Photo credit: Steve Griffin, Salt Lake Tribune
The SOAR Blog didn’t give Real Salt Lake due attention and praise when the team won the Major League Soccer championship in the spring, but that doesn’t mean SOAR isn’t incredibly proud of its home team for bringing the State of Utah a professional sports championship title for the first time in 40 years.
It seems fitting that the influence of professional soccer in Utah, and in the United States, was recognized today by President Barak Obama in a brief ceremony honoring Real Salt Lake team at the White House. Joe Biden wasn’t there- he is heading up the contingency representing the U.S. at the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa which is now less than a week away. One of Real Salt Lake’s players, Robbie Findley, will play with the U.S. team, which is a contender against Algeria, England and Slovenia.
Professional soccer is too often overlooked by North American spectators. World Cup engenders even more global enthusiasm than the Olympics in some regard- except in the United States. There are books, classes, experts, lectures galore on the global significance of “footy,” so I won’t belabor the topic here. We’re glad that with all of the other matters our presidency has to attend to that it would recognize the athletic power coming out of Salt Lake City and the importance of the World Cup.
Any chance Obama will vie for World Cup 2018 to be in the U.S. like he did for the Olympics? (2014 is already scheduled to be in Brazil).
See the Salt Lake Tribune article here
Our "Best Of Utah" Route
I was skeptical moving away from my California paradise to the arid and hot and cold Utah desert. But this red rock, Wasatch state has proven itself in the year that I have lived here. This past weekend Utah re-wowed me as I spent three days taking my parents up and down Eastern Utah for their first visit. You could call it a “best of trip,” starting with mole at Salt Lake’s Red Iguana (killer Mexican food, really). The folks had fun with the Utah altitude hiking up to the Timpanogos Caves, driving through Castle County to Arches National Park, seeing Delicate Arch that graces the Utah license plate, riding the chair lift at Sundance and poking around art galleries in Park City.
And there are several bests we didn’t have time to do, like float down the Provo River, make our way through slot canyons, eat Navajo Tacos, snow skiing or sleep under the stars.
So, I’m living proof that you can drive nearly 600 miles in one weekend with your parents and finish the trip happy…as long as you have a group of adventurous spirits and an amazing state like Utah to tour.
While attending the first annual Salt Lake Bicycle Summit this weekend, I had the chance to meet the fabulous Tara Mckee, organizer of the 2009 Cycle Style Show-Salt Lake City.
The Cycle Style Show is a local outdoor fashion show that will show off functional and fashionable commuter cycling clothing and accessories (see preview here), in action, on some really cool commuter-friendly bikes.
Whether attendees currently commute into town for work, to shop, to hang with friends or (gasp!) do not ride a bike at all, this show is sure to inspire folks to dust off the bikes in their garage and get out on a bike this summer.
The Cycle Style Show is Friday, May 15 at 7 p.m. at the Gallivan Center in SLC. Hope to see you there!
Courtney enjoys the signs of Spring on the Electra Amsterdam with the tulip design
Life is too short to be taken seriously all the time.
In that regards, major kudos to Sean Sullivan, the 215-pound senior wrestler from Wasatch High School in Heber, Utah, who strode into the spotlight on Saturday prior to the finals match at the state wrestling championship tournament held at Utah Valley University wearing a luchador mask. (And yes, Sullivan won, pinning Delta High School’s Spencer Nielson in the first period to win the title for the second year in a row.)
According to Dictionary.com, luchador is the Spanish word for a wrestler, and it takes its name from the spanish term “lucha libre,” which means, literally “free wrestling.” Lucha libre defines the high-flying form of professional wrestling made popular in Mexico and parodied in the 2006 Jack Black film Nacho Libre.
Thanks to award-winning photographer Trent Nelson for sending me a copy of this photo to use in this blog post. Trent works for the Salt Lake Tribune, and more of his work can be on the SLTribune’s photo blog here. You can also check out Trent’s Fly on the Wall blog here or The Click, Trent’s personal blog about photography here.
So from one wrestler to another (105s and 115s in 1972 and 1973 at San Carlos High School in California), congrats Sean. 
Officially, winter is close to two weeks away. But when I look out my front window and spy close to a foot of fresh snow in my yard here in Sandy, Utah, I know that winter is here whether the calendar says so or not.
Yup, during the past 36-48 hours Northern Utah has gotten slammed by a major storm that dumped as much as two to three feet of powder at local resorts.
For example, Snowbird Ski and Summer Resort now has 48 inches at mid-mountain. Alta Ski Resort reports 54 inches at the base, while Deer Valley has a base of 42 inches.
Who knows? Maybe this will be the year our multi-year drought in Utah gets knocked out cold. All I know for sure is that it’s right time to be living where we have “The Greatest Snow on Earth.”
