In June of 2004, Carol was invited to give a talk at the Society for Toxicological Pathology in Salt Lake City. We decided to combine a professional trip with a family vacation, so the kids and I accompanied her.
I'm not quite sure what I anticipated, but we found Salt Lake City to be a beautiful city, with wide, tree-lined boulevards, in a spectacular mountain setting. We stayed at the very impressive Great America Hotel just south of the downtown / temple district, and wandered around on foot and by car. We did our obligatory walk through the Mormon Temple complex, visited Salt Lake City's amazing county library, but did not get to the actual lake during our visit.
Salt Lake City has some wonderful restaurants - too many for us to have sampled in just a couple of days - but I can recommend:
We drove north along the Wasatch Range to Idaho Falls and then eastward to Alta, Wyoming, on the western side of the Teton Range, where we stayed overnight at the Grand Targhee Ski and Summer Resort. The snow was just melting off the meadows at 8000' altitude, and while the kids climbed the ski hill Carol and I hiked around the base of the ski run to see the wildflowers poking through to greet the Alpine spring. The view of the backside of the Grand Tetons was spectacular, illuminated by the setting sun. We opened the windows of our room and let in the delicious 45-degree night air, snuggled under the down quilts, and listened to the Western Screech Owls outside.
The next morning we drove to Jackson, Wyoming, where we ate a late breakfast at Jedediah's House of Sourdough, recommended in one of the travel books I'd purchased before our excursion. Carol had fishy-tasting, over-cooked trout, and the sourdough pancakes I had were mealy and unpleasant. The surroundings were interesting, at least, with an informative pseudo-newspaper menu featuring the history of the area as news stories.
Out of commercial Jackson and north got us quickly into Grand Teton National Park. Wow. We left the main road as quickly as we could, and visited wildflower-carpeted meadows. We walked along the shores of Jenny Lake, and continued driving northward into Yellowstone.
Last Updated February 17, 2007