baby, you're my sunshine

Ahh, the end of a fantastic weekend.

Dusty came to visit :)  We made it a whole five weeks without seeing each other.  Unbelievable, I know ;-)

A rundown of the weekend:
Picked him up from the airport around 11:30 Thursday night.

Friday was pretty relaxed -- we got up fairly early. Dusty had to put in about six to eight hours of work and I was (somewhat) productive with homework.  After a couple hours of work, we drove up into the mountains, an area called Emigration Canyon.  There's a diner up there that I've been wanting to go to forever.  It was on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives awhile back:

It definitely lived up to the hype. I just had to try the biscuits and gravy.  Wow.  Definitely a bit different than what my mom makes.  No sausage in the gravy, but it was flavored with Italian seasoning, I believe.  It had a slight sweetness to it, too.  All over the fluffiest, tallest biscuits I've ever had.


Dust had their fresh asparagus omelet -- oh my, it may have been the best omelet I've ever had.  Asparagus and tomatoes with smoked Gouda cheese, then topped with hollandaise sauce.

Bear Lake, UT/ID

Went out to eat Friday night -- we were going to go to P.F. Chang's, but didn't exactly want to wait the 40 - 50 minutes they said it would take to get a table. And at about 7:30 at night! We ended up going to the Macaroni Grill just down the block.  Delicious, but nothing too exciting since we have those at home, ha.  After dinner, got a bottle of wine and a movie (No Strings Attached = HILARIOUS) and went to bed fairly early.

First Utah liquor store experience was a bit crazy.  First of all, contrary to popular belief, you CAN buy alcohol in Utah -- no need to smuggle it across state lines! However, alcohol laws are somewhat stricter than elsewhere, especially Minnesota.  The big differences: 1. The beer you buy at the bars is 3.2% alcohol. Some bars have full-strength beer, I believe, but you have to ask for it specifically, and it costs a bit more.  2. Grocery stores and places like Target have a fairly good selection of alcohol (as in an entire aisle or even two), but it is only 3.2 beer and similar-strength wine-coolers.  3. The only place you can buy off-sale wine and liquor is at state-run liquor stores.  You can also get full-strength beer there, I think.  There are no privately-owned liquor stores.

When we got to the liquor store, it was crazy busy.  They had three or four cashiers open and probably four or five people waiting in each line.  There were signs all over the door that warned about no minors being in the store.  However, when we got up to the counter to pay for our bottle of wine, the cashier just took a fairly quick glance at my ID and hardly looked at Dusty's.  I don't think he even would have asked for his if he hadn't had it out and handed it to him.  Weird.  At home, especially in St. Cloud, everyone in a group has to show IDs.  Chels, April, Edwina, and I had an interesting experience senior year -- one of the cashiers at a liquor store in St. Cloud wasn't going to let any of us get anything because Edwina's ID was foreign.  I guess I just expected them to be even more strict here.

Saturday...

We took a drive up a canyon in northeast Utah.  The Logan Canyon Scenic Byway.  It ended at this gorgeous lake, Bear Lake, very near the Utah/Idaho border.  The water was an incredible turquoise color and SO clear.  Had a picnic at a beach in the Bear Lake State Park, waded in the water (didn't even think to bring swimsuits), took some pictures, and then headed back to SLC.  Just spent the evening relaxing -- got dinner, ate it at a huge park about four blocks from my apartment and talked about Dusty's experiences with ducks at the golf course he used to work at, ha.

He left early this afternoon.  Definitely a weird feeling -- the weekend went by so fast. Doesn't even feel like he was here.

Now I can officially start my next countdown: 13 days 'til I'm home for fall break!

It's definitely going to be a long two weeks though. So much to do.