Utah - Day 5

Utah - the Beehive State

We didn't get up as early today, but we didn't sleep in either.  After we were ready, we headed to Orem, Utah.  I remember Lynn and I went there last time but I don't remember why.  I think it was just because we knew the family was from there originally and we wanted to see it.  

This time, Susan and I mostly went to see Wayne Osmond's grave.  When we arrived, Susan saw Orange Flowers and said, that has to be it and sure enough, it was!

I was pleased to see that previous visitors have left guitars for him

Click on photos to enlarge

We saw that they had all of their children on the back of the headstone.  I liked that.  Mormons are typically very involved with Genealogy, and this helps future generations.  In fact, do you know that the Latter-Day Saints were the creators of FamilySearch.org and Ancestry.com?  

As we did with Mother and Father Osmond, we prayed over Wayne and we both got very emotional.  I think because we just can't believe he is gone and we were thinking about how wonderful he was.  

After we left Orem, we were getting hungry, so we went to Salt Lake City and found an out of the way place called From Stratch.  I got a grilled chicken sandwich and Susan got pasta.  We both got Shirley Temples again, but it wasn't as good as the pizza place from last night.  I only at 1/2 my sandwich.  It was just okay and the bread was kind of hard on the top and soggy on the bottom.  

We decided to walk to a gift shop because Susan wanted to get shirts for her roommates.

While going over there, we ran across this sculpture in Gallivan Center.  

We walked past the Eagle Emporium Building, which was really cool!

I seriously considered getting this shirt at the gift shop, but decided it would kind of look funny for a woman to be wearing it, but I did think it was funny

Then we wanted to go to Temple Square, but it had been under construction.  The construction was finished but the equipment was still up all over the place and unfortunately, we couldn't walk around.  Luckily, I did that last time I was here, but I wish Susan could have done it too, but she was okay with it since her knee was hurting, and she didn't really have the stamina to walk around that much.

They added this big fence around Temple Square, that wasn't there 20 years ago.  I was kind of sad to see that since I liked that it was all open spaces last time. Oh well, things change.

I did manage to get a shot from the side which was had no equipment or fence in the way.

Last stop in SLC - the Capitol.  We only went in here because we knew they had a display honoring the Osmonds inside.

We wanted to get back to Provo before it got dark, so we headed back.  It was just getting dark and I got a lovely shot of the Provo temple, which was just a block away from our hotel.

Neither of us were very hungry, so we just at the Cinnamon Sticks that the pizza place gave us the night before.  We had a microwave in our room, so we warmed them up - they were good!

Utah - Day 4

Warning: PHOTO HEAVY!!
Click on the photos to enlarge

We got up early to see Jay and Karen off and say our goodbyes to friends that we've met...including

Jay

Karen

After seeing both Jay, Karen and Susan all wearing their shirts, I kind of wish I had worn mine so we would all match...but I didn't want to go back to the room and change before we headed out for the day.

Cindy - from Nashville

Carol-from Bournemouth, UK

Susan-from Manchester, UK

Ryan Anderson-from UK and also starred as Merrill in the UK version of the Osmonds - A Musical

Judy - the woman that knows EVERYTHING about the Osmonds
and the photographer of the event

Afterwords, we started to head out for the day and our first stop was Springhill Presbyterian Church, which was just a couple of blocks away.  I couldn't believe I found a Presbyterian Church. It was Sunday after all. The church was part of More Light Presbyterians, which Susan was happy about.

After church, the first stop was all the former Osmond studio.  I was so relieved to see that there was no security guard at the gate and we could take pictures from the outside without issues.

We were close to Bridal Veil Falls, so we went there next and it was so cold!! It was difficult to get a good photo of the falls because the sun was right at the top of the hill and was blinding out the photos.

Then we started heading to Sundance.  There was so much snow...it was just an incredible drive up there.  

We stayed for a while and watched the skiers and snowboarders and Susan was in shocked when she realized those skiers had to jump out of those ski lifts.  She said she would never do that!

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After Sundance, we drove up to Park City.  Which was only about 30 miles but because we couldn't drive fast through the mountains, it took a while to get there.

It was about 4 pm and we hadn't eaten anything...so we went to the first place we saw that served breakfast all day as well as lunch items.

The deviled eggs were delicious, but the other food was just alright...we were kind of disappointed in it honestly and it was WAY overpriced.  The deviled eggs, a grilled chicken sandwich and biscuits & gravy, and water, were $85.  That was crazy!  We realized everything in Park City is overpriced.  I guess because it is such a huge tourist town.

We didn't stay too long in Park City because it was situated on a HUGE hill and Susan's knee was hurting her and we wanted to get back to Provo before it got too late because we had other things we wanted to do.

On the way back to the car...I spotted a Banksy!!  I was surprised to see this in Utah.  They have preserved it with glass so it doesn't get damaged.

We also were fascinated by this tiny little house that the only way you could get to it was all these stairs and it was on the side of the mountain.  There were actually several houses like this, but this one really fascinated us. Can you imagine living in this tiny house and having to climb those stairs in the rain and snow every time you came home?

We headed back the way we came, through Deer Creek Reservoir, which is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen! I had to make this photo larger just so you can see the beauty of it.

We finally made it back to Provo

Even though we had a full day, we still had a lot of daylight left and we knew what we wanted to do the next day, which was a bit father out, so we decided to go East Lawn Memorial Hills Cemetery, where we visited the graves of Mother and Father Osmond, Marie's son, Michael and Donny's in-laws, the Glenns. 

Osmond Fans had left some yellow flowers when they did the tour on Thursday, so we easily found the grave because we were told "Look for the yellow flowers"

After we paid our respects and said a little prayer, thanking the Lord for the parents of the Osmonds and how they have brought so much love and joy into our lives, we then headed to Osmond Lane.

Fortunately, Lynn and I went there 20 years ago.  I did find out that George Osmond bought 9 plots here and named it Osmond Lane.  The intention was all the kids would live here but he would only let those build that that were married and had children and at the time Alan, Wayne and Merrill were the only ones, so they built houses there.  By the time the others started getting married, they decided they didn't all want to live on one street and eventually Alan, Wayne and Merrill sold their homes.  Can you imagine if you lived in one of those homes now?!

I think Susan was most excited to see Osmond Lane because she heard about almost her whole life and she always wanted to go there.

The first house you come to that belonged to the Osmonds, was Merrill's

Then at the end of the cul-de-sac, was Alan's former home, which had the most beautiful view of them all, although you can't see that in the photo.

Last, was Wayne's.  We had to get a quick photo of that one because a family was out walking and this was their house and we didn't want them to think we were stalking their kids or anything.  I wanted to say to them "Do you know that you live in Wayne Osmond's house?" but they were probably in their early thirties, and I figured they wouldn't know who he was.

In different neighborhoods, we went by Jay's former home, which small little 2 story.

Then to Marie's, which I really loved...it was set back from the road, but unique.

Then the Osmond Family home...can you believe all them once lived in this house?

We knew Donny lived in Provo and we knew his house had to be somewhere around there but we also knew it was a gated community and had no idea where it was and since he still lives there, even if we knew, we wouldn't have invaded on his privacy, although he was probably in Las Vegas and we would have liked to have seen it. 

Lastly, we stopped at the Riveria Apartments.  I believe the family owned these apartments at one time and they all lived in different apartments.  Fans would always come to see them outside playing football and they would hang out with fans back in the 1970s.

We heard from Judy that she lived in Tennessee in the 1970s and she didn't get along with her mom, so she bought a bus ticket, and she only had $20 leftover, and she got on the bus to Provo just to see the Osmonds and she ended up staying there and she still lives in Provo today.  The Osmonds are her life, and I mean her life.  I don't think she has any other interests, and I said she knows everything about them.  She said she basically use to stalk them, and they finally put her to work.  She even converted to LDS since they were.  

We found all these homes, because Jay gave us a map since we couldn't go on the tour (notice my Jay nail) 

Our day was winding down and since although we had spent $85 on a less than good lunch hours earlier, we stopped at VIA313 Pizzeria in Orem, Utah.  We split a small Detroit style pizza and had Shirley Temple mocktails...all was so good.  Susan thought it was the best pizza she ever had.  The staff was so nice and even gave us an order of Cinnamon Sticks for free to take home with us, since it was our first visit.

Can you believe we did ALL of that in just one day!  That was a lot...we have one more full day in Utah.  Stay tuned (I promise it won't have as many pictures)