Oh Hai Utah: Part II

Friday morning we set out to Salt Lake City, making a few stops along the way. One of which led us to run in to this lady, bringing her pet bird into the store with her. The bird just very nicely sat on her purse, in the cart while she shopped around.

In Hollywood we get puppies in purses, and in St. George you get parrots on purses. 

Since California is experiencing a pretty massive drought, it was incredible to see how green southern Utah is! They had some huge rainstorms come through, and although they resulted in road closures and flooding, looks like a bunch of green popped up. The colors, reds, blues, greens, were really bright. 

We made it to Utah and had a fun time hanging out, and playing with Jen's dog, Corndog. 

Corndog tends to steal the show whenever she is around, mostly because she is so cute, partially because she is pretty hyper.

This weekend is what we call in the LDS church, "Conference Weekend." It comes twice a year and it is the opportunity we have to listen to church in our jammies hear from Church leaders and our Prophet. We projected it up on the wall so we could watch in IMAX style. Although the event spans two days, we still had time to do some fun things. We made some delicious personal pizzas, took a walk in the park, and did some shopping. 

But the biggest event of the weekend was celebrating Rissa's birthday!! She is going to be out of town on her birthday, so it actually worked out great to come to Utah and celebrate early. You can tell my sister is a genius because she chose a variety cheesecake.

Rissa also finally taught me how to make these cool crepe flowers! 

Sadly we had to say goodbye Monday, and we headed back. Quite unfortunately for us, we were hungry right around Payson, which next to maybe Beaver, couldn't be a more fantastically horrific place to be hungry in Utah. I might even take mid-southern highway weeds to eateries in that area, particularly after my mom's bout of food poisoning on the way up. 

But, mom, always giving people the benefit of the doubt and searching for the next big thing, was convinced we could find something. Ali and I, thoroughly unimpressed and jaded from years of sub-par "mexican" restaurants in Utah, were fairly unenthused about Don Chuy's. We sat in the parking lot awhile convincing my mom that we shouldn't go in. 

But, as you might imagine, mom won. And it wasn't half bad (given the circumstances). The carnitas was crispy and flavorful and the carne asada was a little spicy and didn't have a bunch of gristle. The employees were super friendly and helpful too. But the best part? No food poisoning yaaay!

Our next food stop was just outside of Vegas at a Triple D restaurant. It took us forever to navigate to it, and we were pretty hungry when we arrived, but it was worth it. It's a place called Lola's, a Louisiana kitchen. And the food was incredible. I would definitely go out of my way to go back there. 

After a stop at State line it was the long boring drive back, but at least we got a beautiful sunset.