Training Rides
Stunning Photo of Salt Lake City if My Camara Battery Hadn't Died
My family and I took a training ride to Salt Lake City this past weekend. We need conditioning. Our stamina for long drives is weak, our being-cooped-up-together-and-remaining-civil muscles have atrophied. Thanks to bounteous frequent flyer miles, our motto over the past five years has been if the driving distance is longer than four hours, we fly.
Last month, Camden and Breanna dropped out of their private school and joined Bret in matriculating at the Stein Academy for Wayward Children. LaPriel is the headmistress. I’m the janitor, although not a particularly diligent one. Now that we are all working at home, it seems only logical we should join my virtual office with the Wayward Academy and hit the road this spring for a tour of Montana and Northern Idaho. Hence, we need practice trips to build up our road tolerance.
I met the family in Salt Lake on my return from Seattle so I missed the first leg of the journey. Everyone was in good spirits despite the four and a half hour drive, but it wasn’t a true test because in my absence Camden could sit up front, reducing the population density in back. Still, I think we are improving. The weekend was quite enjoyable.
No fights broke out over who had to sleep on the hotel floor⎯we rent a suite, but Bret and Cam refuse to bunk together. The kids were pleasant on our Saturday morning excursion to the heritage village where we ambled down dirt roads and peeked in pioneer houses.
Swimming at the Dimple Dell Recreation Center in the afternoon was uneventful. I lost the bet with LaPriel that no one would knowingly name their child Dimple. It had to be a nickname. A check of the Babyname Wizard shows that Dimple was the 896th most popular girls name in the 1920’s, although it had died out completely by 1935. The kids lost their bet that I wouldn’t go down the Dimple Dell water slide. Waterslides don’t bother me. I just hate cold pool water.
Saturday evening we took the grandparents to dinner at Samba Grill. This is one of those all you can eat Brazilian restaurants where the waiters serve meat tableside straight from skewers. I must have eaten at too many high-end steak houses, because I found the Brazilian meat to be too salty and tough for my taste.
We visited Temple Square on Sunday morning and prepared for our final test: the drive home. We set a record. Four hours without a fight. Then all hell broke loose. Still, we are improving. Perhaps the détente was due to the inventive travel games. Such classics as find the billboard with my name on it, count the antelope or name the roadkill body parts. On the other hand, maybe my kids are just growing up.