Sugar House and Liberty Park

The reason that I was in Salt Lake City in the first place was to meet my parents for a weeklong adventure at the "Mighty Five", Utah's five world-famous national parks. I had flown in a few days earlier and had been staying with my old college roommate, Dominik, while I got over my jetlag.

They wouldn't be arriving until Sunday afternoon, and since Dominik is off on weekends, we decided to explore his neighborhood a bit in the morning.

Sugar Beet Monument

Dominik lives in a part of Salt Lake City called Sugar House. The neighborhood's name comes from the sugar beet processing industry which used to be the major industry in the area. Today, there are several statues and monuments honoring the sugar beet, and we saw a few of them as we walked through one of the many neighborhood park trails.

I like to start my day with coffee, and Dominik had to visit the post office, so we walked from his house to a nearby area where we could take care of both errands.

Sugar House Coffee is a really cool cafe that reminded me a lot of Common Grounds in Waco. It has a fun, eclectic, modern vibe, and the drinks are great as well.

My parents' flight got delayed a bit, so we ended up having more time than we thought. It was a nice day, and since I'm super into birds, we decided to visit Tracy Aviary at Liberty Park. It's one of only two certified standalone aviaries in the US, and an incredible place for bird lovers.

While we were walking around the park, we got to meet Jasmine, one of the aviary's big stars. Jasmine is a West African crowned crane, and she loves taking walks through the park with her handler. She looks very graceful, but she tends to trip over her own feet.

One of the funniest birds at the park was the southern ground hornbill, a very smart and curious bird who followed us around as we walked past his cage. He seemed to really like people.

For just $5 more, I got to feed the rainbow lorikeets, colorful tropical birds from Australia who like to sip at small cups of sugar water.

The park holds a bird show six days a week. During the show, employees introduced the crowd to several of the park's stars. First, we got to learn about a pair of bright pink roseate spoonbills.

We also got to learn about vultures, hawks, emus, and other really smart and well-trained birds.

Finally, the northern ground hornbill, a close relative to the one we had met earlier. He's one of the oldest birds at the park - in his late 30s!

When Steven Spielberg was filming the Jurassic Park films, he needed to record sounds for the dinos. Since nobody knows what dinosaurs actually sound like, he ended up using the call of the northern ground hornbill for the raptors.

We ate lunch at Pretty Bird, a really good hot chicken sandwich shop. Even though Utah isn't exactly known for its cuisine, I've had some pretty good meals in Salt Lake City.

My parents arrived in the afternoon, and Dominik dropped me off at the airport to meet them. After collecting their bags and picking up our rental car, we set off from SLC towards Moab. Our journey to the "Mighty Five" was about to begin.