Even though it's November and it has to start getting cold and wet soon, this past weekend was just glorious. Completely cloudless skies and temperatures comfortably in the 60s, we couldn't stop exclaiming about how nice it was.
Saturday was sort of a down-shift for us. H wanted to do a road ride so Milton and I walked/jogged a 3.25 mile loop from our house; it's very nice to have him keep me company (since I don't like running very much) but he's a pain on the leash so it's never the easiest run, even with a downhill finish. After getting cleaned up, we did some town errands, like dropping off ice cream for a friend who was scheduled to have her tonsils removed on Monday and getting a skateboarding helmet for H. We tried a couple of different places but most of the shops are skate/board shops and are gearing up for the snowboard season, which means supply was low. We finally found one that fit at Salty Peaks: we'd never been in that shop before and it was amazing, with tons of old skate- and snowboards in their museum - the ceiling and upper walls are covered with boards. Very cool.
Sunday we convinced Ted to go MTBing with us at Round Valley, meeting him at 11 a.m. so as to take advantage of the warmest part of the day. We decided to give our original loop a go, with some small variations: Matt's Flat/Cammy's to Seventy-101, to PorcUClimb and the top half of Down Dog, to Valderoad to Matt's Flat to Rambler (up the "Sweet Sixteen" side and down the "Sagebrush Switchbacks" side, which was busier than we have ever seen it), out Round Valley Express to the paved bike trail. It was here that we discovered new trails! We had no idea they were there but took Bourbon Street up and then left onto Big Easy, which brought us back to Rambler (near the Rambler/Ramble On intersection), which took us back to Ability Way and the trailhead. Bourbon Street and Big Easy are terrific: easy climbing, nice smooth dirt, not rocky and - best of all - no one on them. Super-nice.
On our way back through SLC, we stopped by a new-to-us brewery: Saltfire Brewing Co., not too far from Grid City on West Temple. Their beer is available to go or to drink on site; it's only in cans because it's higher point, which meant we had to choose carefully. Luckily, their Lupulin Dew pale ale is very, very tasty. They have a nice, west-facing patio, which would be too hot in the summer but was perfect this late fall day. We enjoyed our beer and enjoyed talking with the table of girls sitting next to us, all fairly recent transplants to SLC from the east coast who had hiked to Lake Blanche earlier. Best part: the patio is dog-friendly so we will definitely be going back and bringing Milton along to work the crowd.
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