A “Silly” Weekend

"The best things in life are silly." (Scott Adams)

Well, it was not really a whole weekend of silliness but Sunday was pretty chuckly!

I have seen this street festival in Park City advertised everywhere ever since I came to UT – it’s called “Park Silly Sunday Market”. And I kept wondering: “Now, how silly can Utah be?! Really!”. True, Park City is not the “mainstream” Utah, it is more hip, with lots of arts and open minded people, lots of hippies and even breweries within less than miles from each other, a tourist town, too, with ski slopes descending right down to Main Street where people from all over the world flock in the winter to get a feel for “the greatest snow on earth”. So, I guess it has some potential for something other than kids and straight up Mormons which we’re seeing around our neighborhood!

But still, this was a Sunday, when everything else is dead in Utah, so, how riotous can it get?! Well, there was only one way to find out. We headed up there and what follows is a sneak peek into what the streets showed us.

Save from some brief comments, I’ll let the pictures tell the story. Hope you find our little journey as silly as it wanted to be.

Out of all the many “silly” puppies at the event, this was my favorite! However cliché this might sound, he was a poster child for Beethoven! Just everything you ever think of a Saint Bernard and then some. All 250 pounds of it!

Book in the window of a store, or … Utah in a nutshell?! Made me smile to picture “lonely” surrounded by 1000 screaming kids!

As explosively delish as this sounds, I like the disclaimer above it better: “All ingredients are organic, in season, local, whenever possible”. I am SO GLAD there are people our there who do not take all this “organic – local – all natural – I am better than you for eating tasteless dirt” mumbo-jumbo so seriously sometimes!

I thought I saw it all a few years back when I had garlic ice cream! But this is a close contender to that. One question though: WHY in the world would you ruin precious, delicious pig with chocolate, pray tell?! Oh, that’s right: ‘just to be silly’, perhaps! *Eye roll and sigh*

Now, I have never tasted “passion” nor “integrity”, but they smelled pretty good!

Well, at least you can’t sue them for false advertising!! – on a T-shirt in a gift store.
*Chuckle-chuckle*

We did have some street food at the festival, as it was mandatory, of course – bbq pork, smoked sausage and corn on the cob lathered in butter. But the true gastronomic win of the day was indoors: Wasatch Brewery (or is it Squatters??? – don’t get me started, it’s confusing!) had this coconut beer (ale) battered shrimp on green papaya (and carrots) salad with red chili aioli. Oh, my God, was it a trip between tastes in your mouth: savory-and-sweet-and-tangy-and-spicy-and-…YEAH!!! The beer find was great, too: they call it “nitro cream ale”, and it has no fizz, it’s almost room temperature and it’s just like drinking a smoothie – VERY creamy!

The above mentioned indoor "feast"

And as everywhere in Utah … there were a lot of short people! All running around getting caught in stranger’s legs, and tripping on even shorter puppies! Whining about the heat, or munching on street fare. Trying to “navigate” the sea of little ones is always my (and not to mention Aa’s) biggest challenge! No, it’s not their fault, it’s the mindless parents, of course! And this is why this sign made my day and was my favorite silly note of the trip. It was like whoever made it heard my pain loud and clear:

“Take them home, now, lady mom and mister pop, sir, and YOU deal with them!”

After walking around in smoldering heat, we sought refuge in the Kimball Art Center which displayed three galleries, of various media (paint, photography, quilting, digital printing, food art etc). I always love checking out local galleries in places I travel, because almost always you find things you would never see anywhere else. The exhibit of various wall hanging quilts was my favorite, but Bridget Conn’s art was truly unusual, and unforgettable, in a skin – crawling, jaw - clenching kind of way, at times.

When I first told people I am moving to Utah, they all told me “Wow! Well, that’s great, but don’t expect much diversity there! It’s all one color in every way”. And weekends like these make me prove them wrong every single time. So much to see, so little time! And despite popular belief: we are lucky to have them so close to us!

Click on the picture to see the whole album of the “Park Silly Sunday Market”.