Day 3: Happy Father’s Day!

Today we celebrated the amazing Rob. The boys woke him up with snuggles and sweet cards. It is absolutely incredible all that he does for our family both at home and while traveling; we really are the luckiest!

The Cracker Barrel parking lot was so quiet last night. By adding some fans we were all able to sleep much better. The great sleep combined with only an hour of driving today made for an awesome day.

We arrived to Jordanelle State Park just before 11, parked the RV in their visitor center, and headed off to Park City. On Sundays they close down the main street for a farmer’s market. Parking was a bit tough to find, but we did it and enjoyed lunch at the Wasatch Brewery. Our previous visit was 8 years ago, just before Cooper turned 1.

We walked through the market, and the boys were enthralled by the street magician. His final trick was to pull a signed $20 bill from the audience out of an orange; it was very impressive!

Next we headed over to the Olympic Park for a tour of the facility. The boys were immediately drawn to the practice ski jumps, just as we had been 8 years earlier.

We feel like we hit the jackpot with the tour, as it was given by a professional Nordic Combined athlete, Stephen Schumann. He said for the last Olympics he missed the team by one spot, but he has high hopes for 2022. We learned that the sliding track (for bobsled, luge and skeleton) is the second-fastest in the world (after Whistler).

At the ski jump, Stephen had so much info to share about strategy, the crazy flexibility of their ankles, and the fact that they have to get a new foam body suit made every 20 jumps. He jumped from the top of this ramp for the first time at the age of 12. As you get better you start lower since you don’t need the speed, but rather make up for it with form and technique.

We finished the time at the Olympic Park by watching more ski jumping into the pool and touring the museum. I still think it is so cool Jill Bakken, a girl in my high school graduating class, won a gold medal in 2-woman bobsled here in 2002. Stephen had said that often bobsled athletes are former football or track stars in high school and college.

We ended the day with dinner at the campsite and a post-dinner family bike ride through the park, including watching people pull their boats out of the lake (always entertaining).