sports | alpaca your suitcase

…the gold medal in sightseeing! Bazinga! This weekend, the Utah Olympic Oval, headquarters of the U.S. Olympic Speedskating Team, hosted the 2016 Long Track Desert Classic. So we got to watch some super fast speedskaters have a go on the “Fastest Ice on Earth.” The world record for the men’s 1000 meter was set on this track in 2009 — 1:06.42. (That’s just over one minute!) We watched Saturday’s winner, an athlete from Korea, finish with a time of 1:11.90!

For our next trick, we visited Park City, home of the US Ski Team and the Sundance Film Festival. (No Robert Redford sightings!) This weekend was the Park Silly Sunday Market, so a huge portion of Main Street was closed off to traffic and packed with food and craft booths.

And for our grand finale, a trip to the Utah Olympic Park. There’s an interesting ski museum with exhibits about the history of skiing in Utah, ski fashion (the 80s jumpsuits were totally rad!), and the 2002 Salt Lake Winter Games.

Olympic Park is pretty awesome. They’ve added a couple of ropes courses, zip lines, tubing on the ski jumps, and you can even go bobsledding!

The best thing there is definitely the Flying Ace All-Stars Freestyle Show. Past Olympians and current US team members ski down jumps, do crazy tricks, and land in a swimming pool! This is how they practice when there’s no snow! The show also featured two climbing champions who raced up the 50-foot wall…and then jumped into the pool from the top!

Boise is a small city, but there’s lots to do. Here’s a simple recipe for a fun weekend…

Visit a brewery. There are several! The food and drinks at 10 Barrel Brewing are fantastic.
Watch a roller derby match. An hour of alternately cheering for the jammers who break through, and cringing when someone gets knocked down. These women are brutal! In each round, both teams have blockers and a jammer on the track. The jammer tries to skate through the pack of blockers, and scores a point for every opposing skater she passes. This match featured Boise’s Treasure Valley Rollergirls skating against Salt Lake City’s Ladies of the Lake. (My team would be called Jam and the Holograms.)

After the roller derby, the Boise Bombers set up their court for a wheelchair rugby match. These dudes are bonkers! I lost track of how many times a chair was flipped over because they were moving so fast. Two of the guys are on the US team going to Rio for the Paralympics.
Climb up the Camel’s Back. Have to get that outdoor time! It’s a steep walk, but you’re rewarded with great views of Boise when you reach the top. And when you come back down, you can get a real reward by stopping in Hyde Park for a shave ice!