When I got back to Salt Lake City, I turned south on Route 15 and spent the night in Provo. At the motel, I picked up my usual set of brochures (though the rack was rather paltry) and found one for Sundance, Robert Redford’s ski resort. The resort, just a few miles outside Provo, sits nestled in a cleft of the mountains.
I had always thought of Utah as a desert state, yet my entire passage so far had been into, over, or alongside of mountains. Even though I knew Utah was famous for skiing, I never pictured it so mountainous. Had I thought about it, I’m fairly sure I would have deduced that very few people enjoy skiing in the desert.
The next day I drove out to Sundance, an easy non-scary mountain drive from Provo, for which I was thankful. There was no snow in the mountains (for which I was also thankful), yet there were quite a few people at the resort. Sundance offers a range of non-winter activities like hiking, mountain biking, a day camp for kids, a summer theater program, and the ever-popular celebrity watch.
The resort was set up in a campus-like arrangement, an eclectic collection of structures arranged in a laid-back atmosphere with no hint of its glamorous Hollywood pedigree. In keeping with the relaxed feel, I took my lemonade (no coke this time) outside to quest covertly for signs of movie stars. It was a beautiful day in a spectacular setting, so I wasn’t too disappointed that I didn’t recognize anyone.
Leaving Sundance, I zagged southeast, cutting across Utah on smaller roads (as I have mentioned, I don’t always learn my lesson the first time). I had absolutely no idea where I was going, and didn’t even look at a map this time. I still hadn’t made a decision to head home. But I was tending eastward.
After several hours wandering through scenic eastern Utah, I caught up with I-70, yet another one of those major east-west interstates. I-70 did not have for me the caché of I-90, so I briefly considered continuing south to Lake Powell, another huge manmade lake that straddles the Utah-Arizona border. But something kept me heading east. I-70 was going my way.
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