I have to say... I bought into the party line about Salt Lake City. Although I have breezed through it on countless trips through Utah on I-80, I've never so much as stopped to gawk at Temple Square. When Claire and I started planning our summer road trip, we both realized that Salt Lake City was one of the few major cities in the country that neither of us had spent time in. Chalk it up to a mutual dislike of Jell-O salad, I guess. This was a wrong begging to be righted.

We realized that there was a great chance that Salt Lake City had plenty to offer, so we decided to spend a couple of days there. Needless to say, we made the right choice. I'm an idiot for ignoring the city for most of my adult life. I didn't really have the means to visit for the Olympics, and I've never been able to make it to Park City for Sundance, but I have tons of friends who have, and most of them have very kind things to say about Salt Lake City.

We rolled in on day one after a long drive and settled into the four star hotel that we Pricelined for less money than the Super 8 Motel that we stayed in the night before. Things were already looking up! After a bit of poking around on Yelp, we settled on a lovely restaurant for dinner called the Copper Onion that served delicious entrees and salads that used plenty of local ingredients. We had an asparagus soup and a beet vinaigrette salad that was a welcome compliment to the heavy (but amazing) Basque meal that we stumbled onto at the Martin Hotel in Winnemucca, Nevada earlier that day.

The next morning, we got up and went to Temple Square. Both Claire and I are kind of obsessed with dioramas, and it seems like the Latter-Day Saints have got the diorama thing dialed in. The visitor's centers are full of interactive dioramas and architectural models that will make you a little bit ashamed of that cigar box model of the Pleistocene that you tried to pass off on your third grade teacher. On a crafty note, they have an awe-inspiring display of antique handmade wooden furniture from the temple, as well as the tools that were used to make them.

After we finished Temple Square, we grabbed a quick lunch, then headed to Broadway to check out the antique and vintage stores. We were sorely disappointed to find Frosty Darling mysteriously closed on a Tuesday afternoon. We have it on good authority that Frosty Darling is the go-to place in SLC for retro-modern crafty goodness. Sigh. Maybe next time.

Our disappointment turned to joy when we crossed the threshold of Retro Rose, which might be the best-curated modern antique store that I've ever seen. Everything in Retro Rose is meticulously organized by color. The store is literally stuffed floor to ceiling with insane furniture and knick-knacks from the '50s, '60s, and '70s. Upon entry, we were instructed by the friendly manager that we needed to look high and low if we were going to see everything in the store. It was impossible to see everything in the two levels of the store without camping out and spending a couple of days. We managed to escape with a few essential purchases, with our wallets relatively intact.

I nicknamed this little section of Salt Lake City "Alt Lake City." It seems like the people in Salt Lake City who aren't doing the whole mainstream Salt Lake City thing try extra hard to fill the city with music and culture.

We were also blown away by the other antique and vintage stores in the area. The Green Ant is a store on Broadway that specializes in mid-century modern pieces like Eames armshell chairs with Eiffel Tower bases. The owner (like most SLC shop owners) was super-friendly and knowledgeable. If MCM furniture is your thing, it seems like Salt Lake City is a rich hunting ground. Other interesting shops along Broadway were Beehive Collectors Gallery and Ken Sanders Rare Books. A person could easily lose a day roaming among the businesses on this tiny chunk of Broadway alone.

We also checked out the Salt Lake City Fine Arts Center, which was hosting a show by one of my favorite artists, Robert Fonenot. Fontenot is a whiz with a needle and thread, and has taught himself to do all sorts of applique, embroidery, and other needlework. For the show, he also created a few major pieces out of bread dough and produced a limited-edition artist book of Salt Lake City icons rendered in the medium. The arts community in Salt Lake City seemed to be buzzing.

Our happiest experience in Salt Lake City centered around FOOD! We managed to avoid the dreaded Jell-O salad and used Yelp and other websites to help us navigate the myriad options we had at our disposal. We decided to splurge on our final dinner at Forage, which is the city's most beloved place for gourmet gastronomy. Forage was started by chefs Bowman Brown and Viet Pham a couple of years ago with the goal of combining cutting-edge techniques with sustainable local food and great wine. We were lucky enough to get a reservation for their nine course tasting menu, which took around three glorious hours.

Some menu highlights include the amuse bouche, which was a roasted sweet onion croquette with a crispy exterior and an interior filled with an intense liquid sweet onion filling that exploded when you popped the thing in your mouth. The first appetizer was a soft "scrambled" egg that was served in its own shell with layers of maple syrup and some sherry cream on the top. I'm still dreaming of it. There were four main courses, which included a butter poached dungeness crab that was served with a Thai spiced foam, truffles and potatoes, and a scallop "mille feuille" that consisted of layers of delicious thinly-sliced scallops alternated with thinly-sliced German "speck" ham.

After a palate cleanser of juniper and lemon beverage in a tiny glass, we got to sample the chef's crushed rhubarb "crumble" that was served with a slightly carbonated yogurt, douglas fir ice cream and sorrel. The meal is lodged firmly in the top three restaurant meals that I've ever had.

I'll now go out of my way to find reasons to go to "Alt Lake City." Maybe I'll try to convince Claire to come back through on our drive home.

Next stop....DENVER!

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