Utah Part 1

After way too long... almost 2 years... Ben and I finally had the chance to visit his family in Salt Lake City. We were there for a week and had a blast seeing all his siblings, nieces, nephews and even managed to squeeze in a few cousins! 

Here is a recap of our trip.

Our first stop was Spring City, UT for a family reunion. The Allred family holds a reunion in Spring City every year to honor their ancestors who settled the town in the late 1800's. Ben's mom is a descendant of Redick Newton Allred who is a famous Utah pioneer. Below is a picture of the house where Redick Newton Alldred resided in the 1870's, the house later belonged to his son Isaac.  

 While we were standing outside admiring the house the current occupant (also a descendant of an Allred) offered to give us a personal tour! I believe Ben's mom has toured the house before but it was really fun for Ben and me to learn a little more of the history of the house. The trunk pictured below belonged to Redick Newton Allred, we were told he brought it with him when he was traveling across the plains.

When we were driving home we passed by the ghost-flooded-town of Thistle, UT. Ben's mom was telling us about the town and how it was flooded in the 1980's and is still underwater. I looked it up on Wikipedia and it said there was a massive landslide in 1983 and all the residents had to be evacuated. The town was almost completely destroyed, only a few structures were left partially standing. Ben insisted we stop at the ghost-ish town and look around. It was a bit eerie to see the tops of buildings still underwater after almost 30 years. Unfortunately there was no place to park on the twisty-turny highway with views of the still flooded area. So we had to settle for a part of the town now above water... but you can get the idea. :-)

Lots of thistles in the town of Thistle.

The next day we went up Big Cottonwood Canyon (or maybe it was Little...?) to see the snow run off. 

Sounds boring huh? 

Well it wasn't! Utah had such a cold spring that now that the summer's heat is in full force the snow is melting off the mountains fast and is creating some big full rivers roaring down the canyons.

 I felt pretty insignificant standing on the edge of the canyon watching the water roar down to the valley.

While we were there we also got to see "Cars 2" with Lightning McQueen's biggest fan! (And no, I don't mean Ben.) After the movies Mikey and Claire left their mark on Grandma's french doors! Ha!

We visited The Museum of Ancient Life with Ben's brother's family. Their daughter Cristina is a big fan of dinosaurs and loved taking us to one of her favorite places!

 If you live in Utah, or are visiting and have kids, it is a great place! Lots of interactive exhibits, Christopher and Cristina love the Erosion Water Table and the Fossil Digging area.

 It's always a challenge for me to get a photo with EVERYONE in it. So I'm often looking for places where I can set a camera, turn on the timer and RUN into the photo. It doesn't have to end up being the best photo, all I care about it is that everyone is in it. I managed to find a display case that my camera could rest nicely on while all of us perched right in front of 'Jaws'. 

In retrospect we should have done something more along the lines of what Ben and Cristina had in mind. That would have been the best photo! Oh well! Next time.

Okay, I'm about half way through our trip... but I'm a bit blogged out for the night. So, I'll post this for now and wrap up the rest later!