Salt Lake City Breakfast

I spent a large part of my childhood in a tiny town in Wyoming, three hours away from civilization. The nearest city was Salt Lake - where we drove to visit the doctor, to buy food, and to shop. I told you we lived in the middle of nowhere. OK, our town did have a doctor and a grocery store. But my eye doctor specialist, my sister's gluten free food, and the only malls worth going to were not anywhere close to us.

Because the only place to buy clothing in our town was the general store (which also sold saddles, kitchen stuff, fabric, and other sundries - I know it sounds fake but it's true), we traveled to the mecca that is SLC to purchase our wardrobes. We made a weekend of it a few times a year.

On one particular trip my dad wasn't with us for some reason, which left us girls loose to shop til we dropped. You may think you can shop til you drop, but my Mom is a force to be reckoned with. Anyway, we always picked a hotel with a microwave so we could have popcorn, and M&Ms were a staple road trip snack. One morning we overslept and missed the continental breakfast. Rather than spend money on the most important meal of the day, we ate popcorn and "M's" for our morning meal, still wearing our pajamas and lounging in bed. To this day, it's one of my favorite childhood memories.

Last week I had the good fortune of taking a mother-daughter trip with my mom and sister. We stayed in a bed and breakfast, bummed around, and, of course, shopped. We literally closed down the outlet mall. In your mind, 2:00 pm might not be a "late" start when the stores close at  9:00, but we used every minute of those 7 hours. Seriously, if you need a bargain, my mom will find it.

It would of course be trite to say that things are different between daughters and mothers when the daughters grow up. We're both married now, have finished school, have careers and lives. Those few days together reminded me how much I loved my childhood and how grateful I am to keep the connection I have with my mom and sister now, even though I've changed so much and our lives are busy.

My favorite part of the trip was piling into bed, watching a movie in our pajamas, and eating popcorn and M&Ms.