A North Carolina Fish Out of Water in Utah

Our five days in Park City is coming to an end. I know that it in no way represents what the whole state of Utah is like, but I have come across some strong differences between here and home. The most striking difference is the number of children in each family. Every where we went the average family included at least four children, most being close in age.

As Russ and I sat at sidewalk cafes we would count kids as two parents would emerge from giant SUV’s, one, two three, a lull as the second row seat was moved so those in the way back row could come out, four, five, six. One morning I was up very early having coffee in the great room of the hotel and a fairly young man came down and joined me with a beautiful tiny little baby girl. I asked how old she was and he said three months. He went on to say what a good baby she was. I asked if he had others to compare her too and he said yes, she was his fourth. I said I guess he would know what a good baby was then. “Yes. It is our responsibility to society to produce lots of good children,” were his actual words to me. There it is. People in Utah are saving society by producing lots of good children to balance out the rest of the country’s questionable children.

The big family consumer must be working for them because I have never see so many Range Rovers in one place in my life. At first I thought there must have been a Range Rover road rally, but then I did notice that the Mercedes SUV’s were equally as plentiful. I have not seen one Smart car and only two Prius cars in five days. Gas must be free here.

Although people are friendly they are not Southern friendly. What does that mean? Russ and I had multiple conversations with shuttle drivers, wait staff, adventure guides and the like who all said the same thing about making a life style choice to live in Park City, but feeling like they are not respected which is sometimes hard for them. These were people who had given up rat race jobs to do jobs they did not have to take home at night so they could just enjoy life, but they felt they were now treated like they were people without a brain.

What I noticed was different from the south is that people here did not talk to service workers at all, not just not as equals. I had a conversation with the Romanian spa attendant and she told me that in her two months of being here I was the first person to ask her where she was from and showed any interest in how she got here and if she liked it. She asked me if other people were like me where I was from. I told her more than here.

Don’t get me wrong. People are nice, but earnest nice. I would say that sarcasm is in short supply here. When our waiter at breakfast asked us in a surprised way if we were ready to order after only spending three minutes looking at the menu, I responded, “It’s just breakfast. We pretty much understand the choices.” Not a big laugh getter here.

So home we’ll go to out empty house with that only child still at camp and our tiny and hybrid cars and our long conversations with the check out girl at the Harris Teeter. Back in the friendly ‘ole pond full of fish like us.