Salt Lake City

After skiing Apsen, we head to Moab and then Indian Creek, which I touched on in the post, Diversions.  After that it was time to head to Salt Lake!  We were really excited to meet up with my friend Drew, who I hadn't seen in years.  Drew and I grew up in the same town and went to highschool together.  We were snowboarding (I used to be a snowboarder!) and climbing buddies before we went our seperate ways to college.  Drew is a super positive, high-energy person and I was excited to see what he was up to in Salt Lake.  Fortunately, our timing was just right, because Drew had just been offered a new job and learned that he would be moving to New York at the end of the week!  I was glad we got the chance to catch up and meet his wonderful girlfriend, Emily before the big move.  Salt Lake is home to many other wonderful things that we wanted to check out as well (including skiing, next post!).

One of those things is Goal Zero, the company that makes the solar panels that we have on top of the van and the generator that we have inside the van that powers our lights and fan, and charges our computer, phones, cameras, etc.  I had emailed Goal Zero before we arrived in Salt Lake to see if we could have a tour of their HQ, and to my delight they said yes!  We met James and Ryan in the foyer of the building, which included a slide and a climbing wall (awesome).  They showed us all around the building and explained where everything happens.  They even hooked us up with one of their new proudcts, the Flip 10, and a bunch of stickers!  Thanks again guys!

Another company we loved that is located in SLC is PROBAR.  We basically live off of PROBARs (we started the trip with a stock of 10 boxes).  They are delicious and nutritious and made with real food and nothing else.  We made the fine folks at PROBAR a valentine out of woven together wrappers from our bars, and headed out to see them.  Unfortunately, we went to their old office first and it was just about the time when they were going to close for the weekend.  We raced over to their new office, and after disappointingly pulling on locked doors, a smiling face appeared and let us in!  We gave them our valentine and they hooked us up with a bunch of bars!  If you haven't tried their bars, I highly recommend you do.  You can find them at REI and a bunch of other spots.  We really like their new snack bars, Bite.  

One last company that has a warehouse in SLC is the company I was working for before this trip, Backroads.  Aaron at Backrods was nice enough to hook us up with a bike box for Drew to ship his bike to NY in, and he also showed up around the warehouse.  So many bikes!  

Before leaving SLC, we met up with our good friends, the Checketts.  As a kid, the Checketts lived next door and we all played together and had the best time running around in the street, jumping on the trampoline, and exploring in the creek and the nearby park.  Their home is so full of love and positive energy, so it was wonderful to stop by and have a delicious waffle breakfast and catch up a bit.  

In addition to all the running around, we went on some really cool hikes with Titan and Star.  We misinterpreted a trail sign and ended up doing a 10 mile hike after a full day of skiing, which was kind of exhuasting, and we also did some fun night hiking, and went on a cool trial system above the city.  Salt Lake is a great place and definitely somewhere I would consider living for a while.  Thanks for the good times!