Shark vs. Bear

Saturday came and we had only one true ambition for the day, figuring out what our Halloween costumes were gonna be. Megan has told us how in Park City people often dress up for various occasions and everyone has a box full of costumes at their place at all times, just in case the need to dress up strikes them. As it stood, all three of us were uncertain of our costumes. I was

going to be a Grateful Dead bear, but had only my hat, Megan was going to be a bumblebee, but had no wings, and Katie hadn't any idea what she was going to be. Megan assured us that this was not a problem and in the morning we headed over to raid some of her friends costume supplies. While we were there both the Katie and Megan decided on an outfit. Megan changed from a bee to a pirate while Katie chose to be a shark, using a handmade costume

originally made for a 7 year old. After a short trip to Michael's and Walmart, I had the rest of my outfit and we headed over to pick up Shasta, the dog Megan was watching, to take her for a hike with us. We made a stop back at Megan's place to change into our hiking shoes and pick up her roommate Becca who wanted to join our hiking party as well. As fate would have it, as soon as we reached the trail it began to rain, and rain hard. This did not stop any of us, including Shasta, to turn back though. Megan had picked a path for us that lead from the edge of town up to the

old mining buildings that were still scattered amongst the hill. The rain added to the creepiness of the abandoned buildings and we all began to joke about how we found ourselves in the ideal plot for a scary movie. A rainy Halloween night, some kids decide to take a walk to up to the abandoned mine shaft on the edge of town... you get the picture. Spoiler Alert! The movie ends with us making it out alive, though our trusty dog ended up getting tragically covered in burrs and mud. Megan was going to

take Shasta back for some maintenance work while Becca decided that if we were going to be wet, we mind as well be warm, and proposed a trip to her gym to visit the hot tub and sauna. Katie and I agreed and while Megan slaved over Shasta's burrs, we all basked in the warmth of the hot tub. After about an hour, Becca, Katie, and I were completely relaxed and ready to take on the Halloween night. We went back to the house where Megan and Becca had some friends come over and bring pizza, while we had a small "getting ready for Halloween" party. After some time passed we headed out for main street and ended up at Star Bar to watch some live music. The evening was great! Katie and I had so much fun spending our Halloween with Megan and her friends. Everyone was very nice and

excited to meet us and really made us feel welcome even though we had only just met them. The music was great, the atmosphere of the bar was fun and energetic; we couldn't have asked for a better way to spend Halloween. We left the bar after the band had finished playing and proceeded to try and get a cab home. Though this took a little bit of effort, it payed off in the end. The cab that finally stopped for us was a big van, lined with Christmas lights and equipped with a Karaoke machine installed in the sound system. Katie and Megan wrestled over the mic the whole way home while they both sang along to some awful music.

The next morning, everyone was slow to rise. Megan had brought Shasta to her house for the night and she was not too keen on sleeping in. After Megan drove Shasta home for the day and Katie and I had showered, everyone was starving, so we headed to Wasatch Bagels for a small brunch. After we had filled up on coffee and food we headed to the Glenwood Cemetery where a local group puts on a Halloween event every year. The event stars many of the cemetery's deceased occupants who come back to life for a few short hours to tell the tales of their lives and deaths. It took us about an hour to walk through the cemetery and listen to the accounts of about 15 different ghosts, most of whom died during Park City's mining days. The cemetery show was very well put on and we had lots of fun listening to all the actors; it really got us back in the Halloween spirit. We left the cemetery and joined Megan back at Shasta's house where she had to finish picking the burrs out of the poor dogs fur. Katie and I used the time to catch up on the internet and just relax for a bit, still desiring to take the day at an easy pace. At about 4 p.m. we headed downtown to watch the dog parade. That's right, the dog parade.

This is a town wide event where Main Street is blocked off and everyone with a dog dresses them up in ridiculous costumes and parades them around in a disorganized fashion. Usually when I hear the words "dog parade" it would be swiftly followed by me suppressing the urge to hit whomever spoke those words with a

bat, but in all honesty, the dog parade was a blast! Not only were all of the dogs dressed up in some fashion but most of the people were. It was like a giant halloween party in the middle of downtown just with dogs everywhere too. The crowd was huge but not shoulder

to shoulder, leaving enough space to walk around everyone and to have a new view every minute. I handed off the camera to Katie and let her go at it for a while, knowing that she would be asking for it every other minute anyway. Megan knows nearly every other person in town so we stopped often to

talk to people and the time passed extremely fast. Before we knew it the police were driving slowly up the street, dispersing the crowd and announcing the end of the event. As we left Main Street, Megan suggested that we needed to add a distillery to our list of breweries that we visit and she knew just the spot. The High West Distillery and Saloon was the first distillery to open up in Utah since the 1800's because of the strict liquor laws and it just happened to be in Park City. The place was packed and there was standing room only so we decided to just stay for one drink before heading back to Megan's. There was an awesome bluegrass band playing featuring a 14 year old girl on banjo and she was awesome. Megan had first seen her play when she was 7 years old and Megan had said that even then she was good. After they finished their first set and we finished our drink, we left the distillery and went back to Megan's. We had a lazy night in, ordered some Vietnamese food, having to go back twice to the restaurant because they gave us the wrong carryout order, and sat around watching The World's Most Haunted Places on TV. Originally we had planned to leave Park City the next day, but Megan had convinced us to stay an extra day because a band that we both knew from Michigan was playing the following day in Salt Lake and we were interested in seeing the show. Anxious for an excuse to stay in Park City longer, we jumped on the opportunity.