What to love about Utah

Okay, I'm not a native Utahn, and never actually dreamed that I would live here post college. But I practically married Mr. Utah :) and we don't have any current plans to leave (despite horrendous begging and nagging on my part to return to the motherland). I'll be honest, there are many times that I have a poor attitude about living so far from my family and from where I grew up. I have been trying to work on this and in my mind have started to keep a mental list of things that I do love about Utah. I want to document this growing list, so I'm going to keep track of the things that I love about Utah as I think about them on the blog. These are not in any order.

Number one: I love the mountains. When I first moved here to go to BYU 14 years ago (I'm that old???), my first reaction to the mountains were that they were in the way and I couldn't see my beloved horizon. Tonight we went up Millcreek Canyon to see the leaves and it was so green and the leaves had begun to turn colors, and lush and there was a gurgling stream. I have soo missed the green surrounds of Minnesota and don't get to see much of that here in Salt Lake, but going up into the canyon provided me with a small respite of green, and I was so grateful. I bought a season pass and hope to frequent it more with hikes, snowshoeing, cross country skiing, running and more.

Number two: NPS. It's this junky, flea market type setting where you can find the most amazing deals. Apparently they are a "freight salvage" store, meaning they get their products from any misdirected freight. Okay, what does that mean? I'm not sure, but truly they get major name brands, Pottery Barn, name brand clothing and shoe lines, you name it they've got it. Everything is priced at about half it's retail value, and then they'll regularly have things advertised at 40% off that price. It's amazing, my heart starts pumping just writing about it. :) It's a pretty dangerous place, I try not to go there too much, I've got a budget to stick to! That will have to be it for tonight, but I will continue on as there are already many things that I do love about Utah.