December 1, 2021

Salt Lake City Area

By roads-rus

Ruth & I just spent the Thanksgiving holiday in Salt Lake City with family. We went to Ogden, Park City, Lehi, Sundance, several canyons for winter hiking, and the Great Salt Lake. Salt Lake City was our base and where we mostly stayed.

This city goes all out for holidays. I suppose it’s the Mormon influence and family-centered-attitude that has kept this area so focused on old-fashioned holiday parades and traditional seasonal activities. It still celebrates the major winter holidays with much pomp and circumstance.

The first stop on our itinerary was the Grand America Hotel across the street from Little America in downtown Salt Lake City. This 5 star hotel celebrates the Thanksgiving/Christmas season with consistently elaborate decorations. Its star attraction is a spectacular gingerbread house. Its 2021 house contains 2,000 eggs, 1,700 pounds of flour, 800 pounds of Royal Icing, and 500 candy canes among its ingredients.

The Grand America Hotel has 775 rooms. It opened in 2001 to welcome and celebrate the Olympic Games that were held in Utah. The 2002 Winter Olympics occurred in and around Salt Lake City and especially in Park City between February 8 to 24 of that year. The Grand America is a very European hotel with art works, Italian glass, and stunning chandeliers. Its toy store/gift shop is called Jou Jou, and it’s a sight to behold. The Grand America is one of 8 hotels created by Robert Holding, founder and owner of Sinclair Oil Corporation. In the 1950s he built the 1st Little America near Rock Springs, Wyoming, and he died in Salt Lake City in 2013.

Holding’s hotels and resorts are known for luxury. They can be found in Sun Valley, San Diego, Flagstaff, and Cheyenne. The Grand America, the gingerbread house, and this hotel’s holiday decor are worth a trip to Salt Lake City to see.

Hank

About roads-rus

Since the beginning, I've had to avoid writing about the downside of travel in order to sell more than 100 articles. Just because something negative happened doesn't mean your trip was ruined. But tell that to publishers who are into 5-star cruise and tropical beach fantasies. I want to tell what happened on my way to the beach, and it may not have been all that pleasant. My number one rule of the road is...today's disaster is tomorrow's great story. My travel experiences have appeared in about twenty magazines and newspapers. I've been in all 50 states more than once and more than 50 countries. Ruth and I love to travel internationally--Japan, Canada, China, Argentina, Hungary, Iceland, Italy, etc. Within the next 2 years we will have visited all of the European countries. But our favorite destination is Australia. Ruth and I have been there 9 times. I've written a book about Australia's Outback, ALONE NEAR ALICE, which is available through both Amazon & Barnes & Noble. My first fictional work, MOVING FORWARD, GETTING NOWHERE, has recently been posted on Amazon. It's a contemporary, hopefully funny re-telling of The Odyssey. View all posts by roads-rus
This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 1st, 2021 at 9:58 pm and posted in Great City. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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