Summer Long Honeymoon, Part 3:
Paige I Like The View
Day 4:
On July 11th, Paige and I got up around 9:00 and hung out in the room until about noon. Having exhausted everything to do at the resort during the first three days of our honeymoon, we decided to explore historic Park City and the surrounding areas for the second half. At about 12:10, we walked down to the nearest bus stop and headed down to what the locals call “Old Town.” From the “Old Town” bus stop, we rode the Main Street trolley up to, as the name would suggest, Main Street (though we would learn later it’s actually easier to walk there from the station). Upon our arrival, we immediately realized why it was called “Old Town.” While there were modern businesses (7-11, Lululemon, a Marriott, etc.), the street is set up kinda like the street in a spaghetti western (an old cowboy movie).
First we stopped at a small shop called Park City Desserts & Coffee. After that, we explored a few other shops until we found the Park City Museum. The museum documented everything from the city’s founding, the great fire of 1898, the Winter Olympics of ‘02, all the way up to the present day. The most interesting part of this museum was that the bottom floor was the actual jail that was used around the time the city was founded.
After the museum, we went to the 7-11 as they had free slushies. Then we went to an art gallery and decided to head back to the condo. We planned on watching the sunset, but I wanted to go for a quick swim and maybe go to the steam room. Paige walked me down so I didn’t have to take a key card. Right when you leave the building to get to the pool, there is a vestibule made of glass. I was behind Paige, and I looked down at my phone to check the time because she had asked me for it cuz we were trying to plan around the sunset. Just as I looked down, Paige opened and held the glass door. She kept talking to me, and I saw her through the window… and I walked face first into it (only hurting my pride a little bit).
Day 5:
When we were still in “Old Town” on the 11th, we saw signs advertising a pop-up market called “Park Silly Sunday Market.” On July 12th after Mass, Paige and I ate breakfast, packed up our stuff, and by 2:00 pm we were back on the bus heading down to Old Town. On the bus we met three men, Billy, Jeff, and Connor, who were in their mid 50s or thereabouts. They were childhood friends who had grown up in Utah, but ended up married in different parts of Colorado. This was a “boy’s weekend.” We explained that we were on our honeymoon, and they said they would buy us coffee (how could we refuse)? They took us to a place called Atticus Coffee and Tea right inside of the bounds of “Park Silly.” As the name suggests, it is a To Kill a Mockingbird-themed coffee shop. For those who do not remember your middle school English classes, Atticus is the father of the main character in To Kill A Mockingbird. While I haven’t been to too many pop culture-themed restaurants (only one other comes to mind), as we got our frozen coffees, I couldn’t help but think there need to be more shops like this.
We thanked our new friends and walked out to the market. Atticus marks the lower end of Main Street, and the market went down the street from there. We walked around the market for about 10 minutes before we both had to go to the bathroom. The closest one we could think of was at the museum, so we walked back up there. When I had finished, I went up to the front desk and asked them for more suggestions on things to do.
After I got loose plans for the next day and a map, Paige and I walked back down to the market. Calling it a market does not do it justice. It was more like a mini art festival. There were shops that made caricatures, metal and wood work, specialty clothing, upcycled jewelry; one shop made gourmet licorice (which I didn’t even know was a thing)… there was a lot of stuff. There was a DJ by the food and drink area. He had been setting up right after we got our coffee, and when we got back from the museum, he was in the middle of his set. Just by sheer coincidence, the playlist was basically our wedding playlist!
Day 6:
We did not do as much as I initially thought we would on Monday, July 13. At the suggestion of the museum employees, we headed to Olympic Park. This was obviously where the 2002 Olympics were and where I assumed the 2034 games will be. The museum employees did not give me a huge rundown of what it is. It is firstly a ski museum, secondly a future Olympian training course, and finally an amusement park. We went to the museum, watched a couple of kids use the ski jump, but we mostly just scoped out the park so we knew what to do for the next day…
Day 7:
On Tuesday, July 14, around noon, we returned to Olympic Park. After having done some research, we decided to do a couple of things, starting with the Alpine slide. We rode a ski lift up a mountain (which, by the way, did in fact have the year 2034 painted on some grass for the ski jump). The Alpine slide is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a metal slide that runs down the mountain. It has these little one-person trolley cars that you ride down the side in. If you pushed the lever on the trolley car down, you went fast, and if you pulled back, you slowed down.
As we waited in line for the slide, we heard one of the employees say, “man… it’s going to be like this all week!” I didn’t have time to process what he was talking about before it was my turn. It took me a second to get used to the controls, especially when the slide had a turn, but once I did, it was really fun to fly down this mountain as fast as possible! Paige finished maybe 30 seconds after I did, and we spent the next 10 minutes trying to figure out what to do next. Unfortunately for us, there was a thunderstorm. On our way back to the condo, Paige pointed out what the employee had said, and I realized he was talking about the weather.
When we got home, we decided to go to Old Town to get some food. It was still raining a little bit, and Paige and I came to the conclusion that we definitely chose the right time to come to Park City!
Day 8:
As you may recall, when Cousin Simple played our wedding and brought Paige and I up on stage for the last song (Primadonna), they changed the lyrics from “said your name was, “Maddie,” Maddie, I like the view,” to “said your name was, “Paige,” Paige, I like the view.” On Wednesday, July 15, our two-month wedding anniversary and our last day on the honeymoon, Paige and I woke up at 5:40 (much to Paige’s chagrin). We got dressed, got on the elevator, and went to the first-floor balcony to watch the 6:05 sunrise.
We sat and watched the sun slowly crest a mountain. As it rose, I got a big grin on my face, looked at Paige, and said, “Paige.”
“Yes?” She asked.
“I like the view,” I said with a chuckle.
She immediately rolled her eyes, but she still smiled. Because she was so sleepy and we were out of coffee pods, I went down to Atticus, then got back to the condo; we cleaned and got ready for check-out at 11.
After we checked out, we went back to Old Town because our flight was at 5:30, so we had a little bit of time to kill. We got lunch at Davanza's Pizza. As we sat and ate, we talked about how the two weeks before the wedding (basically from my haircut to Paige walking down the aisle) went by really slowly and the two months since we got married went by incredibly fast.
“I’m kind of glad our honeymoon‘s over,” I said.
“What do you mean?” She asked.
“Like,” I explained, “I’ve had a lot of fun, but since everything‘s been so fast since the wedding… When we wake up tomorrow, we will be back to our normal life, except the fact that you’re my wife won’t change. Like, I know time goes by fast, but I think… I hope that time will go back to its normal tempo tomorrow because I can’t wait to enjoy every second of regular life with you!”
To Be Continued…
