered with a goal shortly thereafter and the clock ran out before RSL could score again.  I think RSL needs to be better about switching fields and moving the ball down the field - they seem to do an awful lot of short lateral and back passes in the midfield which doesn't tend to get them anywhere.  (But what do I know?  It's been decades since I played any soccer!)