A view from a morning walk of the ski slopes/hiking biking trails in Park City.Freshie’s lobster roll.
My daughter and I discovered Freshie’s while she was in college at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. We follow a blog Female Foodie that highlights the best food in nine areas of the country, from New York to Los Angelos — and even Salt Lake City. That’s where we first heard about Freshie’s.
Freshie’s won a contest for the “World’s Best Lobster Roll” which is held in Maine. Who knew you could get the best lobster roll in the mountains of Utah? They fly lobster in from Maine daily. If you’re ever in Salt Lake or Park City, Freshie’s is a must.
That’s me hanging out on Main Street, Park City. Main Street is where you’ll find an abundance of shops and restaurants. I posed with this bear and my daughter a few years ago.The airbnb condo where we’re staying. We stayed here in 2020 also, but had our daughter and a sister of our son’s girlfriend staying with us on that trip. That was a much busier week!I really liked this Audrey Hepburn art in a gallery on Main Street. If I had an extra $7,500 laying around, I might have brought it home with me.
I love Audrey Hepburn. I’ve always been a fan since I watched “My Fair Lady” as a young child with my parents. When my kids were ages five and two, I would borrow Audrey Hepburn VHS movies from the library. I laughed so hard when we were watching “Sabrina” and my son said “YOWZA!” when Audrey Hepburn returned from Paris as a beautiful, sophisticated woman.
The heatwave may be over. We’re supposed to get thunder and lightening later today. This view is from the swimming pool with the ski slopes/hiking trails in the background.
Where are your favorite vacation spots? What are some of your favorite old movies and actors?
Hanging out with my daughter in Deer Valley, UT July 4th weekend 2017. We rode chair lifts to enjoy amazing views in the mountains.
We are getting ready to take a road trip to the gorgeous state of Utah. Hopefully the Wasatch mountains will be cooler than the weather we’re having in Arizona.
Our daughter introduced us to Park City, UT during her four years as a “Ute” in college. Park City and adjacent Deer Valley are ski resorts in the winter and hiking, biking outdoor adventure lands in the summer. I’m sure the other ski resorts nearby like Breckenridge, Alta and Snowbird have miles of hiking and biking trails in the summer, too.
I have a few days left to get organized. I am making lists of what I need to get done before we leave including filling the cooler with ice the night before to make sure it’s icy cold (Tip from Yeti.) Another travel tip I learned is to take your condiments with you. That’s a money saver that I’ve done for years.
I also pack enough TP and paper towels to make it through trip. Air bnb’s usually leave one extra roll of each.
Then the sandwiches I make and for the road and and snacks like grapes and bagel chips to munch on are a lifesaver. We don’t have to stop to eat, only for gas and bathrooms. It works for us as a money and time saver.
I’m going to keep track of what we spend on gas! The last time we went to Utah gas was below $2 a gallon. I just googled gas at Costco in Salt Lake City and it’s now $4.95! It’s more than 10 hours each way, but once we get there, we don’t have to drive hardly at all. They have a great bus system and we are within walking distance to the hiking trails, grocery store and downtown shops and restaurants.
The only thing that I find annoying is my husband. I commented on Tater’s post yesterday called Travel Day that my husband and I agree on a time to leave. Usually around 1 to 2 p.m. in the afternoon — and at 8 a.m. my husband announces that he’s ready to go! There goes five hours of time I was planning on to make sandwiches, pack the cooler and do last minute things around the house.
My plan this year is to be ready by 8 a.m. Any bets since I’ll be ready to go, I’ll be waiting until 2 p.m. to leave?
Lobster Roll at Freshies Lobster in Park City–the best food I’ve had in Utah. They won “The Best Lobster Roll in the World” competition in Maine. Who would have thought a Utah restaurant could manage that?
What are your best travel tips? How much are you paying for gas? How are high gas prices changing your summer travel plans?
Here’s a blast from the past — the year my daughter moved from home to start her college days. It seems like yesterday.
Last week I wrote about 7 tips for parents on Move-In Day. At the end I wrote: “I made it through the day without tears–mostly. It was a long, busy and tiring day. When my husband and I stopped for lunch — alone — and I realized that we were truly alone — the tears ran down my cheeks. I wiped them off and prepared myself for battle for the next stop at Target. When, it’s time to say good-bye — well, I’ll tell you how that goes another time.”
Kat during our 6th trip to Target
So, how did it go when we said good-bye?
We had planned to stay until Sunday. Move-In day had been Thursday. We wanted to be around for a few days in case she needed us. She wanted us there on Thursday, but by Friday — not so much. It began to make sense for us to leave a day early. We didn’t want to hang out and wait to see if she wanted us around. It didn’t make us feel good and we weren’t enjoying ourselves exploring the city that much. We had a long 11-hour drive ahead of us, too. So we went out for an early morning walk Saturday and talked about how we’d let her know that we felt it was time to leave.
She texted us at 7 a.m. Saturday.
text from Kat
Okie dokie.
It was time to say good-bye. We walked on over to her dorm. I took a deep breath. I said a prayer to be strong.
“Do not cry. I can do this,” I repeated in my head.
She opened the door, I wanted to say something profound and loving. Something she’d remember — but I said nothing. My husband said a few things and I nodded my head.
I opened my mouth, my voice cracked and wavered. At this point I cannot remember what I was trying to say.
“Mom! Mom! Stop it!” she said. “Don’t!”
She held my face in her hands, like I was the child. “It’s going to be okay.”
A view during our walk on campus
Tip 1: Make it short and quick.
Bill and I walked out of her room into the bright cool air that is Utah. We walked all over campus for two hours, tears running down my cheeks. During the walk, I began to feel better — amazed at what a strong beautiful woman we had raised.
Sage Point dorms at U of U, the athlete housing for Winter Olympics 2002.
After four years of visiting our daughter at the University of Utah, my love affair with Salt Lake City is sadly over. She left the great state of Utah to start a career in Arizona. Although my husband said we can always go back, I wonder, how often will we? My bet is that on a rare occasion we will trek up to see our friends the McKinneys or maybe go to an alumni swim meet. But, other than that, I will miss the gorgeous city surrounded by mountain peaks. Salt Lake City is a vibrant, clean, friendly yet small city.
Another thing that is amazing is the community spirit of rooting for the Utes. Everywhere you see “Go Utes!” murals, flags and signs. The football stadium is always sold out–rain or shine. The gymnastics team is the most attended women’s sport in the country with more than 15,000 fans in the Huntsman Dome.
A friend asked my daughter and me to put together a list of things to do in SLC for her niece who’s a freshman at the University of Utah. Most of our things to do revolved around food. But, all in all it’s a list of our favorite memories during four years of being Ute fans. Here’s our Salt Lake City guide for UTE students, parents and visitors:
Hotels
A view of the Grand America from the pool deck of the Little America Hotel.
The Grand America Hotel — nicest in SLC, fun to walk through, even if you don’t stay there. I never made it to Sunday Brunch, but it’s supposed to be amazing.
The Little America — same company, Sun Valley Company, owns both the Little and Grand America hotels. It’s very nice but a little more low key than the Grand America. Restaurants are great, try the Coffee Shop for comfort food and amazing hot rolls with butter. I loved the gym and pool and big rooms at a great price. Our home away from home in Salt Lake City.
Restaurants
A sandwich and salad at Les Madeleines.
Valter’s Osteria — fine Italian, special occasion, delicious and great atmosphere. The owner Valter is so personable!
Market Street Grill — Pacific Northwest seafood flown in daily. Great for big parties or family lunch and dinner.
Sushi:
Takashi My favorite sushi restaurant. They have an excellent menu with many hot dishes, too.
Sapa My daughter’s favorite sushi restaurant. I think she and her friends liked the “all you can eat” special. Plus it was exciting because you aren’t allowed in unless you’re with someone 21 years old or older.
Les Madeleines — small Parisian bakery/cafe for breakfast and lunch. I love the tomato basil soup with salad!
Freshies Lobster Co. — Park City must! Casual restaurant that started as a food truck serving lobster rolls and lobster salad, amazing! The best meal I ever had in Utah! So simple but delicious. Here’s a review by the Salt Lake Tribune which says they opened a Salt Lake City restaurant blocks away from my daughter’s former house! No way! Not FAIR!
Italian — Antica Sicilia and Doce Sicilia. Recommended by Matteo Songe, swimmer from Italy on the Utah Swim team. He said this was authentic Sicilian. The Carbonara pasta is prepared with flames in a cheese wheel table side!
Aristo’s — family-operated Greek. Delicious. Outdoor seating on the patio in the summer.
City Creek Center —nicest mall with the most stores including Nordstrom, Lush, Apple, Sephora, etc. Shop onFriday or Saturday if you’re there for a weekend, since the entire mall is closed on Sunday!
Sports at UTAH — go to football, gymnastics, basketball, swimming, etc. The crowds at football and student MUSS section are so enthusiastic. Red Rocks Gymnastics is a top five NCAA team consistently and they have 15,000 plus in attendance — the most attended Olympic sport for collegiate women in the U.S.
Church — CenterPoint in Orem. Pastor Scott McKinney. Scott and my husband were best friends from grade school through high school. It was so nice to reconnect with Scott and his wife Sara. They provided our daughter with a home away from home.
Downtown Salt Lake City, UT
Where your favorite places to visit and do you have any recommendations?
Personally, I prefer my kids being outside instead of sitting in front of a screen.
A WSJ article called “Ready, Aim, Hire a ‘Fortnite’ Coach: Parents Enlist Videogame Tutors for Their Children” by Sarah E. Needleman, caused a furor this week. I’ll admit I stopped paying attention to gaming after my kids left home. The extent of my own video game experience was Mario Brothers and tennis on the Wii. My son liked to play Zelda and he used his GameBoy Color to play Pokemon. I guess you could say we weren’t a big video game family.
When my dad emailed me an article about parents hiring coaches for “Fortnite,” I realized I had no idea what Fortnite was! Since then I’ve learned that it’s a hugely popular video game with millions playing worldwide. Parents are hiring online tutors so their kids get better at the game, much as we hired Coach Todd to help my kids with their stroke technique in swimming. Why would parents hire tutors to help their kids play a game? There are many reasons including huge monetary rewards and even college scholarships. Who knew? Even my daughter’s college the University of Utah introduced Varsity Esports as a thing.
“The U and its nationally ranked Entertainment Arts & Engineering video game development program announced today that it is forming the U’s first college-sponsored varsity esports program. Utah esports will compete in multiple games and has confirmed the industry leading League of Legends as its first game with additional games to be announced shortly. The esports program is the first of its kind from a school out of the Power Five athletics conferences (Pac-12, Big Ten, Big 12, Atlantic Coast and Southeastern).
“Esports has had a dramatic rise in popularity in the U.S. over the last few years – especially on college campuses,” said A.J. Dimick, director of operations for the U’s new esports program. “We think college esports is a great opportunity and we want our students to be part of it.”
The U’s esports program will be sponsored by the EAE video game development program, which has been ranked the No. 1 video game design program in the nation for three of the past five years by The Princeton Review.”
Here are some excerpts from the WSJ:
“It’s not the violence or the addiction of the hit game that bothers mom and dad—it’s the losing.”
Ally Hicks fretted over her 10-year-old son playing the hugely popular shoot-em-up videogame “Fortnite.”
This is for your own good
It wasn’t the violence or the amount of time she was worried about. It was the result. He wasn’t winning.
So she hired him a coach. For about $50, Ms. Hicks purchased four hours of online lessons from a player she found through a freelance labor website.
For many children, “Fortnite” has become a social proving ground. More than 125 million people play it world-wide, according to its maker, mostly in a free mode pitting 100 combatants against each other until one person or team is left standing.
Winning bestows the kind of bragging rights that used to be reserved for the local Little League baseball champ. Just like eager dugout dads opening their wallets for pitching lessons, videogame parents are more than willing to pay for their offspring to gain an edge.
Nick Mennen was happy to pay $20 an hour for his 12-year-old son, Noble, to take “Fortnite” lessons. The dad is already dreaming of a scholarship—or at least some tournament money. (“Fortnite” creator Epic Games Inc. recently pledged $100 million in tournament prizes. Some colleges court gamers with financial incentives to join their varsity teams.)
Noble used to win “Fortnite” infrequently before he began taking about six hours of lessons a month. “Now he’ll throw down 10 to 20 wins,” said Mr. Mennen, a software developer in Cedar Park, Texas.
The success has made Noble competitive with his dad. “I should be the one charging him,” Noble said. “He’s not as good as me.”
Coaches can be found on social media or through contracting sites such as Gamer Sensei and Bidvine, which said it has hired out more than 1,400 “Fortnite” coaches since early March. Some coaches can’t believe parents want to sign up their children for lessons.
“It’s really surreal to me,” said Logan Werner, an 18-year-old “Fortnite” coach in Roy, Utah, who plays the combat game on a professional team called Gankstars. “My dad would have never paid for me to take videogame lessons.”
Hiring a “Fortnite” coach for a child is no different than enlisting an expert to help a child excel at basketball or chess, parents say. Some sit in on lessons to make sure coaches are professional and that their children, well, level up.
“I want them to excel at what they enjoy,” Euan Robertson said of his sons Alexander, 10, and Andrew, 12. He hired them a “Fortnite” coach in June, who can stay as long as the children keep up their grades.
Here’s a video from Good Morning America about the phenomenon of hiring tutors to help kids improve at Fortnite. According to their story, tournament play has up to $100 million in prizes.
In USA Today, “Fortnite tutors are a thing. And yes, parents are paying them,” written by Caroline Blackmon, writes that the craze over Fortnite is like Beatlemania. Really?
It’s turned kids into couch potatoes.
It’s caused professional athletes to crash and burn at their jobs.
It’s even infiltrated daily conversations with its own vocabulary.
Fortnite arrived on the scene last July as a free-to-play shooter by Epic Games. But it started off as less than a success when first released.
Then, in September 2017, Epic added a free-to-play “battle royale” mode, in which 100 players on a large island fight for survival.
That’s when things went crazy.
It captured the Minecraft generation with its free play, bright graphics and ridiculous costumes. It even overtook Minecraft in March as the most-watched video game in YouTube history.
“In terms of fervor, compulsive behavior and parental noncomprehension, the Fortnite craze has elements of Beatlemania, the opioid crisis and the ingestion of Tide Pods,” according to the New Yorker.
Now instead of pushing back against the addictive nature of the game, some parents are doubling down on Fortnite by hiring tutors for their kids.
I prefer this view to a video game.
What are your thoughts about hiring tutors for video games? Do you think it’s a reasonable thing for parents to do or not? Are parents going way over the top, or is it fine to give our kids all the reasonable advantages to help their self-esteem and perhaps earn a college scholarship?
We started the day off with our walk around the park and Waffles was not listening and was stubborn. My daughter said, “He’s being a brat.”
My daughter and Waffles walk faster than me, so they will often get far ahead and double back to me. Every time they changed directions to come back to me, Waffles stopped and wouldn’t budge. Then he tugged and pulled to go in the direction he wanted.
After the walk, Waffles sat in the kitchen and stared up at the counter and barked. He barked repeatedly and loudly. When that got him nothing, he scratched on the laundry room door, which I had closed because he had knocked over the trash can and dug through it moments before.
Maybe Waffles misses his swim team?
Then, I remembered the HuffPo story I wrote about earlier called “The Best Parenting Advice My Mom Gave Me” by Taylor Pittman. There was one bit of advice in there that might work for a pupper as well as kids.
“With Mother’s Day less than a week away, we wanted to know how our readers’ moms affected their lives. We asked members of the HuffPost Parents community to share the best pieces of parenting advice they ever received from their moms.
“Some of the tidbits are funny, while others are more earnest. They’re all endearing in their own way.”
Here’s the bit of advice I used on Waffles when he was barking in the kitchen, rummaging through the trash and scratching on the laundry room door:
“‘Have you tried going to the bathroom?’ Great advice from my mom, which I’ve shared with my own children time and again. Sometimes the solution to the problem is as simple as that.” ― Elizabeth Meinicke Flynn
And, it worked! I took him outside, he went to the bathroom and immediately settled down. I don’t have an answer on why he acted so stubbornly on our morning walk around the park, though.
Waffles’ smile.
What advice do you have for children or pets when they’re acting out?
There I’ve said it. My daughter’s last meet is days away. It’s her senior year and her final meet will be the PAC 12 conference meet in Federal Way, WA. I’m kind of jumbled up on how I feel about it. I love being a swim mom and I find myself looking back on little moments with nostalgia and sadness. I will miss going to her meets.
My husband and I were browsing through the App called Meet Mobile this morning looking at different conference results from local schools where our children’s friends are swimming like UCSB and UCSD. I realized that I know a couple of the seniors’ names, but other than that there aren’t a whole lot of swimmers I recognize.
The past few years haven’t been all rosy. After a great freshman year, she got a high ankle sprain chasing after Trax, the public transportation train in Salt Lake City. That meant she couldn’t push off the walls for weeks during long course season and didn’t get her Olympic Trial cut. I think that was a devastating blow to her at the time, although it doesn’t seem like such a big deal now.
Then at last year’s PAC 12s, she got the flu. A really bad flu where the coaches didn’t let her swim or even out of her room until the final day of the meet. It was decidedly weird sitting in the stands for PAC 12s and not having a participant in the meet. Her last and only event she gave it everything she had. I was so nervous I thought I’d faint. I wasn’t sure if she was going to survive that mile-long race, but she did. Her coach said it was a “heroic swim” and he was so proud of her. It was close to a best time.
This year she’s been fighting through a bad shoulder injury. I worry if it was because she started swimming so young, so intensely or for so many years? What should I have done differently as a swim parent? Make her stop? Let her take time off?
She will take time off this year. But what I’m hoping for is next year, after my surgery and I’ve healed, that she will swim with me at a Masters meet–so I can be a swimmer and a swim mom all in one day.
My daughter’s coaches and teammates cheering for her during the 1650 at last year’s PAC 12s.
Any bets on if I’ll cry at my daughter’s final college meet?
We started the day off with our walk around the park and Waffles was not listening and was stubborn. My daughter said, “He’s being a brat.”
