We flew to Nevada by way of Salt Lake City because, believe it or not, that was one of the closest airports to where we were actually going.  Then we rented a car and drove a day to our final destination - which sounds like a horror movie genre, I know.  Let me assure you that no one accidentally hanged himself with a clothesline or was attacked by a mad dishwasher.... yet. 

On either side of the trip, we spent a day and a half in Salt Lake.  The city's recently gone through a large downtown renovation project and a place I used to know as Crossroads Mall, which was this weird dungeon of an underground shopping center, has been basically demolished and turned into a lovely, open air shopping plaza. 

Especially since The Doormouse missed her last two days of school for this trip, we tried to make this - especially the Salt Lake portion of the trip - into something educational for The Shortlings.  We were all, "Look kids!  Architecture!  Engineering!  Culture!  History!"

And they were all, "Yeah, yeah, whatevs.  FOUNTAINS!!!!"