Utah

I've been in Utah for the last 2 weeks. Things worked out better than I had hoped. All my friends had begun their school semester and I figured I would have to entertain myself somehow a lot.  But I was usually always doin something with someone. So!...

The flight to Utah was certainly an adventure. I was flying to Denver before I connected to go to Salt Lake airport. Half way through the flight we hear one of the stewardess's asking us passengers if their were any doctors or nurses aboard. A man across the aisle from me raises his hand. Turns out 2 rows behind me was an unconscious man. His blood sugar must had dipped to low because I could over hear them talking about his diabetes wrist band. After a half an hour of trying to wake this man up the captain tells us that we were gonna have to make an emergency landing in Minneapolis. 15-20 mins later, as we were making our descent, the man wakes up! We're all relieved he's not dead because we were starting to wonder. Once we landed, some paramedics came aboard and took the man off the plane to get him better checked out. Captain makes another announcement saying we landed "overweight", whatever that means. So maintenance guys had to check the plane over. 2 HOURS later, we're finally cleared to take off again. I wouldn't be so upset about this snag in our flight if I knew I didn't have a connecting flight to catch. A lot of the passengers were worried. A stewardess then relieves us with the news that they contacted Denver airport and that all of our connecting flights had been reserved. Phew! Once we landed, the same stewardess was telling us which city was at what gate so we could hurry. She finished the list but I didn't hear anything about Salt Lake City! I kept thinking my plane left without me! I started racking up my brain on what I was going to do. Was I going to stay overnight at the airport? Was I going to stay at a hotel? Would I need to get a taxi or would I be shuttled somewhere? What was I going to do?! I get off the plane, anxious as ever, when I run into a lady who was telling everyone where their gates were. I wailed at her "Please tell me my plane hasn't left me! I'm going to Salt Lake!" She laughed and pointed to the gate that I just left and told me I was just on the plane that's going to take me to Salt Lake......the stewardess couldn't have mentioned that bit of information while I was on the damn plane?  It would have saved me so much stress! Luckily no problems flying from Denver to Salt Lake, it was after all an 1hr 20min flight, not much room for error. By the time I got my bags and driven back to the Wihongi's apartment it was 2:30am (which felt like 4:30am because of the time difference). It was safe to say I was a little tired. But I made it in one piece which is always good in my books!

I do love those mountains. I could never get used to them when I was out there, therefore, I couldn't stop staring and taking pictures of them. I couldn't believe there was no snow and neither could any Utah residents. I usually go to Utah during the summer to see family. I was so excited to go out during the winter because I was really looking forward to skiing on REAL snow. Well, long story short, skiing never happened.

This be my humble abode. I stayed with my best pal Maraina and her husband Danny in Provo. They had a guest bedroom and this awesome futon. I haven't had a good night's rest ever since I've returned and I think its because I was used to sleeping on that lovely queen sized mattress.  Its cramped on my twin size, especially when I'm sharing it with a dog.

 While everyone was either at school or at work, there was one person who had neither! Well I guess I should say 2 - Caitlyn and Chloe! One of the days I went over to Caitlyn's place and we played with her X-Box Kinect. Pretty awesome I must say. My family just got a Wii for Christmas and we were so amazed with it. After playing X-box Kinect, Wii is no longer as amazing but still fun none the less.

 On another day, I was also able to visit my cousins and hang out. I was able to meet Nicole's new baby Benjamin. Natalie drove me down to her sister Nicole and Enrique's place where we then went to Cafe Rio and met my other cousin Dannie. It was fun and delicious. I'm so sad Cafe Rio doesn't exist back East. After Rio, we went to Neilsons Creamery which has the best milkshakes I've ever had. I highly recommend the place but it's only in Salt Lake and St. George. We made our way back to Nicole's place and chatted for a while when My Aunt Barb and her husband Jim came crashing in! It was a nice surprise. Benjamin was our center of entertainment for the rest of the afternoon.

Maraina and Danny picked me up at my cousins house later on to take me to Tooele for the weekend. Danny's fam is in there. It was certainly a change of atmosphere for Danny has 9 younger siblings. I had a lot of fun. One of their yorki's recently had a litter of puppies. They were so ADORABLE. They also had this other dog, a poodle, named Yogi. He was so funny. It was like he was ashamed to look into your eyes and always seemed so down but out of no where he would get this spark of energy and start running around. At this point in my trip, I was starting to miss my own dog and I was pouring all my love into this dog.

On Martin Luther King Jr. Day, we went to Kneader's for breakfast. Unfortunately, so did everyone else on campus. But it was worth it suffering through the large crowd. It was all you can eat french toast day. I'm all about the breakfast foods and THIS was one of the best breakfasts I've had in a looooong time.

 This was definitely on my list of things to do - to drive through Canyon Road. Its a beautiful drive through the mountains and the low clouds made it even cooler.

 Along the way we stopped by Bridal Falls which was partly frozen. It took us a minute but we eventually did see the ice climber. I couldn't believe how small he looked from the road.

 There were more frozen falls to the right of this guy. How many ice climbers can you spot?

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 I counted 4. But I wouldn't be surprised if there was another guy in there playing camouflage. Either way, PRETTY COOL. I went ice climbing before and it was a lot of fun but the waterfall was 30 maybe 40 ft tall. I don't think I could do what these guys were doing, not at that height.

Wednesday afternoon a bunch of us went to a sort of farewell lunch to KC. He was heading off to the MTC to start training for his 2 year mission in Portland. Hope the kid is surviving all right!

Oh how I wish I could say flying went smoothly this time. I left Utah at around 10:15 to go to Denver. I got to Denver at around 11:30 but was stuck there for a 4 hour layover. But according to the departures screen, my flight was delayed another hour. I read my book, I surfed the internet, I wondered the airport for several hours only to realize that my flight was delayed yet another hour because our plane was coming from Seattle which was under a blizzard at the time.  Its now 4pm and the departure was now estimated around 6pm. I took a few more laps around the airport, looked at some shops, and read a little more. I then hear on the intercom that they were able to get us a new plane and were able to scrounge up a new crew. Everyone cheers! We all get on the plane at around 5pm.  We then sat for almost an hour when all of the sudden we hear the engine cut off. The plan was to go ahead on without the 40 passengers that were connecting from Seattle to Philadelphia but turns out there isn't another flight till the following day to stick them on, so we were just gonna have to wait for them to arrive. They told us to exit the plane and head back to that god forsaken airport and that dinner was on them. They gave us $20 vending vouchers. We exited the plane at 6:10 and they told us to get back to the gate by 6:30. Too bad, there were some nice restaurants I would have liked to have dined at but time was too short. I settled for KFC. I could not read my book anymore, I was so agitated I couldn't concentrate. We eventually climbed back aboard and the Seattle people were able to join us at last and we were FINALLY leaving. It was around 7pm. We arrived in Philadelphia at 12:45am (note: time jumped 2 hours ahead). As much as this flight sucked, they did give every passenger a $200 traveler's voucher. At the time, I didn't really care, I just wanted to get away from any and all airplanes and airports. But now that a few days have passed, I have to say it was totally worth it.