Summer Travel #2: Park City, UT

         This was something I was looking forward to since March, my first paper presentation at a national conference! I liked the idea of talking about my research to an audience and this conference, the 8^th US Combustion Institute Meeting, was held at Park City, Utah.

Long before Park City became a world class mountain resort and venue for the 2002 Olympic Winter Games, it was famous as a silver mining town, and boasts a lively and colorful past. With its foundation dating back to the late 1860’s, silver mining in the city continued until the early 1970’s. With a population of little over 7,500, Park City boasts of scenic mountains, sprawling lush green open spaces, which serve as canvas for miles of recreational trails which please both beginners and experts alike, and building architecture that goes well with the backdrop. Park City has three world class resorts: Park City Mountain Resort, Deer Valley Resort and the Canyons Resort, and skiing is a major activity that attracts a ton of tourists to this place.

The conference was hosted at the Canyons Resort by University of Utah and there was no compromise with the accommodation provided to the attendees. For dining, there was a good collection of restaurants to choose from and I got to experience food and drink at the Red Tail Grill and Drafts. Both places had a good selection of dishes, and I specially appreciated the food at Drafts which is synonymous with hand-crafted burgers, stone oven pizzas and an array of gourmet pub food. Drafts, as the name suggests, housed over 50 beers from around the world with some of them brewed right there in Utah and this is what they proudly claim:

Being a combustion conference, a lot of my advisor, Dr. Sally Bane’s, colleagues from Caltech were to show up as well. This kind of situation usually opens up quite a few stories from the past and with Dr. Bane not attending the conference there weren't any restrictions on what facts were talked about! :) Let’s just say she was a little concerned about this, but she was kind enough to let me know who to meet from Caltech. That was a big help when going there alone. The conference was well organized and I managed to attend a good number of presentations over the three-day event. I got the opportunity to meet a lot of people from other universities and national labs, and learn about their research. The group from Caltech were nice enough to let me be a part of their group during dinners and I enjoyed interacting with that bunch about their work, academics and their memories of Dr. Bane from the recent past. Dr. Guillaume Blanquart, from Caltech, generously sponsored all our drinks at Drafts on our final evening there and we chatted away around the bonfire till late that evening.

             My trip ended with a visit to the coal gasification lab at University of Utah. Overall, it was a good experience to present at a conference, meet new people, learn about current research happenings and check out whatever little I could of Park City. Next stop Seattle!