So after weeks/months of anticipation, the NBA tour finally kicked off this past weekend in Salt Lake City. The entire weekend was nothing short of thrilling and the Utah Jazz organization provided exceptional hospitality.
Getting there
I left work at 2:30 PM CST on Friday & walked to the Amtrak station 2 blocks away. After a hour train ride, I arrived at Chicago Union Station and walked 3 blocks to catch the “Orange Line” to Chicago Midway Airport. However, I quickly learned that you can not buy a ticket w/ credit or debit & was forced to walk down the street to an ATM. Now with a $20 bill in hand, I re-entered the station only to find that the machine would not give change. I would be spending $20 on a $2 train ticket. I guess the attendant felt sorry for my stupidity and used his “master key” to let me through for free. $2 saved!
I arrived at Chicago Midway airport, checked in w/ ease and headed to the Southwest terminal. Along the way, I spot a sign for flu shots. I thought about the many people I’ll be around at work, on planes, and in NBA arenas & decided that this might just be a great investment. I paid the $35 for the flu shot at the airport and am still living to tell about it. When the nurse administered the shot, she laughed because she said that I winced in pain. I quickly showed her one of my other piercings & she quickly conceded that I maybe I didn’t.
I arrived in Salt Lake City at about 9:00 PM MST. Shea had arrived about 50 minutes earlier and was already checked in at the hotel. He had already left me 3 voicemails when I turned my phone on stating that he left a bag at the airport so I had to spend the next 30 minutes retrieving it.
What became more interesting was that I had booked an America’ Best Inn & Suites through Expedia.com because it offered an airport shuttle among other amenities. When Shea called the hotel, we found that the shuttle was “broke down” and we would each have to take a cab to the hotel and pay 50% of it. We would then also have to take a cab from the hotel to the airport when we were leaving. This added $50 to our expenses and I WILL seek restitution from Expedia & or America’s Best. When I booked, they also offered a pool and hot tub, neither of which were functional. The room itself boasted a broken shower head, a single bar of soap, & heat/air conditioning that didn’t work. What we found to be extremely hilarious was that on Saturday the maid “turned over” Shea’s bed but chose to ignore mine. I guess they give a 50% effort here. Here are some of the finer aspects of our room: the air filtration system from 1984 and the great clock radio!
The City of Salt Lake
So we headed out on Friday to experience downtown Salt Lake City. The first thing we noticed are the extremely wide streets. Also, the phrase "Trust Jesus" was neatly spray-painted on several parts of the sidewalk.
Next, were the multiple taco vendors offering $1 tacos made from cow tongue/cow cheek/chicken/etc. What was strange here was that the taco vendors would set up shop in the most obscure areas, no open businesses nearby and yet double-digit numbers of people would be lined up for these tacos.
Many people believe Utah is a “dry” state. Not true. While they have many rules that separate them from most other states, they have bars, breweries, and clubs just like everywhere else.
Having not eaten all day, we started off at Squatters Pub. Without getting too much into detail of our bar hopping affair, we learned the following
1- All bars that do not serve food require a “membership.” This is a fee that you pay up front and allows one to be a patron of the bar in the future and even bring guests.
2- To allow people to smoke in a bar, you must require membership.
3- Tap beer must be 4% alcohol by volume or less to be served.
4- Restaurants can not serve alcohol past midnight.
5- Liquor ceases to be sold at midnight.
6- Beer sales end at 1 A.M.
7- Servers can not offer the patron a drink, a drink must be requested by the patron.
8- Each individual at a bar or table can have only a single drink in front of them at a time. No “double-fisting” kids!
While I could be off on some of these, I think I’ve got most of them correct. Nonetheless, it’s very different from most other places.
On Saturday morning, we quickly learned that most of the desirable sites that we wanted to see were far outside of Salt Lake City. This posed quite the problem as we couldn’t spend what would have been over $100 on cab fares. We began to walk down Main street at about 9 AM when we stumbled upon our gold mine. “Rent-A-Wreck.” We were able to rent a Chevy Cavalier for about $30 for the day. Suddenly opportunity opened up. Notice my "senior pic" pose below:
We took the car to Olympic Park, just outside of Park City. Here they were doing time trials on the bobsled track & the ski jump was active with athletes. The view from up here was incredible as you could see the small towns lodged in between the Rocky Mountains.
Next we drove to the Great Salt Lake. As we approached it, you could see nothing but white on the shores. We drove and parked at one of the marinas and went into the locker room to change. Strangely enough, as we approached the locker room we were greeted by a massive black cat, just hanging out in the sink. I have no idea of why it was there or where it came from, but a bit odd. It was approximately 50 degrees out and we went down to the shore. I’m always wanted to get into the Great Salt Lake and it was unfortunate that I made it here at this time of year. The water was freezing. Anyone who knows me however, will tell you that I go after my dreams at all costs. I took my shoes, sweatshirt, and jeans off and jumped right in. You can see the video below. The Great Salt Lake has a salt concentration that is EIGHT times greater than the ocean. When I jumped in the salt immediately burned my eyes, nostrils, and lips. Although only in for a short period, you could instantly tell that there was much more buoyancy in this body of water because of the salt. I think we’ve both successfully avoided pneumonia to this point. My body had the dry white salt all over it. No matter how much I tried to wipe it all off, there was constantly more.
SLC - NBAdrew and Shea hit the Great Salt Lake
