Miner's Day Parade

As you land in Salt Lake City you see a clean white city surrounded by clean white mountains with a hint of green. As you get off your plane you see an airport that is clean and lots of white people. When you get to Park City you see white people, money, trees and clean.

Instead of celebrating Labor Day in Park City, they celebrate Miner's Day. As far as I could tell, Miner's day is a celebration of Miners and their balls. The day's festivities started with a running of the balls. The town lets 3000 balls (not 1500 Mormon men - though there were mormons trying to pass out brochures which is odd in Utah, I mean it is their home field, they dont have to wear the name tags and outfit, I just assumed everyone I met who wasnt drinking a soda or a beer was a Mormon) run down the main street, the people who sponsored the ten balls that finish first win something, no idea what. It was amazing to see thousands of people lined on a street trying to catch a glimpse of range golf balls slowly rolling down the street. After that excitement the street clears and the town has what can only be described as the worst parade ever.

The three mayoral candidates have either a car or a group of people with a banner walking down the street. One of the mayoral candidates sits in her car and asks how much the bathing suit that is on sale at the street sale she drives past costs. The woman is 65 so the thought of her in a bikini cost her my nonvote. The best float was a small soccer field where people stood and threw miniature soccer balls. On the side of the float was a law firm advertising that they could kick your legal problems. I thought it should have said, jew and jew law, we have balls, but most people seemed to enjoy just getting free miniature soccer balls to throw at the floats that followed the law firm float. I hit a camel with my ball, odd that there was a camel walking the streets of Park City, but the theater group wanted to make a point about something, no idea what. One group of people walking in the parade were throwing beads. Unfortunately normal rules did not apply.

After the parade the town had the miner games, which as far as I could tell was a competition of who could move dirt the fastest. The only entertaining part of this was seeing a few Mexican men who were digging a hole stop from their work to grab some water and wipe off the sweat. the Mexicans had a puzzled expression as they look on the competition, white people, moving dirt, white people cheering about the dirt, odd. The Mexicans, after 15 seconds went right back to finishing with their work. They scurried off when they were done and seemed appreciative when I told them me gusta bailar con tu perro. It was a real moment.

Still, it was fun being in Utah. We went hiking and biking which if you know me is as hilarious as it sounds.