Once again I find myself boarding a United flight. This time I'm on my way to Salt Lake City, Utah. I've never been to Utah before, although I went right by it when Dave and Kim took me to Seattle. I am really anxious to visit this place because last night at dinner the humans saying that most of the people there are maroons or morels or maybe moormen. That's a new word for me. I've never heard it before and haven't any clue what it means, but I'm positive they aren't marmots. Whoever or whatever they are, I sure hope that they are nice. I decided not to worry about it too much as folks say, "one who knows everything will grow old quickly." I certainly don't want to get old.
What I do know about Salt Lake City is that the 2002 Winter Olympic Games were just held there. I watched some of the games on TV over the last few weeks. For some reason humans like to play in the snow rather than hibernate when it's on the ground. I personally got a paw in it and didn't like the way the stuff felt! But I digress. I was rather impressed with some of the things humans will do in the name of sports. The games ended two weeks ago and I'm hoping that the olympians didn't take all the souveniers with them. I'd like to take some back home!
The main reason for my trip is to accompany an INS interpreter to Salt Lake City for court work. Interpreters speak many languages and help people from different parts of the world understand one another. It's like when marmots and squirels get together. Only one of us speaks well. I've never been to a court room before and I look forward to seeing one and meeting a judge!
From the plane's window I could see all sorts of mountains, most of them covered with snow. There were all sorts of mountains -- big and small, long and short, flat and pointy. It was very beautiful and I spent the whole trip looking at them. Salt Lake City is located west of my home. When we got there, I found the place very confusing. In Denver I just find the mountains and know that they are west. I can figure out the rest. In Salt Lake City the mountians are all around. It's very hard to figure out which way to go. I'm glad we found cabs to take us around. I wonder if there are marmots in Utah's mountains.
The hotel was okay. It wasn't fancy, but comfortable for a non-demanding marmot like myself. They even offered free breakfast for their guests. After checking in and cheking out the room, we headed over to the INS building.
There was a huge line of people waiting to get into the INS building and it moved very slowly. I was worried we'd wait for a long time, but to my surprise we walked right up to the door. The security guards knew exactly why we were there and let us in. I was x-rayed to make sure I didn't eat anything bad, just like at the airport. The guards then escorted us to a big waiting room.
The courtroom was sort of small with a really big table. The district attorney said that it wasn't a real courtroom, but since I've never been in one at all, this was good enough for me. In fact, it was great! We were the only ones there and since the session had not yet started, I got a chance to take a few pictures. I tried out the judge's chair. It didn't really make me feel any different, just gave me a great view of the room. Next to the judge's chair was a chair for the "respondent". I didn't like this chair as it was at the head of the others and only had a view of the judge's chair.
After a while everyone else started to arrive. I sat in my seat, but since I'm small, my best view was under the table. I saw a lot of legs, but I could hear everything. The judge knew the interpreter and was glad to have her here. He asked some questions about the flight, then changed the schedule for the next day to make sure everyone could catch their flights. I liked hearing this as it took the pressure off my return trip, giving me plenty of time to get to the airport. He wasn't a mean judge at all!
The court staff continued to chat for a half hour. None of the people who were to present their cases came, so the judge said, "They aren't here. We gave them enough time. Let's wrap things up and you can go downtown and do some shopping." Yes, I was liking this man a lot!
We returned to the hotel and took a shuttle to the train station to go downtown. The train here looked very similar to Denver's light rail. The train soon came and we got on. The streets of Salt Lake City were decorated with Olympic banners and flags. The streets seemed to run straight into the mountains. The architecture of the buildings was very interesting, too. Some had a very modern look and some looked very old.
Stopped at many stores as we walked around. There were thousands of pins, hundreds of shotglasses, tons of shirts and piles of other stuff. It was all very expensive. We headed back to the hotel during the local rush hour. It was as messy as it was in Denver. We ended up on a train called "Sandy". That made me uncomfortable a bit as I was hoping I had gotten away from the white-bellied cat for a couple of days. At the hotel I went to bed.
I learned something very interesting this morning. Not only have these crazy people named a train after Sandy the Cat, but they also named a whole city for her. I think they should have named the city "Stormy". It's a much better name and I'm rahter likable and lovable. I couldn't believe my years, so I went to check the phone book and sure enough, it was there! I wanted to make a copy of this page to show MAx and Jenn, but Jana, the girl at the desk, said I could have the whole phone book! Wow -- that's a lot of nesting material!
We had to leave the hotel early with all our stuff since the check-out time was to be while we were going to be in court. We got to the INS around 1 PM. The judge let us sit in on the sessions until we were needed at 2 PM. In the breaks he asked us how we enjoyed the city and how our hotel was. I like him very much. Judges scared me, but he is very nice.
The cases I heard were very interesting, but they are also confidential and since I was allowed to sit in, I can't talk about them (or write about them, either!), but I sure enjoyed seeing how the justice system works. When we were done, the judge thanked us and let us leave early so we could catch our flight back to Denver.
The cab taking us to Denver turned out to be the exact same one that brought us to the INS building earlier in the morning. I thought it was funny to have the same driver twice in one day. There must not be a lot of taxi drivers in Salt Lake City.
To my surprise there was no line waiting to check in at the airport and we were able to check in right as we walked up to the ticket counter. The ticketing agents seemed happy to have something to do. Since we were the only ones here, we were checked out and allowed to go to the gate to wait for our plane. This airport is much smaller than Denver's and even has no train to ride. We had extra time, so we stopped at a few of the stores to get some last minute items to take home. At one of the stores the woman at the counter thought that I looked cuddly and posed for a picture with me.
At last we got on the plane. It was dark now and in flight all I could see were the lights below. I could hardly wait to get home and tell Max and Jenn about my trip. I was so excited, I kept sending them post cards while I was in Salt Lake City. I sent three cards in less than two days!
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