Eastern Coast

    Once again we had a delightful, sunny buffet breakfast.  Today's spread included two unusual choices:  baked beans - which actually seemed okay along with the bread, ham and cheese.  However, another choice was a shot glass of cod liver oil.  Uggggghhhhh.  My Great Aunt always tried to get me to drink some when I was home sick.  Nope!  I am in love with Iceland's yogurt called Skyr, though.  Breakfast, lunch or dessert, it's yummy.

     One of the biggest challenges in navigating here in Iceland is the place names.  They are long, unpronounceable by me, and take forever to type into the GPS.  Our first stop today was another national park: Skaftafell which is part of a larger park, Vatnajokull.  The park covers 13% of Iceland.  Much of which is covered with glaciers and there are lots of tours to go walking on them.  We have done this in Alaska and Banff in our younger years.  I read on the Internet that you could drive to the edge of the glacier without taking a tour and we found the very bumpy, rough road used by the tour company.  So we drove in, thanking our little 4 x 4 for being tough enough to get us right to the edge of one of the glaciers.  A fun little adventure for the old folks.

     Much of yesterday's drive was through horse country.  Green, rolling hills with hundreds of sturdy, little Icelandic horses.  They were brought over by the Vikings and have been such an isolated breed that no other horses can be imported.  Today's drive was past miles and miles of glacial river beds.  The road goes over lots of bridges here, many of which are one lane so we have to keep a good watch for cars coming the other way.  One road side sign talked about the problem of these bridges washing out during eruptions and all the traffic having to go all the way back around the island to get to towns on the other side of the bridge - many days of detour.   The roads are narrow, but there are pull-offs with picnic tables all along the way.  Many of these have mRkers which have information in English about the area.  If only they had a Porta-potty too.  Rest rooms are few and far between!

     Another part of Vatnajokull is a huge bay full of icebergs called Jokulsarlon.  Chunks of a glacier break off and get bunched up at the mouth of this bay.  It was amazing.  Lots of seals swimming between the icebergs.  There were warnings not to climb on the icebergs because they can flip and dump you in the water.  I didn't see anyone climbing on them, but lots of folks teetering on the rocks to get a picture.  I don't think you'd last long in that water!  The temperature had dropped 20 degrees and the clouds covered our spring sun so we had our picnic in the car again.

    The final portion of our drive was through reindeer country.  We saw lots of warning signs, but no Rudolf.  The Norwegians brought the reindeer here, but they aren't herded and managed like in northern Norway, they just roam free.  We did see a huge number of Whooper (Icelandic) swans out on the marshes.  

    We are staying in another guesthouse tonight.  It overlooks the Hoffell glacier and is often used by hikers.  We have a beautiful view of the glacier and many fields and farms.  Very quiet and serene.  

Sunny South

     The day began with sunshine and a very Scandinavian buffet breakfast.  There were hard boiled duck eggs, home baked bread, sardines, cheese, and lots of dishes I didn't recognize.  Of course there was good, strong coffee too.  Something I read talked about delicious Iceland butter - yes, it is yummy!

     Restaurant food is so expensive so we went to the Bonus Supermarket and bought lunch and snack stuff.  I loved seeing all the different foods and was surprised at the large number of American brands.  You can get Oreos here, Kellen.  We can make our own picnic for three days for what one Subway lunch cost us!  It was fun to shop there and our picnic later was a treat.

     Our travel company marked many attractions on our big map, so we can pick and choose what to see.  After our fun stop at the grocery store, we got on Highway 1 which goes around the island.  We were looking for the Seljalandsfoss waterfall.  In the distance we could see something lighter against the huge cliffs and wondered if it was the waterfall.  Yes!  The water comes from the glaciers and drops 197 feet to the valley.  There are steps that take you up and behind the waterfall.  Rick climbed part of the way up and got soaked.  There are only minor attempts at safey here.  You're supposed to have the sense to be careful.  The steps were super slippery and steep, so I stayed at the bottom and was dry

    I remember the volcanic eruption in Iceland in 2010 that put so much ash in the air that planes all over Europe were grounded.  We stopped at the Volcano Eruption Visitor Center and watched a movie about a family who owned a huge farm just below a glacier which was on the edge of the volcano.  When it erupted huge portions of the glacier melted and rushed down the cliffs onto the farm and highway.  Extensive close up filming of the lava flow, the clouds of ash, and the flooding made this almost too real considering that there is an eruption here every 2 - 3 years.  

    The area along the south coast has many huge glaciers and lava fields.  It's a very stark landscape without trees or buildings.  One portion of the flow, though, was covered with a bright green moss that was a couple feet thick and made all the jagged volcanic rocks look like fuzzy green pillows.  We drove to the ocean in Vik where the beach is fine, black sand, similar to ones we saw in Hawaii.  There were  warnings everywhere to watch out for "rogue" waves which are a huge and common danger to tourists.  Vik is the most southern point of Iceland so tomorrow we are heading Northeast.

     Our stop tonight is at an Icelandair Hotel which is just beautiful.  It seems empty, but apparently it gets filled by bus tours.  I am just loving all the spare, clean and colorful Scandinavian design everywhere.  Bathroom fixtures, lights, door handles, chairs, textiles -  all just elegantly simple.  We have found the beds very comfortable and made up with a duvet for each of us.  We've been very cosy - even too warm at night.  We each bought along a small bag to bring into the hotel each night so we don't need to lug the big suitcases in.  The back of our SUV is our "closet."  We are pulling out our short sleeved t-shirts as we expect another warm and sunny day tomorrow.

    

     

 

The Golden Circle

      Do you hear the chickens and the rooster?  We left Reykjavik this morning, drove part of "the Golden Circle" and now are at the Sel Guesthouse which is a five unit motel-like structure built on a farm.  It is new and bright with heated floors and little red shutters to cover the inside of the window to shut out the almost midnight sun.  The only sounds are the roaming chickens and ducks.  Like almost all Iceland homes, the roof has a high peak.  There's a big, comfortable bed and a big bathroom with a shower with no walls.  The first of many interesting places we will be staying.  Breakfast will be served in the farm house.

     After picking up our Ford Kuga (Escape) this morning, we drove to the first of the big three attractions which make up the drive that the tour companies call the "Golden Circle."  Thingveller National Park is about 35 minutes outside Reykjavik.  The first thing I learned is that the park's name is spelled and pronounced in English starting with a "th", but the Icelandic word looks like it starts with a "p" when instead it is a letter that is called a "thorn" -- þ.  Well I found it interesting.  So þingvellir is a Unesco Heritage Site.  It is where the Icelandic chieftans gathered to govern and have the first legislative sessions.  It is also a Rift Valley where the North American and European tectonic plates meet.  A long, tall, rocky ledge and a big crack define the area between the shifting plates.  The main park road was rerouted when a hole opened under the road and when they dug it up they found that the fissure went down thirty feet! The largest lake in Iceland is in the park as well.  It is ringed with snowcapped mountains.  We really enjoyed walking around as it was a perfect warm and sunny day!

     Next we moved on to the geothermal area in Haukadalur, which contains the geysers Geysir and Strokkur. Strokkur erupts every 5–10 minutes, Geysir is dormant.  This was a huge tourist bus stop with several restaurants and a hotel. There was a busload of French speaking school kids who were really excited to see the eruption.  We found it interesting too, and a good place for us to have a sandwich and take a break.  The roads are fairly narrow, but not busy.  We both were tired, though from learning to coordinate the maps, GPS, Icelandic road names, and an unfamiliar car.  I've used a Garmin GPS before, though so except for needing the Icelandic alphabet loaded it all worked fine.

     Our last stop was Gullfoss waterfall.  It is really two falls, with the lower one falling into a very deep chasm.  It's very wide and powerful.  We passed on the long steep walk down to get closer to the lower falls.  The sun was hot and we were worn out, so we drove another fifteen miles to our little farm cabin tucked into the hills and relaxed with our Ipads and WiFi - ah wilderness!

Touring Reykjavik

    I made it until almost 9 last night and slept well and long so I was ready to tour the town today.  We have breakfast included with all of our hotels, so we stopped at the very nice buffet on the top floor of the hotel to begin our day.  The food is good, but the strong European coffee with cream is the best!

     We took a doubledecker bus tour of the city.  It's a hop on / hop off tour that gave us info about the city and also got us to the National Museum of Iceland where we learned a lot about the history of this country.  My forefathers and mothers, the Vikings were the first to discover and settle here.  By 930 A.D. the Viking chieftans had gathered into a formal alliance and established a government making it the worlds oldest Parliament.  For a long time Iceland was independent, but times got hard and Norway took over.  Eventually Noway was taken over by Denmark and Iceland was ruled by the Danes until 1944.  

     Our bus tour answered some other questions.  There are very few trees and almost no wood buildings in Reykjavik.  I thought it was because of the volcanic nature of the island, but we were told that there were forests until some very cold periods in the early settlement days when most of the trees were cut for fuel and shelter.  There's a big plan to reforest the island now.

    There are great environmental efforts to reduce waste and use renewable energy.  The vast majority of homes and businesses are heated with geothermal energy.  The hot water smells a bit sulphury when you first turn it on.  The cold water, however is delicious- like our cabin well water.

    We did the full bus tour and finally got off at the tallest structure in Iceland, the Hallgrimskirkja, which is the also the largest church in Iceland.   It is set on a high point above the harbor so it was a beautiful walk down into the old downtown in the sunshine.  We like to eat at interesting places, but I must admit that we stopped for a cheap, quick lunch was at a Subway sandwich shop.  There are lots of American fast food places, except McDonalds and Burger King which are gone due to the high franchise costs.

     Our dinner, however was at a spot with many Icelandic speaking folks.  We ordered lamb soup which was served in huge bowls!  Jo and I had this when we visited relatives in Norway almost 50 years ago and we still talk about it.  This version was delicious too!  We topped dinner off with a shared dessert of three scoops of ice cream covered in strawberries and real whipped cream.  I am so full!

     Tomorrow we start our drive around the island.

Made it to Iceland

 Leaving from Terminal 2 is so easy.  We had a short check-in and security line.  Then about and hour and a half to wait for our flight.  I got called to the desk to see if we would sit in the exit row window seats.  More legroom sounded good until we got on the plane and found that the exit door by me showed that it wasn't closing properly.  Thirty minutes later it was decided that the indicator light was bad, but not the door.  Still, I figured if it opened in flight, I was going to experience sky diving.

     The winds were fierce when we skidded down the runway six hours later in Iceland. We breezed through customs and were met by our travel agency for the 45 minute drive to Reykjavik.  The landscape by the airport is desolate, volcanic rubble.  Driving rain and gusty winds made the driving treacherous.  There is a five hour time difference between Apple Valley and Iceland so we were also fighting rush hour at 8:30 am.  It was fun to talk with our driver.  He told us that he learned most of his English from American TV and movies although British English is taught in school to all children.  I told him about an article in the news about the Icelandic language dying out.  He said that the Danes who used to rule Iceland,  are also worried about their language being lost and are paying the Iceland government to teach Danish in the schools to kids 12- 16, but still no one speaks it.

     On the way to town we saw the old U.S. Air base used in WWII.  The barracks are now cheap housing for university students.  Lodging in Reykjavik is very expensive due to tourism with 6 new hotels being built to accommodate the tourist boom.

     Our hotel is just two blocks from the main shopping street downtown and right by the harbor.  We can look out our window and see the wind blowing off the tops of the waves.  We were able to check in early and have the buffet breakfast.  Then we crawled under our duvet for a good nap.  

     We walked around downtown for a bit despite the strong winds and rain.  Lots of shops and restaurants.  I found one with "moderate" prices, The Islenski Barinn.  Although whale, shark and reindeer were on the menu, we had fresh cod and a beer for an early dinner although it was 9 pm our time.  I took lots of pictures only to discover that once more I brought the wrong connection to my IPad and wont be able to upload until I get home.  Rats!

     We are watching some BBC news before an early bedtime.  Its been a tiring, but wonderful Day 1.

Heading for Iceland

     Next week at this time Rick and I will be getting on a plane for Iceland.  I'm excited.  We are busy packing for the sixteen days that we will be "on the road."  I think it is sixteen, but the time changes and the six hour flight has me a little confused.  Anyway, I'm packing clothes for sixteen days.
     A few years ago I read a blog written by a woman who was driving the "Ring Road" which goes all around the island.  The drive sounded both adventuresome AND doable by senior citizens.  I put it in my bucket list.  However, we are not getting any younger and my "someday" bucket list seemed like something I ought to look at more closely.
    So I got on the Internet, found the travel agency that I looked at before and started making plans.  Nordic Visitor agency is based in Iceland.  It offers bus tours, but also self-drive tours.  We opted for the fourteen day self-drive tour and then added a day on each end to give us some recovery time from the overnight flight.
     I am used to doing all the travel planning - the route, reservations, and all other activity arrangements.  It was great to leave this to Nordic Visitor since I know nothing about Iceland except that it has some really beautiful landscapes and they drive on the right side of the road.  Much of the information I have read since deciding to do this trip makes me believe that it will be amazing.
    The language spoken by the Icelandic people is a version of Old Norse.  There are only about 400,000 people who speak this language.  The electronic age has not embraced such a rare language and so most Icelanders speak English and use it daily to do business.  Nice for us English speaking tourists!
    So we are packing and packing.  Iceland is near the Arctic Circle.  Temperatures in early May are in the 40's during the day.  In addition, we are told to expect lots of moisture - fog, rain, mist.  So we are packing layers.  American's apparently can be identified by the fact that they wear blue jeans which get damp and never dry.  We have packed some hiking pants, waterproof hiking boots, raincoats, fleece, fleece and more fleece.
    I am told that WiFi is available in all our accomodations so I plan to blog.  We will see how well that works so there may not be pictures, but at least you get to follow our adventures.

Gott kvöld - Good evening.

Deer Valley Resort

There are three large ski areas near Park City.   Canyons Resort and Park City Mountain are connected by a long gondola ride.  The free shuttle bus takes folks from one area to another as well.  You can start off at Park City in the morning, use the gondola to get to Canyons and then take a free shuttle ride back to your hotel at the end of the day.  If you're hungry you can take the chair lift into downtown.  It is a very skier friendly place.
   Deer Valley is just on the edge of town and is the "up-scale" resort.  No snowboarding is allowed and the area closes it doors when it reaches a certain number of skiiers, so there aren't any long lift lines.  The area prides itself in beautifully groomed runs and has far more ski grooming equipment than the other two areas.  The homes and condos around the resort are massive and beautiful.  One of the ski club members works in Park City over the winter.  He told us about the former Enron home which has twelve bedrooms and twelve bathrooms.  It's up for sale if you are looking for a little ski hideaway.
   I drove around the area today to see what a really fancy ski area looks like.  It looks nice!  It was the site for the freestyle moguls, aerial, and alpine slalom events at the 2002 Olympics.  As I drove up I could see a long, steep run just covered with moguls.  Whew, this was not for me even at the height of my skiing skills.  I didn't see the Enron home, but I was very interested in several pretty little cottages that were tucked in between some of the mansions.
    Rick had another great skiing day with lots of sunshine and good snow.  We had dinner tonight with one of the trip organizers and who told us that there have been no injuries on this trip.  It is always good to know that everyone is going home in good shape.
   I've met some of my photo organization goals and made good progress on my hand quilting as well.  It has been quite a relaxing week and really fun to hang out with so many interesting and fun folks.  We have an afternoon flight home tomorrow so we get to sleep in a bit and have one last delicious breakfast.  Weather is supposed to be good so we should be home tomorrow night.  Sigh.

Main Street Park City

     A warm and sunny day is the perfect time to head to downtown Park City.  Everyone is on the mountain enjoying the perfect weather and great snow conditions.  Downtown was quiet and I was able to park right on Main Street.  I wandered in and out of many of the attractive shops and galleries.  My usual souvenir is a pair of earrings and I found some Navajo silver which have several colorful stones including "spiderweb" turquoise.  Whoo hoo!  I love them.
   I had my waterproof boots on today so I drove on a few narrow one-way streets with tiny, colorful old houses.  The houses are built on steep hills.  In several spots long, narrow staircases went straight up the hill to provide access to the upper houses.  I stopped along the way to try for a picture of the chair lift that goes over these houses and right into downtown.  Very handy for a lunch break.  Just on the edge of downtown is a pretty City Park.  This is the site of the old Miner's Hospital which was built in 1903 to serve the huge community of miners and their families.  It is now a community center.  The park was a great spot for a sunny winter walk with lots of interesting metal sculptures scattered about.
   Rick headed up the mountain again and had a good day of skiing.  He is finally feeling pretty good and only has one more day of skiing.  He said that while the snow is melting at the base, the ski runs are covered with nicely compacted dry powder.  Just great for skiing and not ever found in Minnesota.

 It has been a good week of skiing for the club as now one has been hurt.  A good record for a club of senior citizens.
   I have been working on organizing my photos.  A major task on which I have actually made huge progress.  I keep changing my mind on where I will store my photos - I have some on a Google drive, some on ICloud, Pogoplug, and Amazon Prime.  What a mess.  My download file is just full of stuff too as I import stuff from Arik and Matt.  I downloaded a free app that searches for duplicates (per Arik's advice) and weeded through thousands of pictures.
   After each of our big adventures I have made a photo book using Shutterfly.  This forces me into documenting our trip and organizing the photos.  I discovered that I never made one for our trip to Big Bend National Park, so that is next on my list.
    We went out for dinner at a brew pub where I found Apricot Hefenweizen beer on the menu.  Matt and Arik have been widening my beer palate.  They brought a big selection to the cabin and this was one that I really liked.  What fun to find that it is a Wasatch Utah craft beer.  Yumm.  Paired perfectly with the fish tacos.  I am so full. Yawn.

Sunny Day at Park City Mountain

    The day dawned with bright sunshine and Rick woke up feeling much better and was ready to hit the slopes.  The base at Park City is a couple thousand feet lower than the Colorado ski areas which helps with adjustment to the altitude.  Rick now takes a pill a few days before we leave on the trip to help avoid altitude sickness.  Still, there is just a lot less oxygen available and everything takes more effort.
   Rick gathered his gear, boarded the free shuttle that runs all around the Park City area, and trudged to the base of the first lift.  The members of the ski club all wear bright yellow bandanas on their sleeves (or somewhere) so that they can spot each other on the hill.  Rick spotted a fellow Ullr and spent a few wonderful hours on the mountain.
   I lazed about, had a great free breakfast buffet, read the paper and Googled "quilt shops" to find a fun place to visit.  Driving today was much easier without piles of snow and snowplows.  The quilt shop was called Davidene's.  I had a great time looking at fabric and patterns.  Lots of local ladies in the shop were trying to convince me to drive to a shop in Salt Lake City.  mmmm.  As I checked out (yes I bought some fabric) I was talking to the store owner.  She asked me where I was from.  When I told her Minnesota, she talked about a Quilt Shop Hop that she was on which visited 12 stores in northern Minnesota including a tiny one in a gas station.  She was talking about a shop in Hill City just 15 miles from our cabin.  Such a small world.
    I foolishly wore sneakers instead of my boots when I left the hotel,

so my thoughts of hiking around the city park and taking pictures was foiled.  Instead I bought some lunch supplies and headed back to our room.  Rick staggered in a few minutes after me and was happy to have a picnic lunch in the room.
   The Ski Club had a dinner event at a local barbecue restaurant called the Grub Steak.  Our group of 40 filled one of the banquet rooms and we downed a heap of ribs, chicken, corn on the cob and baked beans.  Everyone shared stories about their favorite runs including one lady who had her picture taken to show folks that you CAN ski if you are over 80.  I shared my adventures and got the usual questions about how how I managed to drive around an unfamiliar town and find things to do.  GPS and Smartphones!!!  After making a valient effort to finish a huge brownie, we rolled back "home" to get ready for another busy day.

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.
   

Snowing in the Wasatch Mountains

     Park City Mountain got nine inches of new snow overnight.  This snow added to the 110" of base.  It was snowing very lightly when I turned out the lights last night.  By morning there was a pile of snow outside my window and the ski runs on the mountain were completely hidden by falling snow.
    We are staying at a Hilton with 160 ski club members from around the country.  The hotel offers a buffet breakfast which comes free with our group rate rooms.  There are so many of us heading to the ski hills first thing in the morning that the hotel set up breakfast in a banquet room just for the ski clubs.  We thought we were moving pretty quickly as we arrived about 7:45 (the lifts open at 9), but many of the die hard skiers had already finished breakfast and were getting geared up for a snowy day on the mountains.
   Rick put on his long undies and warm fleece, but began to question the wisdom of skiing in white out conditions on a completely unfamiliar mountain.  Quite a few other Ullr Ski Club members agreed and we ended up having a long, slow breakfast while we chatted about our favorite trips.  Rick and I returned to the room to read the newspaper and then Rick had a two hour nap.  Our long trip yesterday on top of a cold has wiped him out.
   Just across the parking lot from our hotel is a car rental place.  We walked over and rented a little Hyundai.  I found a cafe nearby for lunch and filled Rick up with hot tea and soup.  Then we drove a mile to the historic main street of Park City which is crammed with historic buildings, art galleries, and shops.  Today the streets were also crammed with folks who decided not to ski in the deep snow.  Road crews seemed to be having trouble keeping up with the snowfall and driving was a challenge.  Parking downtown was not possible.  So we drove through and I promised myself to come back later in the week.

   As we got to the end of the town we looked for a place to go around the block.  Alas, we were on a steeply climbing mountain road that headed to the top of the ski runs of Deer Valley Resort.  This was not a road for a little car driven by folks who were not sure where they were going.  We saw several signs telling us that the road was closed in the winter just a mile beyond where we were.  Fortunately we found a even steeper road heading into a section of pricey homes in the fancy Deer Valley community.  We didn't stop to gawk, we turned around and just headed back to our hotel for a rest.
   Rick is hoping that all the rest he got today will leave him ready to hit the slopes tomorrow.  The snow is supposed to quit by lunch time and then we will have sun the rest of the week.  I want some photos of this beautiful town, so hoping for sun soon as well as a healthy husband.

Park City, Utah

    Leaving home at 4:30 am makes the day really long.  We found our group easily in the almost empty terminal and used our TSA Pre-boarding pass to skip most of the security line (except for one of us who had to be patted down after forgetting to take the metal objects out of his pocket).  Our flight to Denver left from Terminal 2 at 6:30 without any issues where we met up with our one hour flight to Salt Lake City.  I packed a bagel for breakfast for each of us which was lucky since SouthWest offers no food at all - just juice and coffee.
   We arrived in Salt Lake late morning and waited for additional members of our group who were flying in from Florida and Arizona.  Everyone found all their luggage and skis and all 39 of the over 60 Ski Club boarded a chartered bus for the 45 minute ride to Park City.  Within minutes of leaving the airport we were in the Wasatch mountains surrounding Salt Lake.  While there was no snow in town the mountains are white and the drive was beautiful.
    Park City is a pretty little town.  It boomed in the 1860's after the discovery of gold, silver and lead.  The silver mines flourished and Silver King Mine was one of the most famous in the world.  By the 1950's the price of silver was down and the town almost disappeared.  The ski industry was growing, however, and the town developed a resort called Treasure Mountain which opened in 1962. Park City now has two big ski resorts: Deer Valley and Park City Mountain.  Both resorts were major locations for ski and snowboard events at the 2002 Winter Olympics.  We are planning to visit the Olympic site this week.
    The forecast for tomorrow is for snow - 6 - 8 inches.  This should be pretty, but hard on the skiiers for their first day on the mountain.  We had a nap and then went to the "Arrival" party to socialize with the club and get ski passes and maps.  There are several other ski clubs staying here at the Hilton but we are both the largest and the oldest group.  These are some hearty skiers - most in their mid-70's to 80's.  Soon its early to bed for us, yawn.

Western Ski Trip

     It has been a while since we have gone to the western mountains in the winter.  In 2014 we went to Steamboat Springs, Colorado and Rick took a bad fall after only three runs.  Several other folks in the Ullr Ski Club fell that day as well.  Rick tore some ligaments which secure his collar bone and spent the rest of the week very uncomfortable.  It made him question whether he should continue to ski and certainly made him wonder about big mountain skiing.
    Since then he has been working with a trainer off and on, regaining strength and flexibility that is so essential to skiing and is so hard to hang onto as we age.  He has been feeling good skiing and decided that he is ready to tackle the big mountains again.  This year the Ullr Ski Club is headed to Park City, Utah for a week and we are going along.  Its a good place for us because the altitude is a couple thousand feet lower than Colorado.  This makes for a little more oxygen for our old lungs.
    It is a good time for us to take off for a bit.  We skipped our fall RV trip and our winter warm getaway while Matt has been fighting his colon cancer.  But now, Matt is successfully recovering from surgery and ready to finish his chemo treatments.  It will be good for us to have a little time away.  The unexpected warm spell this winter has made winter fly by, but we do get a traveling itch that needs to be scratched.
   Park City looks like a nice, little ski town.  Lots of shops and restaurants nearby our hotel.  I am bringing a big computer project and some hand sewing to keep me busy when I am not out wandering around taking pictures.  If I get bored, it will be my own fault as there is lots to do, including planning our upcoming trip to Iceland.  Keep watching for details on that!