Spend All Your Kisses

"How is is SLC livin if one is gay and oh so creative??" - I was asked this question by a new friend of mine that lives in Florida and as I began to answer it got long winded so now its today's blog....

The fast answer - It's absolutely grand!


The better answer - SLC has a HUGE gay community (3rd largest in the USA per-capita {sp?}only beat out by San Francisco and NYC) The Advocate magazine did vote Utah as the "Gayest State" this year!  We have a great GLBT community center, about 6 gay/lesbian bars and a HUGE 3 day Pride Parade and Festival in June.  For being such a small city it has amazing arts and cultural events, some really great museums and there is NO WHERE on this planet that has a better outdoor play-ground.  We can drive 2 hours in any direction and be in a completely different environment - The desert to the south full of red rock cliffs and pink sand dunes, the bizarre salt flats to the west full of under ground caves, geode and trilobite beds, lakes and mountains to the east that are great for boating, swimming and hiking in the summer and skiing in the winter, and good beer and lottery tickets in the North (ya gotta go to Idaho for those lol)

As for the Mormons - a church which I was born, raised, served a mission, still have a fondness for and most of my family are still very active members of ~ aside from spending WAY to much money on political bills that oppress the rights of others (which is very ironic as that is the reason they fled to Utah in the first place - their religious rights being oppressed) they are great - They are peaceful natives and would rather ignore you than be in your face (which is different from the encounters I saw living in big cities like NYC and London) As my brothers favorite T-shirt said..."SLC is a little drinking town with a Mormon problem!" ha ha

Having a 12 year old daughter that is 7 years into the public school system here I can say in that 7 years she has never felt any kind of sting from having 2 mamas'.  She now goes to the Salt Lake Arts Academy (a charter school that focuses on the arts) which has a very diverse group of students and families - Hannah is not the only kid with same sex parents at her school and my mothers exact words were "I never thought you would be the conservative mom on the play ground!" (Keep in mind I am out, loud and have 15 tattoos) lol

Utah has great weather if you like it hot and dry in the summer and cold in the winter.  We do average 260 days of sunshine a year and personally I think that is AWESOME!!  I love the seasons I love the HOT dry heat of summer and the cold crisp days of winter.  It might be freezing outside but the sun is usually shining so that makes for a beautiful combination!  Life Elevated is a great slogan for our little state.  Feel free to come visit we'll show ya'all a great time!!

Remember - Spend all your kisses~

Tubbing at Gorgoza Park, Park City, Utah

Oquirrh Mountains, west of SLC, Utah

Spring time - Albian Basin, Alta, Utah

Cecret Lake, Alta, Utah

Red Rocks of Southern Utah (photo stolen from my sis-in-law Whitney)

Ayden my nephew showin' off at Knolls Sand Dunes, Utah (picture stolen from Papa)