MIDWAY UTAH

Janet and I own a time-share up in Midway, Utah. It's in the Heber Valley. We usually trade our week here for a week in Park City. There's really not a lot to do in Midway proper. There are only a few thousand residents, but the weather is cooler and the scenery is greener and prettier than Provo. We prefer Park City because of the old main street with all the shops and restaurants but we waited too long to book and missed out for this summer. Midway has a Swiss theme to the buildings and has a Swiss Days in late August. Some of the first families to settle in the area were Swiss converts who emigrated in the 1850's. So our condo project continued the theme.

One of my more favorite attractions is the golf. The course goes right by our condo. The condo we stayed in was the one you can see the roof on the left of this photo.

While up there we went to the Wasatch State Park. Right behind the visitors center they have a spring fed lake with fishing for the kids and ducks to feed. Well, they changed the law this year and you have to buy a license to fish when you turn twelve. But they didn't sell fishing licenses there at the vistors center. Huh? I thought for sure they'd sell fishing licenses at a state park. So we fed the ducks and enjoyed the quiet serenity of the park and lake. BTW Amanda is filming the ducks. That's what she's concentrating on with her phone.

Janet had the ducks eating out of her hands.

Eric and Sarah noticed these little black things crawling on the bottom on the lake and Eric picked one up to investigate closer. Then he said, "It's a leach! Yep, it's a leach. It just bit me." Sarah was grossed out but couldn't keep her eyes off of it.

After we left the state park we headed over to a resort called The Homestead. It's a collection of old buildings from the pioneers and new ones that make up a resort and conference center. They have one of the largest hot water cones in the area. Heber Valley is dotted with hot water pools that have formed calderas that have water that is kept warm year round by the geothermal action underground. The photos above are inside the cone (and borrowed, so don't rat me out.) You can pay to swim but you have to wear a flotation device because they're afraid that you might faint from the warm water. It has a year-round temperature of about 90 to 95 degrees. Or you can pay to scuba dive. The water is 65 feet deep but they limit you to 45 feet so as not to stir up the silt on the bottom. The visibility is 40-45 feet and the water glows blue from the light coming from the hole at the top of the cone.

The cone is 70 feet tall and has a stairway on the south side to the right in the trees.
Sarah ran up and down the stairs just to prove that she is in better shape than the rest of us. Eric couldn't prove himself because he had broken two toes and had a large gash on one of them from a swimming/rope swing accident the day before. Sorry, no pictures of that. But the story is he was swinging out over the water and wasn't able to let go because he would have landed on his girlfriend. He held on as long as he dared and when he finally did let go he landed in shallow water and rocks. The doctor at the insta-care told him that he should take it easy and they'll heal eventually.
Here're the kids looking down the cone to the water and swimmers below. I guess they've had trouble with drunk guests falling in the hole in the past. But you can see through the wire.
Turn around and there's our condo in the background. Right over Sarah's head and Eric's shoulder.