# 14 “The Sandlot” movie tour- Salt Lake City and Ogden Utah

“You’re killing me, Smalls!”

One of my all-time favorite baseball movies is “The Sandlot”. The movie is set in California but I recently found out much of the movie was filmed in the Salt Lake City, Utah area. So we were able to visit some of the locations this past summer.

We started out on a very hot day just like some in the movie.    

 

Our first stop was the little league field at Rose Park.  We first parked in the lot next to a baseball field. The field looked fairly new, and turned out to be the wrong field but we took some pictures and found 7 cents laying on the ground almost enough to buy a 98 cent baseball.  We noticed another field in the distance and walked a ways and found the older field which was next to the other parking lot. 

We immediately knew it was the actual field we were looking for.  Rose park field basically looked the same today except for the new advertising. This was where they took on the little league team and “kicked the crap out of those guys.”

Our second stop was the Sandlot.  Most of the movie was here including losing the baseball signed by ”Some lady named Ruth. Baby Ruth.” and getting that ball back, trash talking including “you play ball like a girl” and of course so much baseball.  Now days there’s not much to see just a little open area between houses.

Small's house

Benny's house

Next was Small’s and Benny’s houses. We just drove by for a couple pictures.  Multiple scenes during the movie were here. This was where early on when smalls just moved in and was unpacking, where Smalls tried to learn to play catch with his step dad and Benny inviting Small’s to the Sandlot.                    

 

 

               

After this we stopped at Liberty Park and had a nice walk around. The park was where the Founder’s day celebration was held. This was briefly shown when they were being chased by the dog after getting the Babe Ruth ball back. They then ran through the picnic and flipped the cake. I’m not sure what part they ran through.

                               

 

  

Our last stop in Salt Lake City was the Vincent Drugtore which was where they bought the 98 cent baseballs. We drove by for a couple pictures but the place looked like it was empty/closed and according to google is permanently closed.

 

Our final stop was the next day at the pool in Ogden, UT.  The pool was similar now days but they have added a slide and the pool had a different name. This was the pool scene that everyone remembers where “We got banned for the pool forever that day” I didn’t remember until we rewatched the movie but while being chased by the dog they go through the pool again with little kid saying big doggie! Then they crossed a bridge and river just like we did.

This was a great adventure and maybe the best yet. I had so much fun seeing all these places which brought back great memories of one of my favorite movies.

#13 Peruvian food - Longmont CO

 

Rosario's Peruvian Restaurant May 15, 2019 

I have never had Peruvian food but I had a tip that this place was good and thought since we were in Longmont it was the perfect time to try Peruvian food for the first time.

 I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into or even what to order, but luckily they have different Peruvian Tour plates with two or three different items on them. So I ordered tour plate number six and mom and dad both got plate number five. Plate number six had a Papa Rellena which was a potato stuffed and fried, Aji de Gallina which was a chicken dish and Tallarin Saltado which was a beef noodle dish. Tour plate number five had Lomo Saltado which was a beef dish. This plate also had the same Tallarin Saltado beef and noodle dish I had. Each plate was 16.99. 

The Papa Rellena was really good. It was basically a really good baked potato stuffed with a meat mixture that included a few peas, carrots and hardboiled egg pieces. Then was battered and fried making it a little crispy around the outside. 

The Aji de Gallina was a chicken dish with a creamy Aji yellow pepper sauce and topped with a hardboiled egg slice and an olive. I thought this was excellent

The Tallarin Saltado was a stir fried beef noodle dish that resembled and tasted kind a like lo mein but also had tomatoes. 

The Lomo Saltado was stirfried beef with onions and french fries.

Also included on the plate was some sort of green sauce that was spicy but very tasty and went well with everything.

The food here was great and I couldn’t tell if the Aji de Gallina or the Papa Rellena was my favorite but my whole meal was excellent. 

This was a fun and tasty adventure. I’m really glad I was able to try out Peruvian food and can’t wait for more!

#12 Ansel Adams early works display Longmont CO

May 15, 2019

 

The Longmont museum had an Ansel Adams early works display that I thought would be interesting to see so my parents and I took a trip to Longmont for the day. We went to mostly see the Ansel Adams display but we figured we could see the rest of what they had. When we arrived we paid our admission fees eight dollars for me and five dollars for my parents.

This was a display of his early works I thought these black-and-white pictures were very interesting. Most of them were nature pictures mountains, lakes, trees and what not. I especially liked his pictures of the trees one of aspens, one of trees with snow and various others and also a plain basic road picture. There was quite a few pieces of old photo equipment in the exhibit as well. 

Once we were done with that exhibit we went to see the rest of the museum. Their next display had Longmont history and was an all right exhibit but just not very big. After this we went out in the courtyard which had a nice place to sit and rest. After a while we went back in to see what else they had. We took the elevator up to the second floor where they had a small display about an Astronaut from Longmont and then to the third-floor which just had a kid’s play area. After that we looked at a few pictures they had in the classrooms and that was about it. 

I thought the Ansel Adams exhibit display was rather interesting and was glad I was able to see it but I was rather disappointed in the rest of the museum.

#11 Bird watching Gilbert, Arizona and Chandler, Arizona

Awhile back I decided that bird watching might be a fun thing to try out, so while in Arizona we did just that.  The first day we visited the Riparian Preserve at Water Ranch in Gilbert, Arizona.  This was a little bit of a chilly and cloudy day.  This preserve has multiple ponds and trails with plenty of benches and places to watch birds.  

On day two we visited Veterans Oasis Park in Chandler, Arizona. This day was excessively hot with not so much shade. The ponds here were harder to get to and watch for birds.  At both places I got a bird list which I didn’t really use while there. I also got my camera ready and looked for and tried to take pictures of as many different birds as I could.  Then when I got home I compared my pictures to pictures on allaboutbirds.org and used my bird lists to identify the different birds.

Here are the birds I got good pictures of and could identify. (I think)

 American Coot

 

 Cinnamon Teal

 

 Great Egret

 Least Sandpiper

 

 Black-necked Stilt

 

 Gadwall

 

   American Avocet

   Canada Goose

Mallard

Gambel's Quail

 

Snowy Egret

 

 Great-tailed Grackle

I had a lot of fun spending time outside looking for birds, taking pictures and then trying to identify each bird. Bird watching is definitely something I would enjoy doing in the future.