In the meantime

Things will pick up around here soon, once Preacher gets going again. 

In the meantime, I was recently back east - Midcoast Maine - to see family and was introduced to two new (to me) brewpubs.  Maine has a ridiculous number of breweries (both production and brewpubs).  There's a beer trail you can follow, with more than 80 breweries all around the state.  Go out and explore! The two I went to are:

Oxbow Beer - We went to the Newcastle location (there's a tasting room in Portland too) and it was SO MAINE.  Difficult to find/in the middle of nowhere/tiny little sign on the road.  Surrounded by trees, the small tasting room has three picnic tables outside, so you can swat mosquitoes and pet the friendly cat while you drink beer.  Port-o-johns available in the parking lot.  Every car in the lot on that Sunday afternoon was a Subaru.  And all the late 20s/early30s post-modern hippie women were wearing galoshes with their skirts. 

Flight Deck Brewing - The Flight Deck has a problem.  They intended to use their Brunswick brewery (located in the former shooting range at the old naval air station) to produce beer to sell to area restaurants.  But their tasting room has become so popular that they can't keep up with demand and are selling way more retail/to individual imbibers than they planned.  Good problem to have!  They have an arrangement with local food trucks too so (a) dogs are allowed in the tasting room because there's no kitchen and (b) good food awaits just outdoors.

All of my favorite things

My dear friend Blonde Ambition knows me too well.  She sent me a Christmas present (even tho' she shouldn't have because we were cutting back and not sending Christmas presents this year) that combined all of my favorite things:  chocolate, beer and bacon.  Let me repeat that for you: chocolate and beer and bacon, all together.

From the charming chocolatier, Socola Chocolates (just look at their website without drooling, I dare you), came a gorgeous box of twelve truffles entitled the Beer and Bacon collection: six Guinness-infused dark chocolate tidbits, and six "Notorious H.O.G." nibbles.  The bacon truffles were also dark chocolate, embedded with bits of applewood-smoked bacon and garnished with black Hawaiian sea salt.  The Guinness truffles were just ravishing, smooth and creamy with just a bit of bitterness from the beer.  The bacon truffles had the best mouth-feel when allowed to melt whole in your mouth - as opposed to taking a bite out of the candy - as that way the little bacon bits didn't get lost.  The Hawaiian sea salt is a miraculous addition - an excellent counterpoint to the richness of the chocolate.

I opened the box a couple of days before Christmas and finished the last truffle last night, taking my time to savor each individual morsel.  These are really good chocolates.  And Socola (which uses the most adorable mascot: Harriet the flying alpaca!) has a whole bunch of other truffle varieties that sound just as amazing: Calmyrna fig, Earl Grey tea, burnt caramel, guava, Vietnamese espresso, jasmine tea, green tea, dark chocolate champagne ... now I'm drooling!

The company is run by two sisters, Wendy and Susan Lieu, and can be bought in person in several locations in San Francisco/Oakland.  Or order some online - I promise you won't regret it.

The Maine thing, part I

Prior to my impending departure from the Great State o' Maine, I thought perhaps I should pass along some insider information in the event some of you gentle readers ever found yourself vacationing in Vacationland. You can go here, here, here and here for some previous tidbits too.

This will be the greater Portland edition. Portland is the largest city in Maine - which under no circumstances means actually "large" - and has a bunch of fun stuff to do and see and eat and drink. (Next installment: eating and drinking beyond Portland!)

Breakfast means Becky's Diner - just get there well before 9:00 a.m. on the weekends to avoid a half hour (minimum) wait. If you're just looking for coffee and a pastry, try Arabica or Coffee By Design for the former, and Standard Baking Co. for the latter. And stop by Two Fat Cats Bakery (practically next door to CBD on India Street) for cookies, cupcakes or fabulous pies to go.

Non-breakfast meal options abound in Portland. Some of my favorites are: Yosaku (sushi), the Front Room (no reservations and BUSY - but worth it), Shays on Monument Square ($5 pineapple martinis), Flatbread Company (hippie pizza), the Foreside Tavern, Dogfish Cafe, Katahdin and Vignola (the last two are spendy but really good, the two just ahead of them are way more reasonable and still good). If it's nice weather and you absolutely must have a lobster roll (or steamers or fried clams or etc.), head out to the Lobster Shack at Two Lights. You won't believe the piece of real estate this little place sits on.

Ah, beer. Maine has about a kajillion micro- and craft brewers; in Portland alone there's Gritty's (Portland's original brewpub), Sebago, Seadog, Shipyard, Geary's ... Your best bet, however, is to go to the amazing beer bar, The Great Lost Bear. They have 65 taps: order a sampler - they let you pick your own - and figure out which Maine breweries you want to roadtrip to that way. I do recommend that you eat beforehand, however, as the Bear's cuisine is not that, um, good.

Portland-area readers, what are your favorites? What have I missed that people need to know about?

Vacation summation

Hi, all. We just got back from a well-needed vacation (poor Mr. Mouse hadn't had a week off for a year1) and are now making our way through the mountains of laundry that need to be done. We had decent weather, dry enough that Mr. Mouse was able to get his 25-80 mile bike ride in nearly every day; I, being not so much with the bicycling, read ten books. Since you're about to be inundated with book reviews, therefore, here's how it broke down.

• 11 library books and 1 loaner
• 9 read cover-to-cover and the loaner book finished up
• of the read books: 2 British murder mysteries, 2 medical thrillers, 2 modern novels, 3 fantasy novels (1 classic, 2 modern) and 1 novel set in pioneer Missouri
• of the unread books: 1 nigh-imprenetrable fantasy novel and 1 "jolly romp" of a 1960s English novel
• 4 male authors, 8 female
• and we made it to the brew pub every day.

Nibbles and bits

Ahoy, mateys - just a quickie today.

Great (if underlyingly sad) news - the final three episodes of Pushing Daisies are actually going to see the light of day! They'll air on consecutive Saturdays at 10:00 p.m. on ABC: May 30, June 6 and June 13.

In book-related news, I recently finished Stephen King's latest collection of short stories, Just After Sunset. Not his best collection and some the stories seemed to be echoing prior works, but I do love me some Stephen King regardless.

I am sorry to say that Friend Mouse Speaks is not recession-proof: although Season 2 of True Blood starts back up on HBO on June 14, I will not be recapping it since I've cancelled my HBO subscription. It sucks (little vampire joke there for you) because I do like the show quite a lot - much cleverer, more sophisticated and gothic than the source books, the first of which I am reading right now and, must confess, am thinking "meh" - and I will certainly be scooping up the S2 DVDs for viewing/recapping purposes when they come out. 'Til then, I'm guessing you can get your TB recap fix over at TWOP. (Their recaps are superdetailed and way longer so make sure you've got plenty of time).

Finally, tomorrow is The Last Ski Day of the Season for the Mouses and, by gum, I hope there's enough snow that we can ski until 11:30 a.m. when the brewpub opens.

Bacon bits

I recently heard the question "has bacon jumped the shark?" Horrified, I hit the interwebs and found that yes, some people are tired of all the recent bacon press. This, to me, is just proof that aliens walk amongst us.

I, obviously, believe that you can never have too much bacon:

Bacon Today has a recent post about bacon paintings.

My Cuzzin Hannah let me know that she tried a rauchbier at Chuckanut Brewery (Bellingham, WA) and it had a definite essence of bacon - and so she thought of me. How sweet!

In support of this, Friend of the Blog Kevin C. found a link to an article on rauchbiers, described as “liquid bacon,” just as my cuzzin said. He also checked out BeerAdvocate and found a review for an actual "bacon beer" on tap at the Front Street Ale House / San Juan Brewing Co. in Friday Harbor (also in WA - I'm beginning to think that Washington State is a haven for bacon-lovers).

Friend of the Blog Jessica R. recently had fantastic eggs drizzled with bacony goodness for breakfast at the Front Room.

And now, after all of this, I have a wicked craving for a BLT. Off to the kitchen!

V is for Vacation Mouse

"So, Friend Mouse," you say, "just where were you that you couldn't possibly get last week's Heroes and Lost recaps up on time*?" Well, I'll tell you: I went on a family vacation to a tiny, unspoiled, gorgeous Caribbean island. And by "tiny" I mean "has only 1.5 towns and two grocery stores," by "unspoiled" I mean "there are no golf courses and the dogs, roosters and horses roam freely in the streets of the 1.5 towns," by "gorgeous" I mean "gorgeous" and by "Caribbean" I mean "you take a regular-sized plane to Puerto Rico and then you take the smallest plane you've ever been on to another island."

So let me tell you how my week broke down.

Books. I read five books: The Alienist by Caleb Carr (which I'd read before but just love-love-love so I read it again); Q is for Quarry by Sue Grafton; The Brethren by John Grisham (pretty light-weight even for a Grisham book, frankly); Welcome to the World, Baby Girl by Fannie Flagg; and Sleepers by Lorenzo Carcaterra (now I have got to see the movie again - what a story).

Bug Bites. Between the mosquitos and the sand fleas I lost count at 50+. But after I commandeered the mosquito bed net from the Mouse parents (and they weren't getting mosquito-bit, so don't get all elder-abuse on me - jeesh), and stopped walking on the neighborhood beach at dusk, I was new-bite-free for the remainder of the trip. Good news: the island mosquitos don't itch. Bad news: the sand fleas do.

Booze. We put away a case of beer (Medalia Medalla Light, yo!) and a bottle of rum a day, plus an additional six bottles of wine and a pitcher of sangria. Not bad consumption for the six of us, although one adult would only take a sip of beer and then hand off the can to someone else, and the 2 1/2 year old had hardly any at all.

Beaches. There is absolutely nothing to do on this island except go to the beach and snorkel, go to the beach and read or go to the beach and swim in the turquoise waters. La Lanchita was the local beach for Sunday; Caracas and Playuela on Monday; Sombe, Media Luna and Navio Tuesday; Blue Beach and Playa Plata on Wednesday; Green (great shelling) and Mosquito Pier (good snorkeling) on Thursday; and back to Caracas on Friday.

I am not joking - this was a definite stress-detoxification vacation. I mean, this place is mellow. The locals are friendly but interested in doing their own things; the ex-patriate population is in the 50-70 year age range; there is one t-shirt shop. It was fantastic - so much so that some in our group are seriously considering buying some property there.

But no, I'm not going to come out and tell you what island it was: in the event that real estate does get bought, I want to be able to mooch off my relatives without having this little paradise spoiled if the unwashed masses have discovered it. (If you really, really want to know, send me an email and I'll reply with links and everything).

And to the taxi driver who told us that alcapurrias were so delicious ... you were right. Thank you!

* You will note, however, that I busted my tail and got completely caught up before this week's Heroes ep. So, kudos to me.

Desert oases

The mouse is back in the house, y'all! Thanks eversomuch for your patience: Mr. Mouse and I just had to get away for a bit. And what's the exact opposite of the humid Maine coastline? The arid Utah desert ... so that's where we went. Temperatures were higher than normal (mid-90s to low-100s in the deserts and the valleys; high 70s to mid-80s in the mountains) but since the humdity was around the 18% range, it truly wasn't that bad. I mean, 100+ is definitely hot but any sweat evaporates immediately, keeping you cool(-ish) and dry. Dehydration is an issue at those temperatures but we were careful and I think I drank more water than I ever have in my life. I also drank a really lot of beer, and have some new places to tell you about!



Moab Brewery, Moab, Utah. Moab is a small mellow town in the southeast of the state. It's full of outdoors outfitters as it's a jumping-off place for mountain-biking, hiking, rafting, OHVing (off-highway vehicles, a/k/a ATVs, dirt bikes and 4x4s), etc. We hiked in Arches National Park and along the Slickrock mountain bike trail, and took our rental Ford Fusion off-road in the La Sal National Forest ... ultimately getting lost and finding ourselves in the John Brown Canyon in Gateway, Colorado. Since Moab is a tourist-destination there are a ton of restaurants and bars, including the Moab Brewery which we went to twice. Mr. Mouse liked the Scorpion Pale Ale (not too hoppy); I tried the Deadhorse Ale (a traditional English mild ale) and the Derailleur Ale (amber). I do wish I'd tried the stout as it looked excellent, but it was just too damn hot outside to consider. The food is pretty good too: a typical brewpub menu with strong Tex-Mex tendencies.



Porcupine Pub & Grille, Salt Lake City. After hiking at the Albion campground above the Alta ski resort - up to a gorgeous little mountain lake surrounded by incredible wildflowers - we were exceedingly parched and had to stop at the Porcupine to recover. While not in fact a brewpub, they have 24 beers on tap and specialize in Utah's local suds, featuring brews from Moab, Squatter's, Red Rock, Rooster's, Wasatch, Park City and Uinta breweries. I had more Deadhorse ale (Moab) while Mr. Mouse quaffed some Uinta Cutthroat Pale Ale; we weren't terribly hungry but did try a cup of gazpacho and a bowl of chorizo and black bean soup, both of which were quite good but less spicy than we had hoped. The Porcupine is a great space, located at the mouth of Big Cottonwood Canyon (the road to Brighton and Solitude ski areas) and well-attended by both locals and tourists.

Desert Edge Brewery at the Pub, Salt Lake City. Located in funky Trolley Square, the upscale shopping center and national historical register site, this brewpub/restaurant has exceedingly uncomfortable barstools (designed so that you don't linger too too long, I presume) but good beer and food. We had fresh and tasty burritos and washed them down with pale and amber ales, respectively. The barstaff's t-shirts read "3.2 and proud of it" which is a reference to the low alcohol content of Utah beers; for those of us visiting from out of town, 3.2 means you can drink more before the buzz kicks in - which is not necessarily a bad thing when you're sipping tasty micros.

Note: the last picture is "Owachomo," the oldest bridge at Natural Bridges National Monument. Check out that blue sky.

Hellboy II - mini-review

After mowing the lawn and being a Girl Friday while Mr. Mouse painted the ceiling of half our downstairs today, I decided to treat myself to an afternoon of Hellboy II. I met friends of the blog HB and Rob at the Cinemagic Grand for a 4:50 p.m. show, getting there early enough to partake in a frosty pre-preview refreshment; I was pleasantly surprised to discover that there is pretty good beer at the Cinemagic - Sebago Brewing's Riptide Red and IPA, a Hefeweisen and one other that I don't remember. The barkeep was brand new and very nervous: his hand was shaking so much that I thought he was going to drop my IPA, which would have been very bad indeed.

Rob not only bought all our tickets in advance, he also got the reserved seats so we could all (six of us) sit together. That's a nice option because there's been many a time when we've rolled into a theater right before showtime and ended up sitting in random single seats all across the auditorium. It wasn't really necessary for this showing - not that many people there - but a good thought regardless.

Hellboy II is about what you would expect: lots of monsters, kittens, insubordination, fisticuffs, property damage. The monsters are absolutely amazing - Guillermo del Toro has the freakiest imagination ever. At one point Hellboy, Abe Sapien and Johann Krauss (a ghost contained in a diving suit, voiced by Mr. Family Guy himself, Seth McFarlane) are wending their way through the Troll Market under the east end of the Brooklyn Bridge and there are seemingly hundreds of different kinds of creatures, large and small, winged and fanged and most of them with eyes in places you wouldn't expect. I've read that a lot of the creatures are practical effects, not so much CGI, and it really makes a difference in the realism. Or, you know, as real as a bunch of trolls can be.

One nice difference from the first movie is that Doug Jones, who plays Abe, gets to use his own voice instead of just being a body for David Hyde Pierce. I thought DHP was fine in the first movie but it was a little distracting to hear Niles Crane's voice coming out of a six-foot tall fish-man. Jeffrey Tambor's character was annoying and a bit distracting, as was the ghostly Krauss: Hellboy doesn't do well with authority figures. We get it.

In retrospect, I wish I'd rewatched the first one before going to see this sequel. Not that I needed reminding of the mythology but because I think I liked the first one better and I'm not sure why. I seem to recall it being a little cleverer dialogue-wise, and Liz had more to do. Hellboy II is visually magnificent, however, and if you go into it already a fan I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Where the Wild Things Were

Mr. Mouse and I spent this past Memorial Day weekend at a wedding on Massachusetts’s Cape Ann. The wedding itself took place on Good Harbor Beach in Rockport; the reception was in Gloucester-proper, overlooking a stunning view of the harbor. Since it was a Sunday afternoon wedding, we had plenty of time Saturday and early Sunday to explore the area, which was nice since I don’t recall ever spending much time on the North Shore (despite living and working for three years in Boston in my mid-20s).

Gloucester is still very much a working town (three times we drove by the Crow’s Nest of The Perfect Storm fame notoriety, trying to work up the nerve to go in for a beer – never happened) but the surrounding beaches are great although with limited parking for most of them. We did find a very local and very friendly place for beer and lunch: the Rhumb Line.

Salem and Marblehead are much more visitor-oriented. Mr. Mouse and I spent a good deal of time walking around both of these towns. We opted not to visit the witch museums in Salem but did find time for a couple of beers (of course) at Salem Beer Works. Marblehead was my favorite: while the truly spectacular mansions rise above the ocean out on Marblehead Neck, I loved the jumble of lovely old (as in mid-1700s old) homes on the mainland.

The real excitement of the weekend, however, was back at our hotel as it was completely overrun by the Northeast Unschooling Conference … or as Mr. Mouse more aptly put it, the Society of Feral Children. These “unschoolers” are families who choose to home-school their children; a bumper sticker in the parking lot read, “Grades are for meat and eggs, not children.”

Evidently discipline is not for children either. They were everywhere: screaming and running barefoot through the corridors and hotel lobby; swarming the pool (which another hotel guest swore had turned yellow –eeeuuuuwww!); playing in the elevators. We watched several little girls being fed their dinner in the bar at 10:30 p.m.; one of them actually fell asleep with her face in her chicken fingers.

The hotel staff were saints, to say the least. The front desk manager repeatedly asked the children to stop running through the lobby – to no avail. The hotel corridors were filled with trays as room service valiantly attempted to keep up with demands for dessert five minutes before the kitchen was to close. The bartender had to ask a child not to lie on the floor in front of the doors into the hotel kitchen. Best (or worst) of all was when one of these children BIT a waitress and, at the young woman’s complaint, the parent just said, “Oh, he does that all the time.” Nice.

Hopefully these unschooled folks were not representative of the greater home-schooling community, because I really can’t see that these parents were doing their children any favors. Sure, encouraging creativity is great. But these kids seemed under-socialized, undisciplined and completely ill equipped to exist in a world other than their own home. I don’t know - it was all pretty much appalling but at least we got a story out of it.

Northern Utah Brew Tour

As an East Coast microbrew drinker and confirmed beer snob, I was understandably concerned before my recent trip to northern Utah; the Beehive State is well-known for its arcane alcohol laws, as influenced by the omnipresent Church of Latter Day Saints. I needn’t have worried. The greater Salt Lake City area runs foamy with tasty brews.

The Red Rock Brewing Company, at 254 South 200 West, in Salt Lake City, was our introduction to Utah brewpubs. Since it was cold and rainy that day, I started with the Oatmeal Stout, mild and more porter-like than stout, and then had a mellow Nut-Brown Ale with my lunch, the spinach, bacon and too rich Gruyere cheese pizza special. Mr. Mouse first had a pint of the inoffensive Amber Ale and then moved on to the much superior IPA Junior, so called because it has less alcohol than a non-Utahan IPA. He also had a pizza (pepperoni) and we both agreed that the pizza crusts could have been thinner and crispier.

I think my favorite brewpub of the trip had to be Squatter’s Pub Brewery, on 147 West Broadway in Salt Lake City, just around the corner from the Red Rock. On our first visit, stopping for beer-consumption only, I had the Emigration Amber Ale, which was nice and not too hoppy, while Mr. Mouse tried their Full Suspension Pale Ale. This is an excellent pale ale, extremely drinkable. The second visit to Squatter’s was a few days later on our last night in Utah, and we decided to eat as well as imbibe. The Chasing Tail Golden ale, darker than most golden ales and with plenty of hops, went very nicely with my chile-rubbed ahi tacos (served with chile verde, pureed black beans and innocuous yellow rice). Mr. Mouse had the jambalaya, to which he added some of my chile verde for a needed extra kick, and washed it down with more pale ale. I wish I hadn’t been too full to try the Captain Bastard’s Oatmeal Stout which looked delicious and was recommended by the local guy sitting next to us.

Roosters Brewing Company and Eatery, on historic 25th Street in Ogden, was the third stop on our northern Utah brew tour. We ordered the Polygamy Pale Ale, which was too hoppy for Mr. Mouse’s taste, and the Two-Bit Amber, which is a fine if unremarkable, red ale. We both went with the specials for dinner: the chicken chimichangas which had a lot of flavorful shredded chicken wrapped in crispy flour tortilla packages, and the chicken cordon bleu, also reported as very tasty.

The Wasatch Brew Pub and Eatery in swanky Park City is partnered with Squatter’s as the Utah Brewer’s Cooperative and, as such, shares an offsite brewery and bottling facility. I had the seasonal pumpkin ale, which was strongly but not overwhelmingly spiced, accompanied by the fish tacos with beer-battered cod, shredded cabbage, tomatoes and pico de gallo. Mr. Mouse went with the Evolution Amber Ale and the chipotle chicken enchiladas, which could have been a little hotter chile-wise.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the two excellent saloons that we also found: the Shooting Star and the No Name. Utah's oldest continually operated saloon (built in 1879), the Shooting Star in Huntsville, is packed to the ceiling with antiques, knickknacks, old photographs and a stuffed and mounted St. Bernard’s head; the 72-year old proprietress was on-site and very friendly. The taps pour only Budweiser, Bud Light and Coors, but there is an impressive selection of bottled beer, including the very good local Cutthroat Ale. The No Name Saloon, on historic Main Street in Park City, is similarly filled with old stuff and the antique building itself is incredible with high ceilings, vaulted brick ovens and a gorgeous wooden bar. We managed to grab one seat at the crowded bar – when its former occupant got up to play on the indoor shuffleboard court - and each had a Cutthroat Ale, this time on tap.

Greater Salt Lake City’s microbreweries produce outstanding beers, far better than might be expected. With only four of Utah’s twelve brewpubs visited during my trip, I have reason to return to see if the rest of the state’s suds are equally as enjoyable.

How the West Was Won(derful)

After a nearly two hour departure delay, and then an additional delay getting out of Chicago, we finally touched down in Salt Lake City around 12:30 a.m. on Saturday. We picked up our rental car – no wimpy Suzuki this time – Mustang, baby! – we checked into the posh (not) Airport Hotel Inn for a few hours of sleep. We got our free breakfast (bacon, eggs, hash browns and toast) and hit the road. The rainy, foggy, cold, 40-degree road. Unbelievable weather this day. The mountains, when we could glimpse them through the fog, were covered in snow. We had the heat and defrost on in the Mustang pretty much all day as we toured SLC and its various neighborhoods, reveling in the easily-navigable gridded streets.

Before we’d left on our trip, we’d seen an ad for the PBR’s next-to-last regular season event … in SLC! So we stopped by the E Center and managed to get tickets for that night’s final. (I love the PBR: the cowboys are wicked cute and also completely insane to do what they do for a living.) We also grabbed a hotel room right next to the arena in scenic West Valley City so we wouldn’t have far to go after the event. After a late lunch at the Red Rock Brewing Company (in downtown SLC) and an after lunch additional beer at Squatter’s (the Salt Lake Brewing Company, just around the corner from the Red Rock), we watched Aussie Brendon Clark out-ride the biggest names in the PBR (Justin McBride, Mike Lee, JW Hart, Guillermo Marchi, Adriano Moraes, et al.) on the rankest bulls. We stopped by The Puck, A Bar, for a post-PBR beverage (not PBR, thank you very much). TPAB is one of SLC’s private clubs for members only; folks like us can still drink there by buying a temporary (3-week/$4) membership. Utah’s alcohol laws are a little strange but not insurmountable.

Sunday dawned clear (yay!) and cold (frost on the Mustang). We consulted the handy Insider’s Guide to Salt Lake City and found a most excellent place for breakfast, Ruth’s Diner in Emigration Canyon: huevos rancheros, great coffee and gigantic homemade biscuits. Fantastic! After gorging ourselves, we made a beeline for the Bonneville Salt Flats, an amazing otherworldly place, and while there, we discovered that the Mustang can easily do 110+ mph (don’t tell Budget). We stopped along the shore of the Great Salt Lake on the way back to check out the State Marina and the Saltair, the remains of a lakeside resort. We then headed east, up a canyon, to Huntsville, home of the most excellent Shooting Star Saloon (complete with a stuffed St. Bernard head) and snowy Snowbasin ski resort - both locations adorned with Sugarloaf stickers! We got a motel room in Ogden and had dinner at Rooster’s Brew Co. & Eatery on Historic 25th Street.

After continuing our breakfast streak at the No Frills Diner (I had sausage gravy and biscuits – mmmmmm), we went to Antelope Island, the state park in the middle of the Great Salt Lake. Antelope Island is 26,000 acres, well-mountained and full of bison, pronghorn antelope, bighorn sheep and coyotes. (The coyotes look quite well-fed: there are also many wild rabbits, apparently.) We spent several hours on the Island, including a fair amount of time at the Garr Ranch, the oldest ranch in the state and probably the one with the most gorgeous view of the Wasatch Mountains, glistening white across the Lake. Our next stop was Park City, as glitzy and over the top as Snowbasin was mellow. We toured the Olympic Center where the freestyle aerials, bobsled/luge and ski jumping events took place in the ’02 Winter Games, then we car-toured the three area ski resorts: the Canyons, Deer Valley and Park City Resort. These places are huge and decadent, piled high with glamorous condos. The trails look pretty dang impressive too. We strolled up and down historic Main Street in Park City, stopping to admire the Town Lift – from sidewalk to slope, no waiting! – and then stopping for a beer at the outstanding No Name Saloon. Dinner was at the Wasatch Brewpub. Pumpkin ale is in season!

Tuesday morning was warm and sunny, so we headed to Provo (meh) where we found the best bacon (and also some eggs) at the very local Nate’s Diner. It was rather apparent that we were not locals; at least the food was warm if the other patrons’ glances were not. With full bellies, we delved into the Uinta National Forest, taking a 35-mile scenic drive alongside the impressive and snowy Mt. Nebo, complete with views of a recent forest fire, a mini-Bryce Canyon, plenty of road cows and Lake Utah. After a little misdirection, we found the road into Little Cottonwood Canyon and our route to Alta and Snowbird. Mr. Mouse was thrilled to learn that Alta had gotten 20 inches of snow on the day we arrived in Utah; we could see that folks had been hiking up and skiing down, tracks crisscrossing the trails. I really liked the laid-back vibe at Alta and Snowbird (as well as at Snowbasin). These places really seem like people come here to SKI, not shop or party or be part of the scene like the Park City resorts. Later, since this was our last night in SLC, we splurged a little and stayed at the old-fashioned and fairly luxurious Little America Hotel in downtown. And, since there was no reason to break our streak of brewpubs, we walked back to Squatter’s, this time to eat (jambalaya for Mr. Mouse and fish tacos with chile verde for me) as well as to enjoy their brews.

We discovered our final Utah diner in the Cheap Eats section of a city magazine – The Other Place, where I had amazing scrambled eggs with feta cheese, tomatoes and onions – then finally walked all through Temple Square, admiring the Temple, the Tabernacle, the Beehive House and the statue honoring the Utah state bird, the seagull. Yeah, you heard me: the seagull. I come from Maine, where gulls are sneaky, mean, disgusting garbage-eaters. In Utah, however, they are revered for having devoured a plague of crickets that was about to decimate the Mormons’ crops. There’s a golden statue in Temple Square and everything. I have no words.

After exploring the Square, we were out of time. We brought the Mustang back to the rental place; we waited while our plane was delayed some hours out of SLC, and then more hours out of Chicago; we got home and fell into bed around 2:30 a.m. And that was our not-too wild, wild Western trip. Utah is very cool. I can’t wait to go back – there’s a lot more to see.