Snowbird in the Fall

We attended Oktoberfest in Munich and loved it, but the real Oktoberfest for Dave and me will always be the big white tent at Snowbird, with Bavarian singing and dancing inside.

We shared big servings of rouladen, sauerkraut, hot potato salad, and linzertorte.

Outside, there were stalls with clerks wearing Bavarian hats and dirdnls...

but other cultures have snuck in, too.

There's no such thing as a pure Oktoberfest in America. One of our best buys at the festival was made-in-Utah scented soap.

Each fall I try to catch the essence of Snowbird in a portfolio more beautiful than the year before. This is what I love about Northern Utah.

Mari and John in Salt Lake City

Mari and John Montague paused in Salt Lake City on Labor Day weekend. They were en route from Berkeley, where they married August 21, to Washington, D.C., where they will start work as attorneys. Mari will be an associate with Hogan & Hartson, which has 1100 lawyers in 27 offices around the world. John has been hired at Hogan & Hartson, as well, but he will first serve a two-year internship at the U.S. Tax Court. Before arriving in SLC, Mari and John hiked in the national parks of the Southwest--Grand Canyon, Zions, Bryce. My brother Kent, Mari's dad, spent Labor Day with us, as well.

We invited Scott and Tara Calder, Mari's cousins, to join us for Sunday supper, and then, on Monday, we toured Temple Square and This is the Place Monument. Mari and John spent the afternoon riding the tram to the top of Hidden Peak at Snowbird, and we then stopped by Saltaire, together, to see sunset over the Great Salt Lake.

We watched a dog playing in the shallow water until all we could see was his silhouette against the shining lake and pale pink sky.

We then retired to an Ethiopian restaurant to eat ingera and watt...

before taking in one more gorgeous view of downtown Salt Lake from our own Terrace Hills Drive. We hope Mari, John, and Kent will soon be back for more hiking, more sunsets, and more time enjoying each other.

First Class Trip to the Second City

Dave and I were so impressed with Jonny, as he showed us around the University of Chicago campus, between internship interviews at the law school. We visited Chicago the weekend of August 27-29.

We checked out the library where Jonny studies.

We appreciated the beauty of the ivy-covered campus...

and we peeked into the cathedral where Jonny will attend his graduation ceremony.

We then hung out, on that Friday, among the wonders of the Field Museum, until Jonny was done with his interviews. We were not alone.

We were amazed at the scope of the exhibits, from a display on Tibet...

to dinosaurs...

to prehistoric mammoths, including a baby mammoth unearthed from a snow bank and then preserved.

Jonny gave us a tour of the great art at the Art Institute of Chicago...

from this painting of gray hills by Georgia O'Keefe...

to this hand-carved copy of a real log.

"I love Chicago for its architecture," Jonny said, and we enjoyed Chicago's buildings, as well, from the gritty...

to the evocative...

to the stylishly curved.

We paused to play with our reflections in the shiny, bean-shaped sculpture in Millenium Park.

We then headed for Little India, where Jenny's desires for paneer and curry can only be sated at Chareeb Nawaz.

"We're in South Chicago and it's in the far north," Jonny says, "so we lose in gas what we make up in the budget meals."

We loved the colorful signs for phone cards and kebab houses, and the storefronts filled with sarees and salwar kameez.

Out of all the ethnic cultures and foods in Chicago, we chose Costa Rican for dinner, at Cafe Tico.

On Saturday, we visited the Chicago History Museum, where we checked out a trolley car from the 1890s and an old-fashioned bicycle, as well as displays on the 1893 World's Fair and the many institutions that originated in Chicago, such as catalog stores and department stores.

We then drove north to one of Jonny and Jenny's favorite spots, the Chicago Botanical Garden. There were vegetables...

bonsai...

lush flowers...

and Oriental bridges.

And, on Sunday after Church, we visited the Oriental Institute, whose founder, a fearless archeologist in the Middle East, was reputedly the model for Indiana Jones.

I enjoyed the cuneiform tablets, with writing from 2600 B.C., and the Assyrian tiles and sculptures. The displays took me back to Old Testament times, when Assyria was the mighty power terrorizing Israel.

We finished our trip with a delightful dinner with James and Jeannie Evans and their family. James is a University of Chicago sociology professor and my Aunt Catherine's grandson. His son, Noah, is in Jonny and Jenny's early morning seminary class.