Exploring SLC week 2

Day 17- Salt Lake City, UT; Sandy, UT

We woke up in Salt Lake to find that Jeremy had poison ivy as I had suspected. He later spoke with Dr.Ingebretson who suggested trying an over the counter product called Zanafel which washes off poison ivy's binding resin. It worked wonders in terms of reducing the itch compared to the 40mg of prednisone that Jeremy was taking.

We went climbing and running again. As we were leaving the climbing gym, my mom texted me about the Boston Marathon bombing. Jeremy and I were surprised by the lack of coverage here in SLC where they just mentioned it briefly on the radio. We have no access to a TV so our only source of information was really our I-phones. That evening Mike, Vinay and Vijay met us for some trivia at the Republican where we killed it in categories such as Movies with the name Girl in it, and Song titles, but got destroyed in the Adult Anime category. Who knows that anyway?! We ate some late night Mexican at Del Taco. The Nachos were delicious.
 

Day 18 – Salt Lake City, UT; Sandy, UT

During climbing today my right biceps tendonitis (self diagnosed) was getting significantly worse. I had to stop climbing early, but went for a run around the U of U.

Day 19 – Salt Lake City, UT; Sandy, UT; Thanksgiving Point, UT

Change of plans. I decided to run the half marathon on Saturday. Janae and I had signed up for it back in January, but I had been suffering some capsulitis in my foot back in February and March so I considered not doing it. But after the bombing at Boston I just really want to run to support our sport and Boston. So on 1.5 weeks of training and a long run of 4 miles, I’m going to race 13.1 miles on Saturday.  We hit up REI again (I think this is a record). And we finally accomplished our peak climbing of a 5.10a grade at Momentum. Unfortunately, while at Momentum a man fell 40 feet and likely fractured a vertebrae. He had plenty of medical care as a University of Utah  Emergency Medicine resident along with an Emergency nurse was present in addition to Jeremy and I. We then met Janae at Thanksgiving point for lunch with Janae and headed to the Outlets to pick up some engagement photo clothes at J.Crew.

Day 20 – Salt Lake City, UT; Antelope Island, UT

Hike: Hike to Frary Point on Antelope Island (3.0 miles ; elevation 1200)

Vinay and Vijay wanted to join u for Antelope Island. So we made our way out to these strange island in the middle of Salt Lake where Utah has decided to create a Bison refuge. We hiked up to Frary point and realized that Vijay had an intense love of panoramics as he quickly fell behind us on the trail.

Salt Lake

Antelope Island

Lots of Bison in the distance

 

 

 

After the hike we made our way to Brugges Waffles and Frites, known for their fry sauce and giant Belgian style waffles. We ordered a Machine Gun which is basically a sandwich of 3 Belgian sausage covered in frites and Andalouise fry sa uce (essentially flavored mayonnaise), frites with Samurai fry sauce, and a Monster Waffle which is a waffle ice cream sandwich filled with strawberries, cinnamon caramel graham cracker crumbles and ice cream.

The Machine Gun

The Monster Waffle

 

It was our last day of class and we became certified in Advanced Wilderness Life Support (AWLS) with a card to prove it. Scott McIntosh gave us an amazing lecture on populations that live at high altitude (Sherpas in particular) and their various physical evoluntionary adaptations which enable them to thrive at well over 20,000 feet. We met our class at the Beer hive Brewery to celebrate – I ordered a Polygamy porter and Jeremy a Latter Day Saints Stout. It was Jeremy's last medical school class.

Latter Day Saints Stout

 

Must Eat: Brugges Waffles and Frites

Day 21 – SLC, UT

We woke up early today to meet Carl from Red Rock Adventure at Big Cottonwood Canyon for some outdoor climbing lessons. Carl is actually from New Jersey but moved out to Salt Lake for obvious reasons and has no intentions from returning back east. I understand his sentiment. The climbing lessons were invaluable – learning about lead climbing, creating top down anchors, ground anchors, rappelling, bowlyn ties, equipment to buy, and various smearing and cracking techniques. Afterwards he suggested a fish burrito at Lonestar Taqueria which we obviously consumed. We took a quick drive up to Park City,  UT to see the town and then made our way back to Backcountry for snowpants that we will need in Crater Lake.

Outdoor lead climbing

Fish burrito

The Red Iguana came highly recommended for dinner. So we met Janae for a pre-race meal and tried their various moles. All were delicious, but as far as food in SLC I would prefer Brugges Waffles and Frites.

Mole at Red Iguana