Saturday, September 17

We got up and out early this morning to go see the annual hot air balloon launch near the high school.  Since we went right past a Starbucks, a stop was in order.  Fortunately the weather wasn't too cold (about 45), so standing around outside was OK.  There must have been about 18-20 balloons, some of them in animal shapes and, since Wells Fargo was a prominent sponsor, there was even one shaped like a stagecoach.  That one only went up a few hundred feet before coming back down.  But the others went up and all over the place.  There were probably a couple of thousand people there.  We came back to the unit for breakfast and then decided to go higher into the mountains to hike around Silver Lake this afternoon.  Again, we did a little walking around town before having lunch to fortify us for the hike.  It was warm enough to sit outside and I had a delicious gumbo with corn bread that had a little heat to it.  Glad I didn't have another jalapeno beer with it.  Michael had cracklings and potato soup.  We've seen fried pickles on menus here, although I thought those were a southern thing.  So after lunch we headed up into the mountains.  The fall colors are coming out already and the scenery is amazingly beautiful.  The road to the hike was quite curvy and at times very narrow with steep dropoffs and no guard rails.  We encountered a lot of traffic and when we finally got to the trail head we saw why.  It was in the middle of another ski resort town (Brighton) and it seemed everyone was there to take advantage of a last weekend of good weather.  When we couldn't find a place  to park, we decided to try the hike another day and took the longer but faster route around the mountain back to Salt Lake City and home.  Then it was time to catch the last bit of the Oregon Ducks game and play some more on the family tree website before a light dinner of chicken and salad at home.  Don and Brenda are on a short walk again now and then we'll all head to the hot tub for a while.  Another beautiful, laid back day in Utah.