SLC Trip Part III: The Gateway, and then the part where we almost get ourselves killed

3/1/11

Ready for another long post, y'all?

So, after the ballet ended, Mark and Luke came to pick us up, and then we went to the Gateway shopping center down the road. When I lived in SLC, it was two years before the 2002 Winter Olympics, but they were preparing for them. So I got to deal with nonstop construction and never actually got to see the snazzy new downtown once it was finished. The Gateway is like an open air mall with oodles of stuff to do. They moved the former Hansen Planetarium there (now Clark Planetarium), where I used to go see midnight laser shows all the time. They still have them! (Another thing I'll have to come back to do when I don't have the kids...) Being the geeks that we all are, we made a beeline there to check it out. It's free and it's awesome.

 

That little speck of light on the left up there is Pluto (who apparently hasn't been demoted after all).

 

Luke taking his socks and shoes off, which he kept doing all night, and dropping them randomly as we strolled around.

 

A reeaally big elevator.
We're easily amused.

 

 Moonscape (only one shoe required)

 

 

 Madelyn looking very prim and proper for her visit to Mars

 

 

  They had a lot of Harry Potter stuff in their very cool gift shop. Madelyn bought a crystal growing kit.

Before we got to the planetarium, I saw someone walking around with a shopping bag from Sur La Table. !!!! Sur La Table!!!! So I dragged everyone there after we got our fill of sciencey stuff.

 

As a religious viewer of cooking shows for, I dunno, 20 years, I'd heard of Sur La Table but had never seen one. It's like Mecca.

 

I might have bought a few things.

 

Hello! Welcome to my kitchen! Yes, I know it's yellow. It's "Buttercup", actually. I like it. It was on clearance for $29, and I'd been wanting to get a mini Cuisinart anyway (salsa and eggrolls made easy!). The other color choice for that price was a purplish blue that I just couldn't quite stomach. 

After that, Mark made the mistake of showing me where the Old Navy was, where I found some great clearance clothes. ♥Sigh♥

 

  

Madelyn wanted to go swimming again before bed. It was crowded and she kept hopping from the pool to the hot tub. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth...until SMACK! She collided with another girl and ended up with a huge bloody nose. So that kind of ended things in a dramatic fashion. We could have done without that. And the fact that we all had colds during the trip--have I not mentioned that? The kids were getting over it, but Mark and I were pretty sick the whole time. And something we definitely could have done without:

The next morning, after checking out and slogging through a snowy, slushy parking lot and getting soaking wet, we got in the car and said a prayer for the journey ahead, which was a good thing because we almost wrecked on the freeway five minutes later.

 

Like so.

Mark had just gotten on the freeway and decided to move over to the carpool lane. It was raining/snowing and there was some slush on the road, but mostly it was just wet. As soon as we got to the carpool lane, our car hit a patch of slush (going 65 mph), which sent us spinning totally out of control. Mark says we made two complete turns and crossed all five lanes before we righted ourselves again. It was a miracle that we didn't hit anyone or anything. A miracle!

So we were a little freaked out (it had only been 7 days since we hit the deer)....OK Mark was WAY freaked out. Madelyn said, "What did we run over this time? (sarcastic sigh)" Then, not five minutes later, there was a 6-car pileup a quarter of a mile ahead of us and we were stuck at a standstill for an hour. We felt so blessed, especially when we saw how mangled all those other cars were. Phew!!!! Slush is a major cause of accidents up north.

Luckily, we had The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy on audiobook to keep our minds off things. If you need some seriously wacky British humor, you need that book. ("Don't Panic!") Thanks, I'll try not to...

 

We stopped in Spanish Fork to see my old BFF/roomie from college, Vanessa McQuay. She is still the most fabulous person I know. She just had her third baby and it was SO good to see her again. It had been about 5 years. Too bad all my pics of the kids were blurry......

 

Then it was another three (uneventful, thank goodness) hours till we got home.

 

 

Looking forward to when we have a bigger car.

We had a (mostly) wonderful trip and it was nice to go do something fun as a family. Now we're heading to Las Vegas next week. We're such party animals, I know!