Marmots...

Friday was a pretty routine day, went to class, and did some more systems. Thankfully the last day of that. Friday was also an introduction to doing weight and balance calculations for our aircraft. There's a little math involved with that, but nothing that can't be done with a 2 dollar calculator. Friday evening Jason, Stef, Cindy and I went to the library to study....except the library closed just as we got there. So we ended up driving around downtown Salt Lake to find a place to study. We ended up studying in a Starbucks for a few hours before we decided to head back to the hotel for some dinner. The hotel has a grill that we're free to use, so Jason and I grilled some steak, and Cindy and Stef grilled some salmon. The girls also had a pizza that they needed to eat, but the hotel has no ovens in the room. So what did we do? Yep. Stuck the pizza on the grill. We put the grill on low, and in about 15 minutes, had a pretty decent pizza. I've never cooked pizza on the grill before!

Saturday woke up at about 9, and then Cindy, Jason, Stef and I went to breakfast at this little place called the Shilo Cafe in downtown. Good meal, not quite to par with the Highland Grill in St. Paul, but not bad. We then went to the library for about 4 hours (it was open this time thankfully) and then went back to the hotel to grab some lunch. At about 3:30 or so, we all drove to Park City. What a cool town. It was the site of the 2002 Winter Olympics, and you could still see all the ski jumps, bobsled runs, etc. Pretty sweet.

The main drag of Park City reminds me alot of downtown Stillwater in MN. Lots of quaint little shops placed right next to each other, and people everywhere. We parked and started walking down main street for awhile, looking into all the places along the way. When we got to the bottom of the hill, (it sits on a hill, we parked at the top of it) we saw that there was a ski lift taking people up to a higher part of the mountain. We decided to take the thing up to the top and see what there was to see. I've never ridden a ski lift during the summer before, kinda weird! We weren't expecting to see alot at the top, as this was primarily a ski hill, but we weren't dissappointed! The ride up had gorgeous views, as Park City kinda sits in a valley. When we got to the top, we saw some old buildings not too far down a little path, so we decided to go check them out. Turns out this hill used to be big for mining coal, and the buildings (from waaaaaaay back in the late 1800's/early 1900's) were still there. We were able to go inside these things and walk around. All the old machinery and equipment was still there. We were kinda surprised these buildings weren't boarded up cause there was glass from broken windows everywhere, and one of the buildings had a shaft that led to the mine itself which was, according to a sign, 1450 feet deep! While we were touring this place, we kept hearing these little high pitched whistles, and I couldn't help but think that they sounded familiar. As we walked around some more, I eventually found out what was making the sound..Marmots! Marmots are these little furry creatures about the size of beavers that live up in the mountains. I last saw them when I was in Rocky Mountain National Park at 12,000 feet! They're such cool little animals. I wasn't expecting to see them, but I guess we were up in their habitat range. (The place where we got off the lift was about 9,000 feet above sea level.)

After we rode down the chairlift, (another first for me, I've always skiied down the hill as opposed to taking the chairlift down) we set out to grab some grub. We decided on the Wasatch Pub, which also brewed it's own beer on site. That was some good dinner too. Jason and I each had a rack of ribs that were really good. The beer was pretty good too!

Today is mostly a study day. It's about 3 in the afternoon now, and I've been at it pretty solid since I woke up at 9. Day after tomorrow this part of training will all be over, and I can finally leave this dang hotel room! It's been nice, but after 3 weeks, it's time for a change of scenery. I also haven't driven a car in that long either. I hope I remember how!