Our Impressions of Salt Lake City and Park City
This will be an unusual blog about travel. We didn’t spend a lot of time checking out the cities and visiting attractions. We went out to eat and we spent an inordinate amount of time checking out used car dealerships and searching for car insurance with our granddaughter. She moved to Salt Lake City to attend the University of Utah and needed to buy her first car. Seeing attractions in Salt Lake City or Park City were so less important to us than being part of her car buying process! If you have any questions about car dealerships in Salt Lake City or car insurance companies in Utah, please contact us.
One of the things that was incredibly confusing for us as visitors was that most of the streets in Salt Lake City are designed as a grid. All the streets are numbered (not named) and listed as north/south or east/west. For example, the street address for a Walmart in SLC is: 4627 S 900 E Street. We guess it makes sense to the people who live in Salt Lake City!
We spent a lot of time driving back and forth from SLC to Park City. There is definitely an elevation change between the two! Driving up to Park City we saw many cars/trucks/RVs that made it about half way up the mountain and sat on the side of the road with their hood raised! The view coming back down from Park City was absolutely gorgeous! One of the things that surprised us was that in July there was still snow in the mountains. We know there was big snow this past winter, but July seems a bit late in the season for snow, even in the mountains!
Attractions
Geographically Salt Lake City is a city located in north central Utah. Park City is east of SLC and about 3,000 feet higher! Because of our extensive car and insurance search this section will be limited! Next time we visit we will be sure to add more to this list!
Salt Lake City
University of Utah is a beautiful campus at the foothills of the mountains.
Great Salt Lake State Park was where we originally wanted to call home base in our RV. When we were making reservations in January for July arrival, we were told the lake was too low for camping. Of course, over the winter they had plenty of snow and melt, but by then we had made other arrangements. We did visit the park; beware of the gnats!
Park City
Downtown was VERY busy and VERY active with shoppers. The streets are narrow and the parking is sparse. We never did find a parking space, though we wanted to check out the shops and restaurants. Next time.
Outlets Park City is a large geographic area with outlet or factory stores. An abbreviated list includes: Columbia, Coach, Guess, Levi’s, Michael Kors, Oakley, Polo Ralph Lauren, Samsonite, and Vans. There were many other stores as well!
The Utah Olympic Park is fascinating! It is a winter sports park built for the 2002 Winter Olympics. It is an active Olympic training site for athletes and aspiring sports enthusiasts. The general public can experience the thrill of the bobsled, zipline and alpine slide rides, the drop tower or extreme tubing. We watched people on the bobsled track, riding the ski lift to the top of the mountain and sledding down the ski tracks.
Special People and Recommendations
Who knew in a travel blog we would be giving high fives and shout outs to an insurance company! And it isn’t even our insurance company! As we said above, we were visiting our granddaughter and helping her navigate buying her first car. We found a gem! Pamela Noorda Anderson and her sister Janet Noorda of IMSC Insurances in Murray, UT were exceptional. Pamela helped our granddaughter find a policy that fit her needs at a price she could afford.
Food and Drink in Salt Lake City
Bjorn’s Brew Foothills is a fun drive-through coffee shop in SLC. There are 3 shops, but we only went to Foothills. The coffee is great, as were the breakfast sandwiches. One of the cool things about Bjorn’s Brew is their pictures of local dogs up for adoption. At each of their locations as you are waiting to be handed your coffee you can look at the poster of the “dog of the week”. In 2022, Bjorn’s Brew donated $37,300 to various local animal charities. To me that is reason enough to stop there instead of other coffee places!
Bruges Belgian Bistro is a casual waffle and lunch bistro. Seating is outside. The portions are good, the price is right and the quality is excellent. There are many sweet and savory options for topping your waffle!
Delice Bakery and Café was our “go to place”! It was a great recommendation by Pamela at IMSC Insurances. Let’s just say we went back to Delice more than once! There is a huge pastry case with everything from macaroons to cakes to cookies. The café served a variety of breakfast and lunch options. Everything was good!
Swig is a drive-through beverage store offering “dirty sodas”. It is a local thing, and that is what they are called! Soda (Dr. Pepper, Coke, Mt. Dew and Pepsi) are blended with other ingredients. My favorite was the Raspberry Dream: Dr. Pepper, raspberry puree and coconut crème. Don’t knock it if you haven’t tried it!
The Bayou is a downtown SLC restaurant and bar offering Cajun-inspired food. For being 1,700 miles away from NOLA (New Orleans, Louisiana) the Bayou food wasn’t bad. The crawfish etouffee and the gumbo were flavorful, but not spicy enough for our taste (we have visited NOLA many times). We would go back. The service was excellent.
The Red Iguana had been recommended to us from a variety of people. The store front is covered with stickers, and frankly isn’t much to look at, but don’t let that fool you! The food and the service were impeccable!
Home Base: The Campground
For us, a campground is not our destination. Our RV is self-contained. Except for water, electric and sewer rarely do we use campground services or amenities. We are explorers, not campground reviewers!
We stayed on site 802 at the KOA Campground in Salt Lake City. 30 and 50 amp service were available. The campground was clean and well maintained. The staff was very friendly and accommodating when we extended our stay twice! Our full hook up (water-sewer-electric) site was on level concrete. Our pull through site was long enough to leave the Jeep hooked up and still have both vehicles off the road. There was good cell phone coverage (Verizon) and a good open southern sky for our satellite.
Fun Facts
According to the Utah Geological Survey, the state has the most complete dinosaur record located in any area of the world. Some of the dinosaur faunas dug up near Salt Lake City are estimated to date back 230 million years!
The Bonneville Salt Flats are one of only seven locations in the world where the natural curvature of the earth is visible to the naked eye.
No person, business or attraction has paid us for an endorsement.
| Salt Lake City | Park City | |
| Population | 200,478 | 8,457 |
| Elevation | 4,265 ft. | 7,000 ft. |
| Founded | 1847 | 1869 |
| Average Income | $32,894 | $40,431 |
| Average Cost of Housing | $600,000 | $1.7 million |
| Average Age of Population | 33 | 41 |
Websites:
https://www.visitsaltlake.com/
https://www.visitparkcity.com/
Summary
We will be back to Salt Lake City and are looking forward to exploring more of the sites to see. We already know where we will be eating!
Your partners in travel,
Kathryn, Dave and Lucky
RVing Nomads
It’s a lifestyle
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