After the rodeo last night we drove the 30 minutes to the outskirts of Park City to overnight at Walmart.  Park City Walmart – favorite so far.  From the parking lot you can see the 2002 Olympic Ski Jump.  Crazy.

We woke up to a beautiful day and headed in to Park City proper to get a glimpse of a true Utah ski destination.

From the road leading in to town you can see the famous ski runs.  They look like they head right in to town.  That’s because some of them do.  It’s amazing.

We decided to get a bird’s eye view of the town from the top of one of the slopes.

Just to the left of that hill behind us is a bunch of snowboarding halfpipe equipment.  We guessed that it’s where the Olympic snowboarding halfpipe events were held.

Gorgeous Park City from high above.

 

How did we get high above?  On a ski lift.  A terrifyingly high and very, very long ski lift.

 

It is called the Town Lift.   That’s because the base of it is in the CENTER of town.  Literally.  Right outside a cafe and some shops.  Just above the street.  You can take your bike up the lift and ride down the hill in the summer.  In the winter I assume you can ski right into town and catch the lift back up.  Amazing.

 

Park City was breathtaking.  The lift was scary for me (girl who it afraid of heights – especially with the kids on it!), but so worth it.  After all, vacations are for adventure and risk taking, right?

Favorite place so far – Park City.

As we left we saw one of the 2002 Olympic Towers.

 

Driving through the mountains of Eastern Utah was absolutely amazing.  Huge mountainsides and cliffs and waterfalls.

 

 

And then we ended up back in Central Utah.  For hundreds of miles it looks a lot like this:

 

Utah: Extreme Beauty and Extreme Plainness

By the end of the day we were pulling into the Bryce Canyon area.  Our first glimpses were startling.  I never knew rocks could be so red.

 

 

 

 

 

With this kind of an entrance, just imagine how beautiful the park must be!  But it is the end of a long day of driving and imagine is all we’ll be able to do until tomorrow.