This is the Place

We all recovered, and are back to our normal, non-pukey selves.  It happened just in time as Merrill took the day off yesterday to have some family fun.

(Thank heavens it was real fun.. not vomit kind of fun.)

We went to spend the day in Salt Lake, and I can tell you right now, there aren’t enough hours in one day to have all the fun we wanted to have.

(So hopefully there will be a part 2.)

We spent the bulk of it at “This is the Place” state park.

For those of you who have never been there (who from Utah hasn’t?) or who has never heard of the place, it is a pioneer community that has been re-created, or buildings moved to show what the typical town looked like and how it functioned back in the day.  You can go from home to home, hear stories about the people who once lived there, and learn about daily life, some of the chores, some of the games, occupations.  It is very interesting.

Turns out, it was the perfect day to go.  It was mostly overcast and breezy and there were all of the patriotic decorations still up.

The girls were a bit skeptical at first about our plan for our “fun” family day, but they soon warmed up.

There was much to see and do.

They rode on the ponies.  We thought that Ashley and Peyton would both be hesitant to ride, but they went happily and enjoyed it so much!

Had fun petting the animals in the petting corral.

Watched out for poop…

And Peyton wanted to try to ride the goat like she did the pony. :)

Merrill got a shave at the barber.

He also told us of the many other things the barber would typically do for the townsfolk.  Blood-letting, surgery, dentistry.  He showed a rather mean looking tool used to extract teeth that was called “the friend of Lucifer” but he re-named it “Mindy”.  I was looking at Merrill, still in the chair, he was looking back at me.  I started to look all over me to see if my name was displayed somewhere that I wasn’t aware of.  It was too funny!  After the other people left, Merrill was cleaning up his face and I asked this guy if he seriously calls it a “Mindy”.

“We’ll yeah.  I just thought it sounded like a much kinder, more friendly name.”

I just kept looking at him, like, really?

He looked at me with wide eyes and said, “Is your name Mindy?”

He laughed a good bit and then told me of all the time he’s been doing this, no one named Mindy has ever come through.

We took the girls to get treats and a drink (because we ran out of water all too soon) at the ZCMI.

We rode the train.

We panned for gold and took it to the bank to trade it in for money.

And during all of this, we enjoyed scenery, and our heritage.

We finished off the day with what was supposed to be a hike to Ensign Peak.  Due to vandalism, and people altering trail signs, we ended up at Vista Mound.  Still a pretty view, but not what Ensign is supposed to be…  Lynnie- biffed it and cut up her knee pretty bad so we didn’t continue on.

Another day though, right?