I was on a schedule to get back to Las Vegas by a certain date to make sure I was there in time to attend an in-person class for one of my continuing ed­u­ca­tion certifications, so I didn’t quite get to spend as much time in Utah as I wanted to. On top of that, I got snowed in for a few days, and also had a few busy days of work at Tempo, so it felt like my stay was a bit shorter than it actually was. Because I had a disproportionately low number of Utah posts, I de­cided to put together a state round-up like I sometimes do.

 
I like to break up my drive as much as possible, so as long as there is a convenient hotel along the way, I’ll try to avoid driving more than a few hours at a time. On my way from Twin Falls to Salt Lake City, I decided to spend a night in Ogden, about an hour or so north of my next destination in the eastern suburbs of Salt Lake City.

After resting up for the night, I finished my way down to the Courtyard by Marriott Salt Lake City Cottonwood in Cottonwood Heights, Utah.

I haven’t been posting hotel room photos as much anymore because I consistently stay in the same franchised brands and all the rooms look very similar, but I figured it’s been long enough that I’d share again what the newer Courtyards look like, and what my temporary “home” in the Salt Lake City met­ro­pol­i­tan area was like.

Earlier this year when I was traveling through Colorado, I encountered some snow but refused to buy a snow brush because I knew that, with my luck, I would only use it once, then it would stop snowing and I would never have to use it again. This proved troublesome, because it snowed quite a bit, so I ended up having to come up with some very creative solutions to remove the snow from my pickup truck every time I needed to drive it somewhere. Still, I remained headstrong, because I knew that the day I bought a snow brush would be the day it stopped snowing for the year.

If I had known that I was staying so long in the Seattle Metropolitan Area and would be headed back down through Idaho and Utah during the late fall, I would’ve bought a snow brush back in March with the assumption that I would be using it in November. However, I didn’t think that far ahead, so I end­ed up just never purchasing a snow brush.

After seeing snow in the Idaho weather forecast, I didn’t want a repeat of what happened in Colorado, so I immediately bought the largest and most expensive snow brush with the most features I could possibly find after arriving in Idaho. That was a wise decision, because the following day, I used my snow brush.

And that’s it. The curse came through. I never had to use my snow brush again after the very first time. Yes, it snowed a lot in Utah, but when it did, I was parked in an underground parking structure. On days when I was at hotels where there was only surface lot parking, it never snowed.

Now I just have an egregiously high-tech snow brush sitting idly in the back seat footwell of my truck.

Never lucky.

Regardless, the view from my hotel room of the snowy mountains were awesome. Here are three different shots from three different days with varying time proximity to the snowstorm and varying amounts of sunlight.

I was actually very surprised at how many electric pickup trucks were in the Salt Lake City metropolitan area—I saw more Rivian R1Ts during my week and a half here than I had seen anywhere else, combined and tripled. I guess that makes sense then that my very first time ever seeing a GMC Hummer EV pickup truck was also here, in the parking lot of my hotel.

I pretty much almost never post photographs of vehicles that are not my own, but I figured I had to post this one because of how much I like the Hum­mer EV, as well as the fact that this had an amazing matte dark red wrap on it, which is probably the exact same color I would pick if I wanted to get my own vehicle wrapped.

I’m not the biggest fan of the bed design of the Hummer EV, because I like the upright blockier style (like my personal pickup truck, a 2018 GMC Can­yon) more than the smoother angle of the C pillar on the Hummer EV, but the overall technology, innovation, functionality, and luxury of the Hum­mer EV immediately made it my favorite new electric pickup truck reveal when it first came out.

On my way back to Las Vegas, I decided to spend a night in St. George, Utah so I wouldn’t be driving for too long in a single day.

Because of my elite status with the Marriott Bonvoy program, I get to pick rewards each qualifying year via the Annual Choice Benefit. Most travel an­a­lysts say that the suite night awards are highest in value, so I always end up picking them. Unfortunately, because I generally stay at select-tier hotels, the suite night awards aren’t as meaningful to me because there usually aren’t very many suites even available at all on the property, and if there are, they’re not that much better in quality than a regular guest room, apart from just being a bit bigger in square footage.

Suite night awards via the Annual Choice Benefit expire in one year, and I have a bunch expiring on December 31, 2022, so in St. George, I decided to stay at a nicer hotel where I could use the suite night upgrade and actually get a big upgrade—the Advenire Hotel, part of the Autograph Collection.

One reason why I avoid nicer hotels, though, is that it actually gets pretty inconvenient. Fairfield Inns, SpringHill Suites, and Residence Inns generally have straightforward building structures, parking is almost always free, and there are multiple entrances for quick access to the interior. However, the fancier you go in hotels, the more inconveniences arise.

For example, at the Advenire, parking was valet-only for US$18.00 per night. If I didn’t want to use valet, I had to either street park or use a structure on the other side of the street. I’ve had way too many bad experiences with valet parking service, and I just don’t like the idea of having valet touch my ve­hi­cle at all to begin with, so I unloaded my stuff at the front and went searching for this off-site parking garage.

Of course, I took the wrong turn three times, proceeded to drive in circles around the wrong city blocks, had to take detours because of streets closed for construction, and the entire time regretted not just staying at a Courtyard or SpringHill Suites only 2-4 miles away.

By around this time last year, I was pretty set on Colorado being my favorite state, and Utah being second. After visiting Montana, those two states got bumped down to #2 and #3, but the sequence of them remained the same.

I think my last visit to Salt Lake City wasn’t very fair, not only because I picked an older, not-so-well-maintained, past-generation Fairfield Inn, but also be­cause I had the broken glasses fiasco that ate up a lot of my time.

After having driven through Utah again at the beginning of this year, and then again recently, I think Utah has caught up to, or maybe even surpassed, Colorado in the ranking. I still think Colorado is amazing, but Utah has more variety to it, while Colorado seems to stick to a “theme.”

If I’m able to stick around in Las Vegas like I want to when I pick a long-term residence again, that would be good news for the sake of visiting Utah a­gain, considering that it is right next door and on the way to anything towards the east.

After two weeks, my stay in Boise, Idaho comes to an end. Unfortunately, I lost a few days to getting food poisoning from eating lobster soup, and an­oth­er few days because I had a small work-related emergency come up that I needed to help resolve immediately, but I still got to go out and explore the cit­y a lot.

The hotel I stayed at was the Fairfield Inn & Suites by Marriott Boise West. It’s a newly-constructed hotel at Town Square, which the locals apparently call “the mall” (because apparently there is only one major mall in Boise). The location was extremely convenient, and I probably would’ve walked a­round the area some more if it wasn’t so cold. There were plenty of restaurants nearby so I could eat something different every day.

Like pretty much all new-generation Fairfield Inns, this hotel was perfectly to my liking. Everything was clean and modern, the desk was nice and large, the breakfast offering was decent, the hot coffee station in the lobby was available 24/7, there was convenient stair and side door access, parking was am­ple, and everything was simple and peaceful (though the walls were a bit thin, so during a few nights, I heard my next door neighbor snoring).

It will probably be a disappointment for people looking for a resort hotel while on vacation, but for a long-term traveler like me, I don’t think I could’ve asked for anything better.

On the day of my arrival, it was a bit rainy, but after I had brought all my stuff inside and set up my workstation, I was welcomed with a nice rainbow.

The day after that, there was some light snowfall. There wasn’t enough for it to accumulate too much on the ground beyond just a thin blanket on the grass, but it was enough to cover the mountains in white.

There was a particular tree that was visible from my hotel room window. It seems to have gotten extremely surprised by the snowfall… so much so, that it for­got to turn its leaves orange prior to dumping all of them onto the ground.

I don’t remember what the context was for this photo, but I imagine I took it because of how interesting the cloud coverage looked. This was during the middle of the day, and the sun was out bright, but the clouds were so thick that it almost felt like it was already the evening.

One of the places I visited that I didn’t write a blog post about was the Boise Art Museum. The reason it didn’t get its own standalone blog post, and is just being bundled into this round-up… is because photography was not permitted. If I had known this, I would’ve just spent the day going to the Idaho State Museum next door instead, but the front desk attendant didn’t tell me about the no-photography rule until after I had already purchased my ticket.

At first, the Boise Art Museum was incredibly underwhelming. There was a ton of neon art, but I wasn’t really able to understand the significance or im­por­tance of it. Shaped neon tube lights are mass-produced, so I’m not sure if I’m just desensitized to it, but it wasn’t particularly impressive. Another strange thing I noticed about the neon section was that some of the descriptions blatantly said that some of the items were purchased off eBay. This tech­ni­cal­ly means that the “art” aspect of it was the juxtaposition of the items, rather than the items themselves…? I wasn’t really able to pinpoint any­thing spe­cial about this exhibit.

After that, there were an insane number of sketches displayed everywhere—I’m talking about probably in the hundreds. They looked like rough drafts that came out of someone’s sketch book, and again, I wasn’t really able to understand why they were special or appealing. Later, I Googled the artist, Jacob Hashimoto; the art I saw pop up on Google Images were visually complex, multi-layered, and overall very awesome. This made me realize that this art museum probably didn’t have the funding to get Hashimoto’s full art pieces, but they still wanted to make an exhibit of his work, so instead, they just put up a ton of his sketches.

The middle section of the art museum was very traditional and just felt like a normal museum—not bad, but also not too revolutionary or inspiring.

Things got a bit better at the end. One of the final exhibits near the back was a recreated piece of Félix González-Torres’, a Cuban-American artist. One of the themes of his art was replenishment and audience participation.

The art museum’s messaging alongside this piece was that, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the community drifted apart due to the quarantines im­ple­mented to minimize the spread of the coronavirus, but now that things have returned to normal, it is time for people to come back together. One of the ways to do this is for visitors to interact with art pieces together. Titled “Untitled,” the art piece was an “endless supply” of individually-wrapped apple-flavored green candies that together form a shape, and visitors were permitted to take a piece of candy.

If you’re a huge fan of art museums, you may like the Boise Art Museum, but if you’re just a general tourist exploring Boise and don’t have unlimited time, I highly recommend visiting something else. It is also very unfortunate that they don’t permit personal photography, so you won’t be able to cap­ture memories and trigger them later in life when you look back at old pictures.

 
Another place I visited that I didn’t write a dedicated blog post about was Ann Morrison Park. I wouldn’t say there was anything particularly stunning about this park, but it was still nice. There were quite a few other people just going for walks or playing with their kids, and the park gave off family-friendly and community-bonding vibes.

The park hugged the Boise River, so I walked a trail alongside the water.

I kept walking down the unnamed trail towards Boise State University, and before entering the campus, I took the Ninth Street Bridge to the other side.

Directly on the other side was the Idaho Anne Frank Human Rights Memorial, which seemed to be either under construction or getting renovations. There were a few monuments that symbolized various aspects of human rights.

After walking around for a bit more, I made my way back to Ann Morrison Park.

Taking a brief intermission for a contextual story… Google Maps has a location sharing feature, and while I was staying long-term with my friend Doug Wreden, I gave him access to my shared location. After I left, I kept his access permission intact so he could see where I was in my travels.

He finds this very amusing, and once in a while, he will text me saying “I hope you are enjoying…” with a particular business name, which usually hap­pens while I am driving and simply just happen to be passing in front of the building (as opposed to actually being at that place).

One day, Doug texted me excitedly telling me to look to my right at “Dog Island.” I, like usual, was just driving past the area, but later on, I looked it up and found the island he was talking about. While returning to my truck from Ann Morrison Park, I decided to make Doug happy and cut through To­geth­er Treasure Valley Dog Island.

Unfortunately, the island wasn’t a real island—it was just a peninsula—but the edge of the peninsula that was connected to the rest of the land was attached directly to a cliff, so it was practically an island. As for why it is called “Dog Island,” it is basically a massive no-leash dog park. You have to open two sets of sequential gates to get in, and they are secured using no-key locks that can only be opened using opposable thumbs, but once you’re in, you’re surrounded by dogs happily running around everywhere and having fun.

I enjoyed my stay in Boise. It isn’t quite as stunning as Canada or some parts of Montana, and it’s not as strange and quirky as where I usually live in Las Vegas, but it’s a solid, well-rounded city, and I can definitely see why so many people have been moving there lately.

There are a lot of interesting things to do (more so than other much bigger cities, it seems), and I feel like I could’ve continued to keep myself occupied with more tourist activities even if I had booked my stay to be an entire month instead of just two weeks. The culture also reminded me a bit of Montana in the sense that the people here were very friendly and had a “be self-sufficient, but also look out for each other” kind of attitude, but it also had a sprin­kle of medium-sized city culture as well.

My stay in Boise doesn’t add another state to my travel map because I had already previously driven through the Idaho panhandle, but it does change I­da­ho from just a drive-through state to a destination state.

Since the last time I posted a copy of my travel map, I also made a few adjustments to Washington—I decided to treat the Seattle Metropolitan Area like I did the San Francisco Bay Area and add more destination pins, considering that a lot of the cities I stayed at were far-enough away from each other that it would sometimes take an hour or more to get back to the city of Seattle.

Next up is a quick stop in Twin Falls, Idaho, then onward to Utah.