Friday – cool and sunny
Tulip Festival at Thanksgiving Point Gardens.
Owl with his lunch on the side.
The museums are teaming with heavily pregnant Mormon women, usually with 4 or 5 rug rats in tow. I’m amazed there isn’t a midwife on duty.
After a Starbucks we drive about a hundred miles down to Price, where we’re staying over night.
More tulips.
Our Quality Inn hotel was pretty good, although the guy at reception needed photo Id as usual. Handed him my 50 year old paper licence along with loose passport photo in the plastic case to turn it into photo Id. He then spent the next 5 minutes examining it. In the end I had to ask for it back before he wore all the ink of it. Despite the detailed, microscopic inspection it never seemed to occur to him that the picture was just loose and it could have been anyones, but so far, apart from one border guard it Arizona, it’s always passed muster as a valid photo Id. A very disconcerting and unfriendly welcome.
Friendly sort.
They passed our soup of the day test, in so far as they knew what it was, but they’d run out. Not a good sign and remind us to add “run out of soup or coffee” as another acid test – see below.
Gardens with a little waterfall.
Thankfully our waitress explained why the delay. “You see we’ve only got room for 8 on the grill!”. Oh well that’s alright then, who give a rats arse about keeping customers waiting. Heaven forbid you should get a bigger grill or limit the number of tables.
Not tulips but hyacinths I think. Gorgeous colour.
I have to say my meal, the house speciality, a smothered burrito of some sort, was excellent.
Moral of that story don’t trust Trip Advisor. At least now they have a Terrible star.
The Edwards Restaurant Test
Three questions to ask in any restaurant before ordering food:
- “What’s the soup of the day?” If they don’t know, they’re incompetent, exit promptly as you can be 87% certain the meal and service will be a disaster
- “Do you have any soup?” If they have run out then again exit promptly. Soups a fairly basic item.
- “Do you have coffee and tea?” Again if they don’t serve these basic items, or have run out then exit promptly.
- And finally for good measure, “Do you serve Halal meat?” If the answer is yes then my monies on exiting immediately. Just remember the concept of Halal is a product of a 6th century barbaric society. If adopt those standards then what’s their hygiene going to be like?
Ice Londres: Project Fear:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrMtxvVQAoI
Saturday – cool and sunny
Our great hunt to get a picture of Wendy at the famous “Great Hunt” petroglyph.
Balancing rock.
Find the main petroglyphs. Pretty impressive – see pictures. Even without the petroglyphs this canyon is spectacular and well worth the trip.
A few more petroglyphs.
9 Mile Canyon
Say you are an older senior citizen and can no longer take care of yourself and the government says there is no Nursing Home care available for you. So, what do you do?
You opt for Medicare Plan G.
The plan gives anyone 75 or older a gun (Plan G) and one bullet. You are allowed to shoot one worthless politician. This means you will be sent to prison for the rest of your life where you will receive three meals a day, a roof over your head, central heating and air conditioning, cable TV, a library, and all the Health Care you need. Need new teeth? No problem. Need glasses? That’s great. Need a hearing aid, new hip, knees, kidney, lungs, sex change, or heart? They are all covered!
As an added bonus, your kids can come and visit you at least as often as they do now!
And, who will be paying for all of this? The same government that just told you they can’t afford for you to go into a nursing home. And you will get rid of a useless politician while you are at it. And now, because you are a prisoner, you don’t have to pay any more income taxes!
Is this a great country or what? Now that I’ve solved your senior financial plan, enjoy the rest of your week!
Sunday – cool and sunny
Nodding donkey on the back country road out of 9 Mile Canyon.
In the evening the Schmitts come round for a farewell family dinner, which mainly consist of our left overs. A great evening with great company. We’ll miss them.
Well I’d like to think it was another April fools joke but no it’s true. Yes, a remote controlled foot spa (bidet); emergency button; auto seat raise; temperature controlled; oscillating rear washing nozzle; turbo cleansing with high pressure rear wash. Includes a 4 minute video explaining all the loony functions. Every home and refugee tent should have one. Could be a neat way to fritter away our 0.7% of GDP on foreign aid.
Bill Maher gets into a debate on why Islam is more Violent than Christianity:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jm3UWawqAc
Monday – cool and sunny
Daddy Canyon off 9 Mile Canyon.
Lazy morning. Drop off Carols things she lent us and any food we have left over – waste not, want not. Nip up to the hospital to get copies of my invoices, then it’s coffees and Internet. Seems strange not having to leave until 13:00. We’re so used to getting up at the crack o sparrows.
Say goodbye to Park City until next February. Quite sad. At least I’ve got plenty of time to get fit for skiing.
Awesome scenery down 9 Mile Canyon.
Check in is painless, but as usual TSA is just the usual palaver. Yes, we’re pre-checked but because I’ve got a piece of Meccano in my leg I have to go through the scanners and be groped, sadly not by a fit young piece of eye candy.
Haute cuisine.
Settling in.
Well this has to be the experience of a lifetime, not quite up to virgin upper class standards, but to experience good customer service delivered with a genuine friendly smile from the sycophantic French cabin crew had to be worth every penny of the £9,000+ ticket price I’m not paying for.
Foods pretty good, a tad on the haute cuisine side but best of all theres cheese and biscuits with port of course.
Just trying the bed.
Ah it seems like there’s a 2nd wifi entertainment system which can stream the Martian to my iPad. That’s the good news, bad news is I have to download an app, which takes nearly an hour, so I’ll struggle to see the whole film before we land.
Well it’s been a very relaxing and comfortable flight, so much better than cattle class, but way too expensive even if we are frittering away the kids inheritance. Certainly not worth braking my femur for.
Sleeping on the job again.
2nd business class flight from Paris to Manchester restores my faith in French service levels and attitudes. Wrong seat for Wendy and stroppy attitude from the dollies with the trolleys. Well that’s my French prejudices confirmed and refreshed for another year.
Home safe and sound. Just 6 weeks before we escape again.
Mr Bean flies 1st class:
The good life after BREXIT:
Let’s get out.
Drive down to Farmington Nature Reserve and manage to see some neat birds, but sadly no new ones.
We’d been to Antelope Island before but it’s a pleasant place with stunning views of the Salt Lake and a backdrop of the Mountains.
Great news Axa travel insurance have agreed I should fly home business class as I’ll need a bed, yeah. Tough luck for Wendy she’s left in cattle class. They don’t think I need a carer – that’s a matter of opinion after all she’s been my carer for 45 years.
Yes it’s snowing again. A tad too late. A typical Belthorn day, just hunker down and get on with my web site work.
Now the good news is that my insurers have agreed to let Wendy fly home with me in business class, rather than being condemned to cattle class. I sent them Wendy’s doctors note saying that she suffers with claustrophobia and needs to take tablets, lavishly washed down by a pint of brandy, in order to get her on the plane. She needs her devoted husband by her side. Seemed to do the trick, so we fly Salt Lake to Paris and then to Manchester with our very own beds; cordon bleu food – bang goes the diet; we’ll be trusted with proper, lethal weapon, cutlery without the need for TSA interrogation; decent wine and champagne; and free wifi. I do hope they’ve got “The Martian” on as I’d deferred watching it on the way home after I’d had time to read the book. Well I suppose every cloud has a silver lining, but I think I’d rather not break anything and suffer cattle class.
The drive up Little Cottonwood Canyon is beautiful this time of the year. There’s still plenty of snow around as the base altitude is 8,530 feet and they get an average of 514″ snow a year – some proper snow. Although it hot so the snows like skiing on a slush puppy.
The European Union’s border agency admitted Tuesday it cannot fully track the flood of refugees pouring in, and said a “staggering number” of Europeans have joined terror groups only to return to the continent amid the migrant wave.
“There is no EU system capable of tracing people’s movements following an illegal border-crossing. Therefore it is not possible to establish the precise number of persons who have illegally crossed two sections of the external borders of the EU,” the report stated.
In the interest of free speech, and hopefully desensitising muslims, I was thinking of applying to Blackburn with Darwen council to host a show of the Mohamed cartoons shown in Texas that caused so much hoohah, But then, as expected, I see that someone in London tried to host such a show and had to back off. As she said “The risk of running this exhibition is simply too high. When setting out to do something like this, one has to be prepared for the possibility of threats, or even violence, but it’s easy to underestimate the impact such things will have on the people around you. There’s a very real possibility that people could be hurt or killed, before, during, and after the event.”
I owe you money / my car hire is due / my flight is due / renewal is due / asking for a meter reading / there is an important letter (usually a public announcement and not something that requires all the secrecy of “The Secret Fives” treasure map) …………………………………………. but I am forced to log into your site to find out the relevant, usually trivial, details. Makes me madder and hotter than a PC trying to divide by zero.
Instead you could treat me with the courtesy and respect I as a customer deserve by:
Better, better still have a URL that takes me to you web site and even logs me in. Again not rocket science very doable.
Now I know if you can even be bothered to answer this complaint you will spring to the notorious, totally misunderstood and abused “Data Protection” defence. Because of course, you think Joe public doesn’t have the wit to understand that. You think you can blind us with legalese and make us think you’re doing us a great service by “protecting us”. But I suggest before you do so, you take the trouble to read the Data Protection Act 1998 (yes those blue underlined words are the now infamous URL you so well understand) and consider which of the 8 principles would be contravened by such a common sense, customer focused, ease of use approach.
Off down to Red Butte gardens. It’s what geriatrics do before they get carted off to the retirement home. Pleasant walk around and then lunch sat out in the sunshine on the patio.
Scrat around on their web site for a contact number. Bounced around every department conceivable apart from the one that specifically deals with “Booking a car on Christmas day when it falls on a Wednesday and its raining”. What is it with this company do they have no one with a brain who can take a problem and deal with it end to end. This is the Ford principle gone mad and they seem to be staffed by foreign goldfish with no ears who can only remember how to do one simple transaction. Finally manage to register a complaint about the Park City location.
Eva tells me a young lady was in the other day, bought a Danish Pastry for me and left it with her. Sounds promising. Can’t for the life of me think who it would be and of course every one is younger than me so it’s a vague description. Who know’s perhaps it was a young piece of eye candy who had seen me handle these crutches with such panache that she wanted to get my attention – what a fantasy world I live in at times.
Should I give it up? This has been a constant refrain over the past 5 weeks. 
Then there’s the negative side arguments:
Nerdy day today as Hal and I go to a web site meeting with Target Marketing. Interesting little operation gives you an insight into typical American small business; laid back dress mode, jeans and tee shirts, with a nerdy display of underwear from the chief nerd; donuts for all; bring your dog to work – all very lid back and relaxing. I’d forgot what it was like to deal with real nerds, as you talk to the chief nerd he’s playing with his phone, keeping an eye on his PC and giving you about 4% of his attention.
We’re looking after Angela for the day so we have a trip down to the natural history museum to keep us all amused. It’s an awesome museum and well worth the entrance fee. They’ve a gecko exhibit. with live exhibits you get to pet. The dinosaur exhibit is fantastic so creatively laid out. Angela gets to stroke gecko and snakes.
Amazing Gecko facts:
There are over 1,500 different species. 
Lazy morning and then for lunch we go up to Silver Star cafe. Sit out on the sofas enjoying the sunshine and the snow. Wendy has an awesome Ruebens.
It’s time for the governments of Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, and more to fall. I’m not talking about violent revolution. There are mechanisms for the peaceful replacement of governments in most European nations at times when the existing government is seen widely to be inadequate for the task at hand. It is time to put those mechanisms to use. The existing governments are responsible for policies that have turned Europe into a war zone, and that war is just beginning. The political and media elites have failed Europe and the free world, and put Europe on a course toward civil war and bloodshed unseen on the continent since the days of Hitler.
A new Hitler is in Europe. It is not Donald Trump. It is not the “right-wing.” The new Hitler is very much like the old Hitler: he hates Jews. He has contempt for the historical patrimony of Western civilization. He means to rule by an iron fist and subordinate every other power to his will. He respects only strength, and despises weakness. The new Hitler is not just one man, but millions — millions who believe in an ideology that teaches warfare against and subjugation of free people under its heel. 
This morning, as a result of these policies, Brussels is engulfed in chaos and the grief of blood shed in war. There will be much, much more to come of this.
Can Saudi Arabia protect itself and Europe cannot?
Classic, Internet is up and down like a brides nighty. I’m sure it’s all based on a fundamental law of physics “Internet failure and dropout is directly proportional to how much rain and snow falls”. What is it with IT and technology. All this money spent. Can nobody get it right. Heads should role. Only in the IT sphere do we tolerate this atrocious customer service and abject failure rate.
Fiona has a day to herself so she’s off for some retail therapy at the Tangier Outlets. We’re on rug rat grandparents duties.
Now we’ve got the green light on MacDonalds we take Jasper there for his last civilized meal here in the USA. I was tempted to really improve his gastronomic experiences and take him to Taco Bell but Nana vetoed that on the spurious grounds that he wouldn’t eat it. Don’t try then you don’t know.
It’s a great evenings entertainment, with typical western music, slapstick humour and songs. Great fiddler and banjo player. The food was awesome, a traditional Western style barbecue with baked beans and smoked brisket to die for. Nice touch at the end of the evening is the entertainers all one up as you exit to shake hands and exchange a few pleasantries.
Fiona and Jasper’s last day. Some vacillation as whether Jaspers going to ski. In the end he opts for the park. I opt for a lazy day in to rest my gamy leg.
It’ goodbye to Fiona and Jasper as we drive them down to Salt Lake airport for their long flight home.
Decide on a Mexican take away from Chubasco’s in the evening. Alas they’re closed, it’s Easter Sunday. We’d forgot because the whole country seems to have forgot it’s Easter, they pay more attention to Valentines day and the pagan halloween festival. Amazing really because the whole country seems to have ignored EASTER; to be politically correct and avoid any offence it’s been renamed spring break; Everywhere’s open Good Friday and Easter Monday; only some of the Mexican restaurants forsake the mighty dollar and close on Easter Sunday; of course the supermarkets remain open throughout with isle upon isle of “Eggs” – not Easter eggs, not spring break eggs, just chocolate eggs. 
Apple announcement. Nothing really exciting.
When will we ever learn. Stuff politically correct, these barbaric rag heads from the 6th century don’t give a toss about it. And please no more whining that it has nothing to do with islam. Smell the coffee, go read the quran and then tell me it’s nothing to do with islam:
Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv, often cited as the world’s most secure, relies on profiling. Passengers are closely watched and intensively questioned about who they are and where they are going. Some experts swear by it, but it has been criticised as “politically incorrect”.
Due to snow we abandon our plans for a day in Salt Lake.
Take Jasper down to the Discovery Centre in Salt Lake City. A awesome place for kids. Spend a good morning there amidst 200 screaming rug rats. Why would anyone want to go skiing when they could endure this?
Then drive up to City Creek and go for lunch in the Garden restaurant. Great food, reasonably priced and on the 10th floor with stupendous views over the Temple and Salt Lake. Only down side is no coffee or alcohol.
In the evening George and Helen come around for dinner. George and I compare notes not the stupidity of our politicians and rapidly put the world to rights.
Off down to the library for Toddler Time. I get to play in the creative lab with the iMacs and 3D printers. I download my design I want to make but as with all things technology the printer manages to screw up so I have to abandon the project for now.
Trump ‘fine’ with waterboarding
Trump has vacillated in his campaign about whether or not he would pursue using waterboarding — which is considered torture and thus illegal. After getting criticized by former national security officials, Trump said he would instead seek to expand the laws, presumably to make such tactics legal.
Pick up the hertz mobile. Gave them a ring to ensure we didn’t have another car bizarre fiasco. Nice toyota camaray, fairly well equipped and with satnav, was waiting on the front.
Don’t auto renew. Don’t get a new quote. Don’t trust them.
They’re out to rip off existing customers at the expense of new.
Nip round to next door to discuss long term rental next year. It’s a really nice place, better kitted out than this, and would be great for February, March, April and June, July, August next year. They may even be interested in a home exchange.
While we’re there a young girl comes flying down the nursery slope. Can’t stop. Crashes onto the deck where here ski’s come to a grinding halt and she experience Newtons First law as she continues flying forward, face plants, onto the concrete deck. Every man and women then crowd round her, move her and almost suffocate her until ski patrol turns up, cut her trousers off, load her onto a body board and takes her to hospital. Poor kid she looks a right mess.
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — While Republican front-runner Donald Trump continues to make waves nationally for his comments about banning Muslims from traveling to the country, lawmakers in two very different states are proposing that all refugees register with the government.
Sponsoring Sen. Kevin Bryant said the bill has three components: a registry of all refugees; civil liability for sponsors of refugees from counties considered state sponsors of terror by the federal government (currently Iran, Sudan and Syria) for crimes committed by refugees; a prohibition on the state spending any money on refugees and their families.
1. Welcome to the Islamic State. You do not have to be mad to work here, but it helps.
9. You are responsible for providing and maintaining your own black uniform. Avoid washing with light fabrics.
Wow 11″ of snow last night. What an awesome powder day it will be. I’m jealous.
Fiona’s off skiing with Helen. We’re playing grandparents for the day.
Meet Fiona for lunch and have a chat with Ava, our favorite barista.
