Skiing at Solitude - Day 1 report

Its been a whole year since I hit the ski slopes, so both MrM and I had been looking looking forward to this day. My very sweet mom made it all possible by house-sitting and taking care of our baby AND dogs while we take a week off from reality to have some fun.

We flew into Salt Lake City last evening and I was immediately in better spirits. Something about seeing snow makes me happy. I also got to see a plane landing parallel to ours as we approached the airport.

Since yesterday was a non-ski day, we decided to find a good place to eat at, and Yelp came through. We went to a small restaurant in Sandy (30 mins south of SLC) called Tiburon. I loved its rustic ambience and its lack of wait line. Well, we were there at 5:30 local time, so I guess not many people were hungry yet! We had the best server ever. The appetizer we ordered was their chef's specialty - pork belly served with French creme brei, caramelized onions and a balsamic demi glace. It was delicious despite being a very unlikely combination. Their house bread was yummy as was the flavored spread (tasted like hot pepper jelly - link goes to my favorite brand). The pork belly was very heavy and it made me wish we were splitting main courses, but we weren't. I had a gorgeous plate of seared ahi tuna, prepared rare and sesame crusted, with pineapple fried rice. I didn't care for the veggies it came with though. MrM had a seafood pasta plate with lobster tail, scallops and crab legs, with a very mediterranean tasting cream sauce. Delicious. Service was spectacular. If you are ever in the area, eat here.

On to skiing. We started at 8:30 (a late start!) after breakfast, rented skis and headed out to Solitude ski resort. It was surprisingly empty. We never had to wait in line at a lift. We skied green runs most of the morning, wrapping it with a long blue and headed to a mid-slope grill. We had a quick lunch and started again. Here I had the one low point of my day - I left my jacket pocket open and my ski pass fell out somewhere on my lift ride up :( I had to go buy another half day pass. I felt so sorry for myself, but MrM came down to join me, bought us coffee and made me happy again. We continued skiing till 4pm and then called it a day. Our quads were ready to retire anyway!

In a surprise turn of events, our hotel had food in the lobby! So we were able to eat lasagna, salad and a bread roll right here, all free (or part of our room rate). In an extra surprising turn, THERE WAS WINE. IN UTAH. IN A HOTEL LOBBY. Of course I had to have a glass.

We are back in our room now, contemplating heading to the hot tub soon. It has been a great trip so far!