Salt Lake City!

No, I did not become Mormon.... I think I scared the missionary girls away when I was taking pictures in Temple Square. Anywho, Joe was in SLC for the AIChE conference for a week, so I joined him mid-week to take a mini-vacation from my crazy life in Dallas. It was great to not have any responsibilities for a few days!

On Thursday, I walked around SLC on an afternoon-long personal Photowalk... got a few okay pictures, but mostly it was great to be outside, wearing a winter coat, walking for exercise and not sweating my butt off! I was also sent on a mission by Joe to find 'something edible that is quintessentially Salt Lake City or Utah to bring back from the lab'. I asked at the Visitor's Center, and they sent me to the Hatch Family Chocolates, who are also local celebrities because of their TV show, The Little Chocolatiers. Why "Little" you may ask? Because they're little people of course, which, if you know Joe, would make his day.

-The Mormon Temple and Tabernacle in Temple Square

-Flower on my walk

On Friday, Joe and I rented a car and headed out to Antelope Island to check out the island and its wildlife and possibly go hiking if it wasn't too cold. We had a beautiful morning for our drive up there. It was the week of the annual bison round-up so there were some bison penned up for the auction the day after we were there and the rest of the bison were traveling across the island, having been released late on Thursday after the round-up. We ran into a couple bison as we were driving down to the ranch. It was super awesome to get out of the car and shoot such beautiful animals, but I of course left the car door open in case it charged and I had to run away to safety.... and yes, we got full coverage on the rental just in case ;)

-View of Antelope Island & its reflection from the causway

-2 of the bison we saw driving around the island

-Joe & I in front of Fray Peak...if you look closely, there are bison off in the distance

-Hello Mr. Bison with the scars on his back..you must be a tough guy

After our trip to Antelope Island, we drove to our B&B in Huntsville in the middle of nowhere, but it does have a Trappist Monastery and the oldest bar in Utah, the Shooting Star Saloon. The bar's famous burger, the Star Burger, consists of two beef patties and a polish sausage (that tasted more like a spicy hotdog). I had the mini-Star, which only had one patty... it was still pretty gross.

On Saturday, we took the scenic route to the airport, stopping by the Olympic Village where it was snowing! Then it was back to flat Dallas. For more pictures from the trip, you can check them out on flickr.