The Summer Party was planned so that all the activities would take place during the normal work hours (8am-5pm). To start the day everyone was to meet at the condominium (co-owned by one of the partners) at 8am. Once there, we had a choice of walking, running, or biking a mapped out course that would take approximately 45 minutes to complete. After completing your chosen course a light breakfast would be served at the condo. At 10:30am there were two more options to choose from for the next activity: Golfing or Park City Mountain Resort. If you chose golfing then you had to be experienced to play 18 holes, otherwise you would participate in a group gold lesson. The Park City Mountain Resort group would receive an unlimited all-day pass to ride the rides and enjoy the other activities that the Resort offered. At 3:30pm everyone was to meet back at the condo for a partially catered dinner.
When we first received the flyer detailing this year's Summer Party, we were a little disappointed. We were looking forward to a day at the outlets and I especially was looking forward to the creme brulee at the restaurant that we had gone to in the past, but after this year's new-fangled Summer Party was over, we were happy for the change. Here's how the party went:
We left our house for Park City around 6:30am so that we would arrive at the condo on time. Traffic was great and it was looking like we would actually arrive on the early side, until...Whoa! There was an accident on the 80 that entirely shut down our side of the freeway. Shortly after we got to the stopped traffic, an ambulance, firetruck, and several police cars drove by us down the shoulder. We were parked for about 15 minutes while enough of the accident was cleared so that traffic could merge into the left lane to get around the accident. A second accident happened right in front of us which made it a little more difficult for the emergency vehicles to get around to the main accident which involved 2 trucks. It took us about another 10 minutes once traffic started inching forward to see what happened. The Semi-truck was completely smashed-up in the front and even the windshield was cracked- he rear-ended a dump truck. Not something you see everyday.
We got to the condo about 25 minutes late, although due to the accident, we were actually among the first to arrive. We ended up being pretty close to the accident so it didn't take us the hour it took some people to get past the crash. We started in quickly on the walk and considered taking a shortcut to finish up on time but Nate was afraid that one of the Partner's wives would be sitting at the last turn just to make sure people were doing the whole course (he really wouldn't put it past his boss to do something like that). Of course, we found out no one was watching us as we came around the last bend and walked the final stretch back to the condo. When we got back, the condo was packed full of the employees and their guests. And all the food was gone. Yep, all the people that were stuck in the accident longer than us decided to skip the walk (run, bike) and just dive into breakfast. Luckily, someone took pity on the dozen or so people that actually participated in the first activity and ran to the store to get some more juice and some donuts.
The next activity that we chose was going to Park City Mountain Resort. I had never been there before and Nate had only been there once about 15 or so years ago. I had looked at their website the night before but wasn't sure how fun the rides would be. Especially the slides- Nate had told me horror stories of people going to fast and going up over the edge and gashing their arms or legs open. So I go on the Alpine Slide just a bit on the nervous side not sure if it's something that I'm going to get hurt on since I do tend to be on the accident-prone side. But it turned out fine and I was actually disappointed in myself for being too conservative with my speed. Yeah, umm, horror stories. No, just one story really. Nate's story of his experience when he was going to fast and cut open his arm and now has a scar. I'm not even sure how he managed to even do that. Here are some pictures of the Alpine Slide (click on them to see a larger image):
We ended up going on the slides 2 more times- racing each other down (technically against the rules, but...). Nate beat me due to a technicality the first time- I had to stop because the person in front of me was going way slow, although I would have clearly won if it wasn't for that. I had no problem beating him the second time.
We really enjoyed the Alpine Coaster. We didn't expect it to be that exciting when we first saw it, but once on, we realized it was a much better ride than it appeared at first sight. We went on the coaster 3 times, one of which we rode together and went really fast. Here are some pics:
Another favorite ride was the ZipRider. I hadn't been on a zipline in at least 15 years, but it was every bit as fun as I remembered and more because it was a much longer zipline. Here are some pictures from the top and of people going over us on our way up the coaster:
The other things we enjoyed were the trampoline (only I did that one) and the rock climbing wall. Nate got all the way to the top on the 2 highest skill levels and I made it about three-quarters of the way up on one of the lowest skill levels. If I hadn't done the trampoline first (which really wears out the arms) and hadn't taken a wrong step to get me kind-of stuck, I probably would have made it all the way up, but my fingers just weren't having it and gave it. Here's some more pics:
After our time at Park City Mountain Resort, we headed back to the condo for dinner. There we enjoyed some good food and non-work related conversation (and some work related conversation that lead to a guy quitting the following week). All in all it was a fun day and we hope the Summer party is done the same way next year.
1 comment:
That sounds like such a fun day! What a fun place. I may have to give it a try if we visit in the summer again.
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