Utah Olympic Park

    I am an Olympics junkie.  When I was searching for interesting things to do nearby Park City I saw that the venue for the 2002 Olympic bobsledding, skeleton, luge, ski jumping and Nordic combined was located just outside Park City.  I remember many of the exciting moments in these Olympics and was excited to visit the site.
   I planned the visit for Wednesday when Rick was taking a day off from skiing, but his cold is still making him feel pretty wiped out so he didn't ski again today.  We got another four inches of snow last night.  This morning, though, the sun was out and the views were just beautiful.  We could see the huge ski jumps set up against the mountain from a long ways away.  As we drove up the Olympic Drive to the buildings which were the base for the bobsled, skeleton and luge events I tried to imagine the huge crowds and the many Olympians wandering around the area.
   There are two free museums in the park - a Utah skiing exhibit with many hands-on displays and a 2002 Olympic Museum.  The Park offers activities all year round including zip lines, a summer aerial training splash pool, and mountain coasting.  It is a training site for future Olympians.  We started our tour by watching some news clips of the 2002 Olympics and I really got into the experience.
    I remember the opening ceremonies in Salt Lake - one of my favorites.  The museum had some of the huge puppets that were used.  I also really enjoyed seeing the gold, silver and bronze medals from 2002 as well as medals from many previous Olympic games.  I got to pretend to carry the Olympic torch and we saw pictures of its journey to Utah.
   I was most impressed with the avalanche display in the ski museum which included a film of an avalanche convincingly coming towards me with impressive sounds and thundering shakes.  We could have sat in a bobsled in front of a large screen and watched as we hurtled down the bobsled course while the bobsled swayed and bumped along.  Just watching folks do this made my stomach lurch so we passed this opportunity.
   We headed back to the hotel in mid afternoon as the snow showers returned and another couple inches drifted down.  As we walked to dinner we could see the lighted runs on the mountain which make it possible for folks to take the half hour drive out from Salt Lake for a couple hours of night skiing.  It has stopped snowing and the stars were out.  Tomorrow Rick is planning to ski - I sure hope he has a good night's sleep.