My Fair Lady - Salt Lake City Part 3

Thursday, I could hear cars making that "swish" sound through rain, and knew it would be an indoor kind of day.

View from hotel:


It rained on and off all day, and was about 15 degrees cooler than it had been all week.
And anyway, I didn't want to spend any more money on outings and food here.
Many more cities coming up, and some expensive trips back and forth to Orlando.

So I slummed around and watched misc anime and shows, ate my food, did a little research for Christmas presents, that sort of thing. I even had a little nap! Wow.

Then it was time for the show, which went just fine, nothing to report. We've had good crowds all week too.

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Friday was my stepmom's birthday so we chatted a bit via text, and I ate breakfast and goofed off for a while before heading out to see if I could find some circus memories. For whatever reason I never took photos of the actual city while we were here with the circus...perhaps because we didn't have a lot of time to explore (some show schedules were like that.) But now I certainly do have the time.

On the was was Vosen's Bread Paradise, and with a name like that you just gotta stop in.


They had beautiful pastries on display which I didn't photograph because the glare on the glass was something else, but some of their treats were on the shelves including these house-baked stollen!! I wanted one so badly!!


They also had shelves of German and European imports: candies, chocolates, advent calendars, cookies, pastas, canned goods, teas, and loads more.


After a lot of indecisiveness because I suddenly wanted to buy Christmas presents for my entire family RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW, I managed to walk out with nothing more than a pretzel; a kipferl roll; a bag of herbed sweets; a digestif; a marzipan pig for Jameson; and pistachio Mozart bar for Jameson.

Here are the herb candies, which according to the ingredients seem to be sage, liquorice, plantain (not the banana), gentian, fennel, peppermint, anise, claret (grape), and marshmallow root-flavored. Whether they actually taste good or not, I couldn't resist how beautiful they looked.


The kipferl bread, which looks like it ought to be some sort of Xena Warrior Princess weapon!


Kipferl (also know by like eighteen other names) is plain yeast bread dough rolled into a crescent. It's an extremely common roll found in almost every country in Europe. Despite the fact that it's plain bread, not enriched or laminated, because of it's shape the kipferl is believed to be the possible inspiration for the croissant. I bought it because it looks cool; it tastes like literal plain white bread lol.

I've packed the digestif already but it's a tiny bottle of Underberg, stock image below. I had never heard of it but was fascinated by the thought of an herbal liquor--88 proof at that!--that can be sold in the US (and in Salt Lake City of all places!) without a liquor license! My plan is to bring it home and split it with Jameson (just wanting to try it, not necessarily reap the benefits of downing the full shot)


Well that was fun! Continuing on, I reached Union Pacific Depot, once a train station and now a shopping mall.


I remember it well because it's directly across from the Delta arena where we performed the circus each day:


The train yard is about 1.5 miles away from here, plus actually getting into the yard (I remember it took a while because it's a big yard and our train was buried deeply in there.) I started walking toward the yard, remembering. We visited Salt Lake while Jameson and I had just started dating, and we would walk to and from the yard together. I remember the route well, and even recall that there was an "easier" way into this yard a few blocks before the main entrance but we weren't allowed to take it because it was across active light rail tracks...and of course we'd still sneak across to save 10 minutes of walking :p I knew I wouldn't be able to get anywhere near the train yard today for pure safety reasons, plus it was a longer walk than I wanted to take today, so I stopped partway at the Utah Opera building (I remember walking past it daily and seeing people with music folios coming and going.)


Ultimately this was a walk to nowhere. But any time it's possible, I like to try and revisit these routes--these archived maps in my head--that lead to my home and my place in the world, that no longer exists. Physically coming to these places and retracing my steps from my past circus life is a way of honoring, remembering, and even mourning that which has come and gone and will never come again. These small pilgrimages are my way of showing that the path home is engraved forever on my heart.

So far I have been able to do this here, and in Kansas City, Providence, and Lexington, and sort-of in Hartford too.

Sappy trip down Memory Lane complete, I hoofed it to Harmon's for a cheap hot bar lunch and some boiled eggs for the weekend (out of proteins too) before dumping it all back at the hotel.

At which point our French horn player announced that she's got covid.
Gotta say...she is having a ROUGH start to this tour year between her earlier medical issue and now this.
She'll be out of the show for five days, fortunately that's only 4-5 shows potentially missed since it's over a travel weekend.
Our music coordinator somehow found a sub for the weekend, so she was there for our show, and we all showed up sporting masks and hand sanitizer. The show went well, the sub sightread beautifully (some mistakes but this is a VERY tough show for horn, she did AMAZING!)

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Saturday I woke up to a barrage of texts, one from Jameson to say he may not be able to pick me up from the airport, one from our cellist who had some recommendations for foodie finds in Madison, and a notification from Delta about checking in for my flight. OK, everybody, jeez :p

I told Jameson it was no big deal and we'd just wing it and see when I landed vs when he'd be available tomorrow.
I added our cellist to Foodie Finds and asked her to share her recs in the group, or said I'd add some to my recommendation sheet depending on how far away they are (we have a busy schedule in Madison and I suspect people won't have time to travel far from downtown.)
And I checked in for my flight, and reserved a taxi instead of an Uber because I don't trust Uber to show up at 4am.

All of that done, I got to get out of bed haha.
A covid test before breakfast because I had a lot of postnasal drip and my eyes feel very itchy (neither of which are really covid symptoms but you never know) and it came back negative.

Our first show of the day at 2pm, which went all right considering we've got a sub.
Between shows, back to the hotel to eat my leftovers and pack as much as I could since I have to fly to Orlando tomorrow.
Bringing some heavier items to the theatre to store in the band box so I don't have to fly them home (my black boots, MFL sweater, food scale, umbrella, etc.)
And the evening show at 8pm.

There was a wall tag to sign...my first one for this tour.


The show went well, though I felt distracted and tired already just thinking about what lies ahead for me the next 36 hours (very little sleep, that's what.) Afterward I packed up as quickly as I could, bringing the trombone to my hotel room. I packed all of my stuff and weighed my luggage (48 pounds that's cutting it close!) and tried to fall asleep as fast as I could!

I probably won’t have time to post about the 36-hour Disney whirlwind while it’s happening, so let’s end this post here :)