Heading North

After a much too long hiatus I'm going to try and get this thing started again. This spring and Winter for that matter in SLC has been crazy. Hard to believe Spring is springing in March.

Today's walk took me to the Marmalade or Capitol Hill, which everyou want to call it. Captitol Hill is one of SLC's oldest hoods with a ton of late 19th century houses and multifamily dwellings.

I really dig these old apartment buildings. It's hard to imagine sometimes how many thousands of people lived in these buildings ever the decades.

 Probably one of the most photographed buildings in Utah outside of Temple Square.

A rare Magnolia in Utah. I could smell this tree a block away. I really need to get one of these for my yard.

I'm going to go out on a limb and conclude that the home owner matched their paint to their magnolia tree. 

This is one set of the 3 sets of pedestrian staircases located in the north foothills of SLC

Kitties can't read. 

Absolutely love the attention to detail on these old houses. Look at the intricate cast plaster relief. Beautiful. 

Alleyway leading to one of my favorite coffee shops...Well a second location for my favorite from my old hood in Liberty Wells. Alchemy Coffee is awesome, I had no idea they opened a second location

Looking down Main Street

Rainy day... How much is that doggy in the window?

The walk today gave me a chance to take care of an errand, see some history, some Sequoia trees, and a pedestrian staircase. What's better? It was a dark misty northwestern kind of day. Almost as if SLC was picked up and moved to Oregon

For a long time I went to the local chop shop bad haircut place called Great Clips. To be clear I'm not stylish and I only get cuts when the hair gets out of control. For years I concluded there just weren't any old school barbers around. All there was was the fru fru salons for a $50 hair cut and the strip mall chop shop. About a year ago a local barbershop opened a Main Street location which is a really good thing because, well, Main Street is pretty sad. Who knew there are still places that will give you a cut, a shave with a straight razor, a hot towel wrap, and a shoe shine if you want it? I actually like the slow methodical attention to detail of the cuts that I get. No more chop shop for me.

Next I took off on my walk and a door down was a art gallery with a Scotty fog just kicking it in the window. I have an affinity to Scotty dogs because I had one when I was 6. This dog was just watching the people walk by on Main Street. I just had to snap a pic.

One of the things about SLC is the city blocks are huge. Humongous. 4 city blocks would fit in the same area as one in SLC. So what you that amounts to is a lot of wasted, inaccessible space.

Sometimes (not often) though the extra space affords a place for a hidden park. One such place is the Kimball cemetery park. The park is hidden mid block, connected on the west through an alleyway between apartment buildings and a meandering brick path from the east. In this park there are 2 giant sequoias next to large grave marker from one of the early Mormon leaders...

From there I continued east a few hundred feet to the top of the 4th Ave. west staircase. I grew up in the Bay Area so I spent a lot of time in San Francisco. There are several staircases in SLC from a bygone time when people walked more. There are around a dozen sets of staircases in SLC far fewer than the City by the Bay, but it's enough to remind me of one if my favorite cities. (I've been known to walk many miles in SF too). Finally I followed City Creek for a while which has been emptied for winter.