Vacations rock!

A couple weeks ago, my fella and I went out to Utah to visit family. We spent a few days in southern Utah and a few days in Salt Lake City.

I am NOT a fan of the desert. But southern Utah has some beautiful vistas. 

I guess it's all that red rock :-) But in another month when it's 110 in the shade, it won't matter. Boooo. 
This is what I'm familiar with, as far as the desert goes;

This is yuca tree. You know why they call it that? Because it's yucky.

While we were there though, we had a wonderful time. The weather was perfect and after a long Midwestern winter, it was sure nice to be outside in the sunshine where there is no humidity!

In Salt lake City, we got to have a day to ourselves, so we went up to the mountains;

It's been a LONG time since we've been in the mountains. Wow. It was AWESOME. I remember when we lived in SLC, I used to think, Utah is why the phrase "God's country" was coined. I still believe that is true. Sure, the beach is great but give me the mountains any day!!

See this little girl;

This is Buttons. We found her after the highway traffic came to a standstill because she was roaming around! So, I jumped out of the car and called to her. She came right to me!!! Thankfully, she had a tag with her mommy's phone number on it and we were able to drive her home. Her owner was a sweet little old lady who didn't realize she had gotten out of the yard. She was very happy we brought her home!

We even had a chance to drive around the old neighborhood, which is even older now, and stop by THE BEST SHAKE PLACE EVER!!! they've been around since the 60's and STILL, it's cram packed every Friday and Saturday night. Of course, we bought shakes :-) 

And NO trip back west would be complete without...

There's just something so right about a place that only does one thing, and does it well :-) Ahhhhhhh

Salt Lake City was my favorite place, of all the places I've lived. It's a tough community to live in though, if you're not a Mormon.