This is a report on our recent mini-vacation.

Wednesday: Bed & Breakfast Linux Users Group meeting

Wednesday evening was planned to be the beginning of our vacation. We arranged for my mom to have our kids stay overnight at her house so Christine and I could go stay overnight at a bed and breakfast in downtown Salt Lake City.

Then, I remembered Damian Conway was coming to speak at a special PLUG event. I cancelled our B&B reservation and convinced Christine it would be fun to come with me to the Linux user group meeting.

I'm so happy I have a geeky wife!

The meeting was awesome and I got to get Damian's latest book autographed. The book is awesome, btw.

The presentation was littered with geeky pop-culture references to Lord Of The Rings, Harry Potter, 2001: The boring space odyssey, and The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.

After the meeting, Christine and I grabbed some dinner at Dennys and then went home.

Thursday: A Day in Salt Lake City

Thursday morning, we picked up the kids at my mom and dad's house and drove to downtown Salt Lake City.

We had lunch at The Gateway, then walked over to Temple Square and caught a courtesy van that took us to Welfare Square for a tour of the facilities the LDS church operates there.

It was a fascinating tour and we learned a lot about what the church does to help members and non-members in need.

Learning about volunteer opportunities at Welfare Square

Maya and Lucy at Welfare Square

Some bread baked at Welfare Square.

After the Welfare Square tour, we went back to The Gateway. The kids spent a few minutes running through the water fountains at the north end of the plaza. Then we had some Ben & Jerry's ice cream.

We planned to see a show at The Clark Planetarium at 5:30, but wanted to visit some of the planetarium exhibits beforehand, so we went over there around 4:30. Christine chased Eli around and they rode the big elevator up and down and up and down. I took the girls around to some of the exhibits on the main floor and tested their patience by trying to explain everything to them.

The show we attended was Ultimate Universe and it was a starshow which showed a simulation of the big bang, the formation of stars and galaxies in the early universe, and then made its way to our galaxy, our solar system, and finally our planet.

Lucy's favorite part was at the end: our planet. Very cute.

We were worried about Eli: Would he be bored and restless the whole time or would he fall asleep? He was engaged, captivated, and fixated on the screen. He finally fell asleep about two thirds through the show.

Maya and lucy checking out the polished rocks.

The kids... on the moon

We had dinner at Thai Siam, a Thai restaurant on south State Street in Salt Lake City. Christine had heard nothing but good things about the place and, despite my reluctance, we checked it out.

It was fantasmagorical!

After dinner, we drove up to Park City and checked into a condo we'd reserved at the Red Pine Condominiums.

Friday: Park City

Friday morning, everyone got up early to go swim in the pool and dip in the hot tub. When Christine and the kids went to the clubhouse at 8:30, they found a sign that said the pool wouldn't be open until 10. So, they came back and waited until 10.

When they went over at 10, they discovered the pool area was reserved from 10 until 11 for "adult swim" and you had to be 16 or older to use the hot tub.

Man! What a rip!

So, we waited yet another hour and went back at eleven. We all got about 45 to 60 minutes of swimming in before we checked out and went into Park City for lunch.

We went to the Park City Mountain Resort and had lunch at the Baja Cantina. It was fantastic and delicious. Then, we let the kids play for close to an hour in a village of those huge inflatable playland-type things frequently rented for birthday parties. The kids had fun and I got some good pictures.

After all the climbing, bouncing, and sliding, it was time for some snowcones before we went up to get tickets for the Alpine Slide. When we got up to the ticket counter, however, we were told the slide was shutting down because of rain, much to our disappointment.

Instead, Maya and Lucy decided they wanted to do some bungie-cord trampoline jumping.

Saturday: Bingham Copper Mine

On Saturday, we got some lunch at Carl's Jr. in Riverton and then drove up to the Kennecott Bingham Canyon copper mine visitors center which is not far from our house.

It's hard to believe I grew up in the shadow of Kennecott's operations and now we live just a couple of miles from the entrance to the road that goes up to the visitors center and I'd never been there before. I was excited to finally see it.

It was very interesting. I wouldn't mind going back when I didn't have the kids with me so I could spend some more time studying the historical exhibits in the visitors center.

Eli fell asleep on the way up and slept most of the time we were there. Maya and Lucy enjoyed the visit more than I really expected they would. One of the exhibits in the visitors center featured some microscopes so that visitors could get an up-close look at some of the materials mined from the ground there. The girls really enjoyed that. They both got some rings from the gift shop as well.

At the visitors center	Maya & Lucy peer into the microscopes.	Christine reads about the WWII time capsule.
Maya & Lucy look out at the open-pit mine from the visitors center theater window	The girls looked through tourist binoculars	Posing with a huge dumptruck tire.