Today was a perfect example of the way a day off should be spent.

We got up and met for lunch. We sat, ate and talked for a couple of hours. I got this picture before we left. We then went to Bountiful (that’s the city’s name) and drove to the temple there. From Bountiful, we drove around the Capitol and then came home.

Sandi and Jim called and asked if we wanted to go to dinner and to see the Christmas lights at Temple Square. We said ‘yes,’ and then they suggested that we take TRAX, the light-rail train, downtown. Since none of us had ridden it, and since parking downtown can be… um… Hellish, this sounded like the best course of action. They picked us up and we headed to the nearest station. This wasn’t bad… other than the fact that the ticket machine didn’t care for the dollars I fed it. *shrug* The ride was not bad; it was a little crowded because there was a Jazz game – the north end of the TRAX line terminates at the Delta Center.

We went to The Gateway, Salt Lake’s newest shopping center. We ate dinner at California Pizza Kitchen. The food and atmosphere was good. Two of the cutest little girls were sitting at the next table: Kalyssa (picture: 1, 2, 3) and Madison (picture). Take a look at the resemblance between Madison and this picture. Uncanny, isn’t it? After dinner, we roamed around The Gateway and then headed to Temple Square. It was cold tonight (but no snow); that didn’t stop droves of people from going to see the lights tonight. And there were lights EVERYWHERE. It was quite the sight.

We made our way to the City Center TRAX station (between Crossroads and ZMCI Center Malls); this was a mistake as many people (holiday shoppers and other Temple Square visitors) had the same idea. It turns out that the trains were filling up at the Delta Center – the Jazz game had ended. “Temple Square, shoppers, and Jazz! Oh, my!” We walked back to the Temple Square station in the nearly vain hopes of having better luck there. The trains were packed. The platforms were packed. And it was cold. Yay. We decided to catch the next train to the Delta Center, wait until it unloaded. This was a good theory, but a little difficult to implement… but we did. We, and 1,292,763,397 other people, crammed into the next train. It went to the Delta Center… and no one got off. Surprise. Of course, no one boarded, either. Back to the Temple Square station: no change. Crossroads/ZCMI: no change. It was body-to-body from downtown all the way to the Meadowbrook station at 3900 South. Only a few people got out there, but it was a start. More people got out the farther south we went. Around 7200 South, I was able to move around enough to get a picture of this hat… and the man wearing it. Jim and I had been cracking up about the hat, which we had only seen from the back, since we got on the train. The gentleman proceeded to tell us that this was his hunting hat that he had bought in Idaho in 1978; he wore it when he went deer hunting. He seemed like a pleasant enough person. We finally made it to our station and poured out of the train, into the car and came home.

Today’s Quotes of the Day:

  • Sandi: Honey! Honey! I want to be on the bottom! This resulted in hysterical laughter.
  • TRAX passenger: Getting off! I’m getting off here! This, too, elicited a great amount of laughter.
  • Sandi: I want a surfboard to put in the back of my buggy. (a VW convertible)
    Jim: I was going to buy you a surfboard.
    Sandi: When?
    Jim: When we were at Disneyland… but you said “no.”
    Sandi: But how would I have gotten it home?
    Jim: On… the airplane.
    Sandi: You can’t take a surfboard on an airplane!
    Jim: Why not? People take skis on an airplane.
    Sandi: Oh, yeah…

Quite a nice day off indeed. If anyone is interested, the rest of the day’s pictures (the temples, Capitol, etc.) can be found here.

Being December, let me extend the follow season’s greetings:

Click on the above holidays to learn more about each one.

Peace.