Urban Adventure Quest, Salt Lake City

Steve, Trevor and I just got back from a fabulous vacation to Salt Lake City. We packed in an incredible amount of sightseeing. We took a hop-on-hop-off tour to learn the lay of the land and to get an overview of everything Salt Lake City has to offer. We did two scavenger hunts inside the Capitol and checked out the beautiful grounds. We explored Temple Square and admired the amazing views from the LDS buildings outside the Square. We visited the Clark Planetarium and saw an IMAX movie there. And we ate at two of the highest Yelp-rated restaurants in town. And that was just the first day! Seriously. We are hard-core tourists.

On our remaining days, we toured Mrs. Cavanaugh's chocolate factory, went to the Great Salt Lake (we waded up to our knees), visited the Ft. Douglas Military Museum, explored 'This is the Place' State Heritage Park, did three of the five TaleBlazer Games at the gorgeous Red Butte Garden, went to the Bonneville Salt Flats, and ate at many more of Salt Lake City's fantastic restaurants.

 

 

 

 

We also did our second Urban Adventure Quest. And it was just as awesome as the first one we'd done in Sacramento. In the spirit of full disclosure, the owner of Urban Adventure Quest gave me a free code to use for this Quest after I'd paid for and blogged about our first experience back in March. I assure you that didn't influence my opinion of the Quest. I highly recommend it, whether you pay full price, use the coupon code for my readers, or get it for free! (Sorry, no link for that one.)

Just like in Sacramento, we made our way to the starting point of the Urban Adventure Quest (in this case, the Union Pacific Depot, an easy walk from our hotel). We read the first of 19 challenges, the timer started, and we were off!

Downtown Salt Lake City is very pedestrian-friendly. I love the LOOK, complete with eyeballs, painted in all the crosswalks.

With only three people on our team this time (and none wearing a knee brace or using a walking stick as a cane), we were optimistic that we'd have a great score and finish even higher than our decent Sacramento showing. But alas, we misread a clue early on ("Which one is NOT...") and made not one, but two, incorrect guesses on a question. Just like in the Amazing Race... #readyourclue. Sigh. Ten points off our score. But we were optimistic that we could complete the rest without a mistake. Onward! 

You might notice there aren't any other people in the photos I've shared so far. We started the Quest around 8:45 am on a Saturday. While it was a pleasant 75°F, it was also raining. We were the only ones standing out in the open, hunched over a cell phone, holding a hat over a notepad trying to solve puzzles. Whenever possible, we moved to an overhang to read and answer clues.

The Salt Lake City Quest takes you to from the Union Pacific Depot to Temple Square. 

From there you go to the State Capitol. It's a pretty short walk, but the walk to the Capitol is uphill all the way. Then once you get there, you're faced with a bunch of steps to climb! But it's well worth it. Utah has one of the most beautiful Capitol buildings I've ever seen.

The next stop was City Creek Park. We hadn't explored it at all during our previous days in Salt Lake City (we did the Urban Adventure Quest on our third day there), so we had to take some time check it out and pose by the "Human" paver.

 

The Quest finished up back at Temple Square. It was 2.5 miles total and we finished in 2:51:22. Other than our early mistake, we got all the questions correct, for a total of 590 points. Not bad! In fact, if you're curious to see where we fall on the all-time Leader Board, check it out here. We're deRosierFamily.

After exerting our muscles and brains for nearly 3 hours (while trying our best not to get soaked), we were more than ready for lunch. We'd heard great things about the Lion House Pantry. It's in the historic home of Brigham Young and features cafeteria-style homestyle cooking.

It was incredible. I had a turkey pot pie that was to die for. Steve had a beef and barley stew and Trevor had ribs. Each of our meals came with the Lion House's famous rolls. Oh my gosh. So delicious!

If you're local to Salt Lake City or will be traveling there, I highly recommend setting aside 3-4 hours to do the Urban Adventure Quest. If you're not going to be in Salt Lake City anytime soon, check out the other locations. There are 46 so far. We've got our eyes on several of the California ones, plus I'll definitely be doing the Phoenix one when I'm there for the CHA Mega Show in January!