SL, UT

A lot of my friends are away studying abroad, discovering new places and having amazing adventures. So I decided that I was going to have my own adventure and discover new places within my own city. I have lived in Utah since I was six and Salt Lake proper since I was fourteen, so I do know a lot about what there is to do and where it is. However, I can't ever say I've soberly walked the streets of downtown with the sole purpose of discovering new and awesome things (specifically to photograph). So I headed downtown with my dslr and my broseph to explore.

The first place I decided to go, on a whim, was into Mt. Olivet Cemetery. There is a herd of deer that live there that totally munch on the flowers people leave on their loved ones' graves and I've always wanted to take pictures of them. Luckily, they were right by the entrance (the cemetery is so huge that there are street signs to let you know where you are).







This little guy walked straight up to us, thinking we had food for him, and stuck his head through the open car window.





















I felt a little bad wandering around a cemetery taking photos, but it's such a cool place (especially since it has huge, towering gravestones shaped like crosses and weeping Marys instead of those flat plaques that are easy to mow over). So if people drove by, I would stand by a grave and cry a little bit. But I was completely respectful, way more respectful than the deer who blatantly ate tulips lovingly set out for Memorial Day.

Now all I have to do is go back during the fall, because I have always wanted to take pictures of the gravestones set against fall foliage. After Mt. Olivet, we parked in one of the secret two hour free parking spots nearby Nostalgia and set out to explore.





There is a well known apartment building at second and second downtown with a huge mural of Mary on it. It's full of artsy people who stay up all night painting and listening to their record players. Also Joe (from Nostalgica). As we passed by, I happened to look down the alley way mirrored by Mary building and the building beside it and was surprised to see a WALL OF COLOR. The entire alley way was covered with amazing graffiti art.



















My favorite sport! Catball!



We saw a couple come down the alley after us, brush past, and then walk into a small house/store/building nestled in a parking lot behind the Mary building. It was coated in colorful graffiti art and surrounded by even MORE graffiti art. SO MUCH COOL ART. Plus, random little creatures everywhere.















It turned out that the weird building thing was Copper Palate, a printing press company. We entered to find tons of cool prints and T-shirts. I tried to chat up the guy designing stuff at the computer because I was interested in the place, but he was sort of a douche, so I stole a sticker (aka picked it up off some random shelf where it looked like they deposited the stuff they didn't want to look at anymore). Really though, it was awesome to discover something I'd never seen before in my own city! Here are some more things I saw:





















(the outside of the man cave that Rachel and I discovered the other day)









We went to what used to be Sam Weller's Rare Books and I got some National Geographics and The Life of Birds book by David Attenborough.









We went into this weird Scottish store that, apparently, imports all its merchandise from Edinburgh Castle and looked around for awhile.



Then we started getting hungry, so we searched out a new, delicious restaurant to try out. We ended up at Rich's Mighty Fine Burgers and Fries. SO. GOOD. It's one of those places where you go in and a single, friendly, greasy guy behind the counter tells you to grab a menu and sit down. We did so and that's when I saw that they had a MACARONI AND CHEESE BURGER. It. Was. DELICIOUS! It was the perfect burger meal complete with fries and cokes. Yummmm.



After burgers, we decided to head back to the car (since the original two hour free parking had turned into four hour possibly ticketed parking). On the way back, we saw some more cool stuff.



A maffia killhouse.



A seemingly legit message.



A pretty skyline shot.



A thrift store I've always wanted to check out. It was pretty lame, but PIGEONS!

On the way home, we stopped by the cemetery again. Because I needed more gravestone shots.











Rest in peace, Cheeseman (or I guess Cheesman).





While taking creepy pictures, I kept hearing a unique bird call I couldn't recognize. I thought it might be a nuthatch, but none of the calls matched. As we were about to drive away, I saw a raptor fly down and land by a tiny, make-shift stream running through the cemetery. Now that I could see it, it was clear that it was a Cooper's Hawk.



(not my photo)

I got a couple of pictures of him flying away.





Then I pulled a jerk move in the birder world and used my app to play a Cooper's Hawk call to make him pissed off enough to fly around me in circles, trying to search out the perpetrator in his territory.



Then we went home, satisfied with the day's adventure.
(this post brought to you half-assedly by my carpal tunnel glove, yaaay!)