Park City, Utah is a great place on a Sunday morning and one of my favorite spots is a coffee shop. French Vanilla coffee on a Sunday morning is one of my favorite times of the week. Park City is full of wonderful moments all times of the year. In the winter, its holiday revelry and Sundance Film Festivals. (Don’t forget the skiing.) Summer brings music concerts and Farmers Markets. All year around is shopping, great food, and fun times with friends.
In the coffee shop, I enjoy watching people from all over the world come together with family and friends to enjoy a relaxed moment together. It has always amazed me how a cup of java seems to be a universal social activity.
The other day I saw two elderly men sit and chat together about the weather. It was obviously idle chit chat, but you could see the kinship the two men had together. I could tell they have been talking about the weather for years. Two friends just enjoying a Sunday morning just like me.
We here in Park City, Utah think that the first day of each school year is a huge deal. It stands for summer ending, fall approaching quickly, and we parents having more free time for skiing in a couple of months.
Ah yes, the thought of six hours of skiing while our children work diligently at school sounds great to me. Please understand I do not speak for all families in Park City, only for myself. I’m sure there are parents who have different views of what the first day of school means to them, but for me it’s all about skiing.
As I shop for school clothes for my children, I always seem to end up in ski shops for myself. One outfit for them, two skis for me. At the end of the day, I’m set for the slopes.
We here in Park City are so lucky. Snow, mountains, and lifts. How else would a parent think of the first day of school?
Family trips are usually a bag of mixed emotions. Here is my personal experience on our road trip from Michigan to Utah for a week vacation in Park City.
At five am on Saturday morning, I get up, shower, and pack the car as my wife get the three children (one pre-teen and the other two ages 4 and 7) up and have them get ready. At six-thirty am, we drive out of the driveway, just the five us and Brutus, our Bull Mastiff. Drop of Brutus at our friends house for a week of luxury without us, and off we go. Two days later, we make it to our hotel (The Prospector of course) hot, sweaty, and “99 bottles of beer on the wall” running through our heads. Our plan was to go to a nice dinner, but complete exhaustion changed our plan to ordering in a pizza.
Once at The Prospector, the trip was great. We hiked, ate great food, saw theater works, shopped, walked through art galleries, and ate a lot of ice cream. Our family had a great time together and only a couple of moments of children fighting with their parents. It was awesome! By the time we left, we liked each other again and ready to go back into reality.
That is my quick story of Park City in the summer time. And yes, on the drive home we sang “99 bottles of beer on the wall” until our driveway.
The Prospector has tickets available for the production of The Princess Bride playing at The Park City Community Church. Tickets are available at the Prospector front desk if theater goers would like to stop by and pick them up.
Running until July 30th, what a great family event! Starts at 7:30 pm on a weeknight and 8 pm on Fridays and Saturdays with 2 PM Matinee on Saturdays. Located behind the Park City Nursery (4501 N Hwy 224, just turn into Sun Peak Drive), The Park City Community Church welcomes the community to celebrate great literature.
See you soon!
July 17, 2011
Family Vacations, hotel, lodging, Park City Utah Lodging, Park City Vacation Rentals, Prospector Square Lodge, The Prospector, Travel
Attractions,Blog,Events
What a beautiful weekend Park City is in the heat of the summer. It was fifteen degrees cooler than down in the valley yesterday. Park City, Utah air was clear and it just felt good strolling up and down the streets. My family and I parked our car at the bottom of Main Street and walked up one side while popping into art galleries and boutiques and walking down the other side, stopping for lunch and then ice-cream.
While sitting outside in the sun and enjoying our desserts, I noticed a butterfly flit in front of us. I watched it floating in between other families going by us and stopping for a rest occasionally on flowers next to us. Then it would be off again for whatever reasons butterflies have. It didn’t matter to me at the time as to why. I only watched in wonderment of the beauty of its soft yellow wings gleaming in the sunlight and the irregular dance that made no sense to me. At that moment, I just didn’t seem to have any cares.
It was a moment of awe for me and very rare indeed. All seemed right in the world for just those few seconds. For me, there were no pressures of deadlines. No teenagers searching for that line in the sand for limitations. No phone calls or emails to respond to. It was just a moment away from the stresses of the world. I have no idea what was going on in my husband’s and son’s mind, but by looking in their faces, I could tell they were content with life as well, for that one fleeting moment.
