Salt Lake City

Instead of the common panoramic view of mountain landscapes, we woke up in the train from Denver to Salt Lake City, realizing we were riding on the actual Rocky Mountains, and having an outlook from uphigh on the lowlands.


[Couchsurfing]

The three days spent in the quite big, but seemingly smaller town-like Salt Lake City was a wonderful reminiscence of Burlington to me. Our outdoor-spirited couchsurfhost Eddy, a freshly graduated from the University of Utah, lived in the campus district with four more roommates in a house with a porch, in the same street the only Hybrid card driving Democrat mayor in a Republican-oriented state resides. Our agenda was fully booked with hanging on the roof top, attending a bluegrass concert, visiting a typical open houseparty, climbing a cliff at a river, and hiking by night to observe the city under the full moon.


[SLC-view by night from Ensign Park]


[Climbing...]


[...and then chilling]

An amazing concept found in SLC is the One World restaurant that aspires reducing food waste by having the customers decide themselves how much they want from a certain dish and allow them to have more anytime. Depending on the available ingredients that are authentic organic and from the actual back garden, the menu differs daily or even by the hour. But the most remarkable aspect is that the customers decide themselves how much the dish was worth to pay. On top of that, the cook was a graduated student from UVM!


[One World Restaurant]

The Mormons, officially named The Church of Jesus Christ the Latter-day Saints, have originally established themselves, and are therefore concentrated, in Utah. In the literal center of the city on Zero Street is the Mormon bussiness district and the virgin white Temple, which is exclusive to the Mormons, where on that day sixteen marriages took place. At the museum-like visitor’s center the ‘sisters’ from all over the world who were on their optional 18 months mission (for the early twenty males it is mandatory) explained us about their Christian derived religion, intentionally to convert people. It’s an amazingly interesting and wealthy community and we were really fascinated by it. Their common present does give the city a somewhat different, not necessarily bad, ambiance; strange enough an affluently moderate one.


[Mormon Center]


[Just married Mormon couple]


[University of Utah]


[Golf Course on campus]




[Life's better on the couch in the front yard]


[Last-minute bbq]


[I manage to eat this burger without messing it up too much...]


[Life's better ON the porch!!!]


[Supporting Eddy's soccer game]


[Life's better when sneaking out]


[Life's better on the rooftop!]


[Doing laundry in the back yard]


[Juggling on a parking lot]

Denver

[Our Couchsurf hosts]

Denver looked pretty on the map, but we knew nothing about the place and that left us speechless on 16th Mall Street, seemingly the main and only shopping street in the city, but wonderfully provided with free wifi. When checking our email, literally in the middle of the street, we found a couchsurf host who was willing to have us. Two hours later we got picked up by Lauren and her boyfriend Mark, who live in a neat appartment complex outside the city center, with a third roommate Dave.


[16th Street with free wifi]



During their coincidentally two days off, the couple took us to amazing places. The high altitude of Denver is not very notable, but it did cause me ill-making side effects, and by reaching the almost 4000m high Pikes Peak, in the 1,5 hours away Colorado Springs ski resort, it didn’t get any better. I experienced a hitherto unknown pain and a strike of lightness in my head, but luckily didn’t faint. Still it was a breathtaking experience to drive up the curvy paved and dusty road, through the clouds, passing avalanches and beautiful rocks on the snowy summit.




[Pikes Peak]



In the national park of the Garden of the Gods the vast red rocks were familiar to us from the ususal themed attraction parks, therefore it was hard for us to grasp that the actual rocks were not fake at all.






[Garden of the Gods]

]













[That's the summit of 4000 meter!]





[Lauren's complex]


[Couchsurfing]

Chicago

The full train to Sacramento, California, compelled us to bound eastward, taking the same route from St. Paul, Minnesota, passing by the same Glacier National Park up in Montana, this time astonishing cold, fully white covered and lightly snowing, to arrive two days later in Chicago, Illinois. It was the dulliest yet most exciting daytrip since it was my second visit to Chicago, unplanned, and no host available to have us. After storing our luggage in the locker we firstly randomly picked the Ritz Carlton Hotel, to nervously visit the Spa & Sauna, and having the lady behind the counter surprisingly welcoming us to enter as if we were actual hotel guests, so we could finally enjoy a refreshing hot shower. We left the place thankfully, full adrenalin, and in big laughter.


[The Ritz Carlton Spa facilities]

The next highlight was to finally arrive at our holy White Castle, three years after having seen the Harold & Kumar-movie. Walking twenty thousand blocks was rewarded with dozens of White Castle mini-burgers, stilling our cravings.


[White Castle!!!]

Luckily, the Saturday night crowd, all with their private rental Hummer limos, accompanied us wondering through the night. It started raining when we arrived at Union Station, but since that was closed until 5am, we had to wait, half asleep sitting on a ramp, slightly protected from the wind and drizzle.


[Downtown pollution]










[From Hancock Tower]