Boise-Vegas-Palomar Mountain
Idaho-Utah-Nevada-California
Our Visit
July 2026
In mid July, Erik was slated to spend a week in Las Vegas attending a tech conference. The following weekend, my company hosted a get-together in San Diego.
The two events were so close yet left an awkward in-between week. We would have gladly spent that time in San Diego proper, but every year in late July, 130,000+ people head to the San Diego convention center to attend Comic Con. The whole downtown area is turned over to art installations, brand activations, vendors, popup events, and sleezy pedicabs. Comic Con used to arrive on our doorstep each year like a cosplay frat party and the only option was to embrace the chaos. This year as lowly outsiders, we were relegated to a cabin on Palomar Mountain at the northern edge of San Diego county as the hotels were swept up by visiting superheros and anime characters.
Photo Albums
July 1, 2026
Family time in Boise
My fams.
July 11, 2026
Springville, UT
Driving from Boise to Vegas is, by and large, pretty boring with the exception of Southern Utah with its beautiful red stone and rugged mountain skylines. I am of the mind that road trips are a lot more fun when you can break up the drive with interesting stops. Springville Museum of Art is about an hour south of Salt Lake City and houses a collection of Erik's great-great-(maybe another great?)-grandfather John Hafen's paintings. John's family immigrated from Switzerland in 1862 and settled in Utah. He was an amazing and prolific artist, sketching with charcoal as a child and found his passion as an impressionist, painting Utah landscapes.
July 11, 2026
Cedar City, UT
Cedar City in Southern Utah is known for its world-renowned Shakespeare Festival going strong in its 65th year. We saw a fantastic performance of Twelfth Night, my second favorite Shakespeare play. (My very favorite Shakespeare play stars Leo and Claire. Sometimes your taste gets locked in at age 12 and there's nothing that can be done.)
July 12, 2026
Las Vegas
Work trips to Vegas hit a bit different. But if one must work in Vegas, doing it from a comfy hotel bed is the way to go. There is also the option to mix things up with an afternoon walk around the casino before returning to work overstimulated and smelling faintly of stale booze and cigarettes. Meanwhile, Erik and a few of his Finetune coworkers attended Ruby Conf, an annual tech conference put on by Ruby Central, a non-profit organization that supports the Ruby programming language.
July 18, 2026
Palomar Observatory
The observatory is an active astronomical research center operated by Caltech. It houses the Hale telescope which uses a 200-inch Pyrex parabolic glass plate to focus light from deep space which can be studied by capturing images (originally on glass plates, now digitally) or by analyzing the wavelengths (called spectroscopy). Edwin Hubble took the first image on January 26, 1949 of a nebula named for him.
July 18, 2026
Boucher Trail
We did a short hike in the Palomar Mountain State Park that took us by an active lookout tower. The tower is staffed May through December by volunteers who watch for signs of fire and report a location and weather conditions to emergency responders. They yelled down and invited us up for a tour of the lookout.
Our Thumbs Up List
- Springville Museum of Art (opens in new tab) is open Monday through Saturday (nothing in this part of Utah is open on Sunday) and admission is free. Catch the John Hafen exhibit if you can!
- Utah Shakespeare Festival (opens in new tab) in Cedar City, Utah is a beautiful venue and attracts top talent.
- We've almost become regulars at The Pub (opens in new tab) in Cedar City with our frequent trips between Boise and San Diego. They have great sandwiches and pretty decent cocktails.
- Palomar Observatory (opens in new tab) is open most days and offers guided tours on the weekend during the summer months.
- The road to Palomar Observatory is known as the Highway to the Stars (opens in new tab). Once the site for the observatory was selected, the County of San Diego built the road now designated as county road S6. It's a beautiful switchback route that climbs over 2500 feet.