Kelley's Trip to Utah - Day 2

These are some of the Park City ski slopes we could seep from the upper deck in our house.

We sat around the house for a Q&A session in the morning.   My camera was being used to demonstrate setting a custom white balance for the rest of the photographers.  All but one of the photographers at this workshop were Macs.  :)

Chris was our only guy in attendance at the workshop, other than Tyler of Blue Lily. He lives in Kansas and works for a subsidiary of Hallmark and does a lot of philanthropic work for the Hall family.

This was the view looking back from our first ski lift.

 

Then we hiked to another ski lift.  Thought it was sweet that Wendy and Tyler hold hands wherever they go.  Reminded me of my honeys, who is always quick to hold my hand.  :)

These shoes do ski lifts.

Looking back down to the bottom of the second ski lift.

The aspen trees have eyes.

Apparently an important reminder for skiers.

After we got off the second lift, we had another little hike before we got to the top of the mountain.

This sign named all the different mountains and ski resorts that can be seen in the distance.

We lined up to take a picture of Wendy and Tyler taking a picture of us.

These big boards help with reducing sound waves from traveling over the peak and eliminate avalanches.

Gorgeous view of the valley and lake at the bottom of the mountain!

There were a lot of mountain bikers cruising down the slopes.  Their bikes went up the lift one car behind them.

The rooftops had wires to melt the snow during winter months.  Good thinking!

Thought it was pretty neat that the ski lift poles were numbered.

Once at the bottom of the two ski lifts, we relaxed and ate snacks before getting on the road for a 1.5 hour drive to a cool lake for a wedding shoot.

We stopped here for a bathroom break.

And to rent a canoe for our bride and groom.

Good to know.

The canoe following along behind us.

We had to stop and buy parking passes a few miles before actually reaching Mirror Lake.

When we arrived, we saw a family of Moose wading in one part of the lake.  It was fun seeing how they submerged their heads underwater to eat the better grasses.

Kelley's Trip to Utah - Day 1

Kelley flew out to Salt Lake City for a 3 day photography workshop with Blue Lily.  One of the other attendees rented a car and picked her up at the airport.  We drove around to find a scrapbook store for Marti and enjoyed the mountain scenery.

This is looking back towards Wasatch Blvd at the base of the mountains.

Here is the house Kelley lived in in the second grade.  The swamp cooler on top of the house was already covered up for winter.  The yard looked a little overgrown, but the same light post still stood out front.

At some point, the wooden privacy fence was replaced with this plastic white one and the roof over the deck outside the kitchen was removed.

We took the scenic route up through Little and Big Cottonwood Canyons to get to Park City and stopped along the side of the road countless times to check out the streams.

Here is Marti, my chauffeur.  ;)  She lives in Washington DC with her husband and two boys.

We swapped cameras, so here is a rare shot of me in front of the camera.

We didn't stop just for streams, but also for flowers.  We kept saying how thankful we were that we decided to ride together, because neither one of us would have stopped so many times by ourselves to see the beautiful sites alongside the road.

We felt the water and it was COLD! 

This is how close the road was to the drop off on the side.  Sometimes the drop was hundreds of feet.  We were amazed at no guard rails.  Utah must not have many idiot drivers!

There were so many Aspen trees as we climbed up higher and higher.

We got a little lost when we reached this ski resort and were thankful there were still cell towers near enough to get a signal and use our GPS on our phones (we didn't have any printed maps with us!).

Looking out away from Snowbird and saw a Mickey Mouse head on the mountain.

Brighton is another popular ski resort less than 45 minutes from Salt Lake City.

One of the few people on motorcycles we saw who was actually wearing a helmet.

Before we even got to the top of this hill, we knew by the parking lot that we were in for a great view!

And we were not disappointed.

This hill looked (and felt!) much taller in person.  We hiked up to just under this group of trees.

These weren't the best hiking shoes, but they did get me to the top without falling.

It was so gorgeous on top of this hill and we really didn't want to leave.  But a storm was moving in and we wanted to get to Deer Valley before we got hit with the rain.  The roads were a little two twisty with steep drop offs for our taste to be driving on wet roads with low visibility.

The sun was setting, so my shadow looks like I'm a giant!

We saw this teepee and wagon in a field shortly after we made our climb back down to the car.

The rain never hit us, although we ended up driving for another 30-45 minutes before we made it into Deer Valley just before sunset.  There wasn't any food (yet) at the workshop house, so Marti and I drove into Park City for dinner and to get groceries.  An all around awesome day!

New Belts!

Chloe earned her second camouflage belt.  She was so excited she went ahead and put it on before bowing her thanks!

Owen ran fast when his name got called.

He moved up from Camouflage Decided to Recommended Green belt.  Woot!

Way to go kids!!!