Park City

We're in the middle of a terrible inversion right now, our second of the winter season so far. If you're not familiar with this terrible meterological event, here's a definition:

Inversions occur during winter months when normal conditions (cool air above, warm air below) are inverted. Inversions trap a dense layer of cold air under a layer of warm air. They act much like a lid, trapping pollutants within the cold air near the valley floor.

When several winter days pass without a cold front or storm coming through the Salt Lake Valley, we get stuck under an inversion and the air condition can get really, really bad. According to the Salt Lake Tribune, yesterday Salt Lake ranked #2 for the worst air quality in the entire US (Logan, a northern UT city was #1).

In order to escape the smoggy conditions today we drove up to Park City to have lunch, walk around and enjoy the quiet before the Sundance Film Festival storm. We stopped at the outlets but only made it to one store because Luke was running around the place like a wild man and got stuck in the front window display with about 8 mannequins, though he thankfully didn't knock any over this time.

Then we went to a swanky new resort at Deer Valley called The Montage, just because we've heard a lot about it and wanted to check out the fuss. To give you an idea of what kind of place this is (and what kind of people stay there), while we were eating lunch, we spotted a waiter helping another diner take off his ski boots. This was a guy who was outfitted in at least $5,000 worth of ski clothing /gear, couldn't walk in his ski boots and probably barely knows how to ski. We guessed he's from LA, like the girl we met in the coffee shop there, who was wearing Chanel ski goggles. Not to stereotype or anything, but we have an eye for this type of thing.

So, we got a kick out of that as we sat there with Luke throwing chickpeas on the floor. On our way out we encountered one of Keith's Park City-based derm patients in the lobby. "Hello" Keith said to the well-coifed woman in her 70s. "Oh, hi," she said. Then she gestured to Keith and said her husband, "this is my new hairdresser, Jake." Somehow Keith and I didn't burst out in laughter; he just responded "Actually, I think I'm your dermatologist."

A little embarrassed, she then remembered (or pretended to remember) Keith and said "oh my gosh, I just saw a new hairdresser yesterday and he has the same glasses as you, and since you're wearing a hat..." Keith reassured her it was fine and we then chatted for a few minutes--she was there checking it out and lunching just like we were. She commented on how cute Luke is, I complimented her hair do, and we continued on our way.

It was an entertaining hour or so at the Montage. Lunch was really good and amazingly not too expensive, the place is lovely, Luke behaved (mostly because the waiter gave him an entire bottle full of milk, which--side note--you can't do with this child. If you gave him a gallon of milk 3 times a day, he'd drink it all and beg for more. That's why we only give him a few ounces at a time.) So anyway, we had a good meal, a few good laughs, then we headed back down into the inversion. Yuck.

We're supposed to get a storm tonight so hopefully it will blow out.

And speaking of blowing out, tonight we're going out to dinner to celebrate Keith's birthday belatedly...I think I'll ask him to blow dry my hair :-)