THE CHANGING FACE OF DOWNTOWN

So honestly-- I've been trying to create a travel guide for Salt Lake City but honestly, I've been living in Salt Lake City for about a year and some of the things I LOVED, they are disappearing and even though I'm not a true Utahn, I feel a little sadness, I walk by a business that I loved, that helped me feel at home and now, it isn't as much of a home anymore.

It is a placeholder. So much of downtown is. I moved into a brand spanking new LUXURY-APARTMENT complex last year, right after it was built and really before I could even grasp my surroundings they started to change. The broke ground on three new luxury-apartment complexes right next to mine within seconds of me moving in to mine. Next came the store closings.

I guess I really didn't care until they took our spot. It sounds so selfish. This books store had been there SIXTEEN YEARS! My husband and I would go there and get coffee and and a book on Sunday mornings. It was the hardest. It still it hard. Right now, there is a pang in my gut, I miss the spot my husband and I would go, where I bought Baby Fritz's first book. I might cry typing this y'all.

It was a book about koala's and I'll never forget that. But I'll also never forget how we used to walk 1/10 th of a mile to go shopping for clothes and now we have to walk a mile to CITY CREEK. The people changing the face of the GATEWAY only want $$$ and I understand that, I truly do. But will they remember when I first got to UTAH and I was scared to be here, and I just wanted to go back to ARIZONA and Charlie took me to the planetarium and then to get coffee at BARNES & NOBLE.

We moved right next to the Gateway because he knew that I love a mocha frapp and a good book and my twinnies love the splash pad. We love the movie theater and HOT TOPIC and ZUMIEZ and PAC SUN.

Now we spend our weekends elsewhere, the new coffee place in the gateway isn't exactly what I like, and if we want to shop we got to City Creek and we aren't fans of DAVE & BUSTER.  We just want our bookstore back, where we can browse for our baby to be some and our wants right now.

Downtown is constantly changing, we might not always live there, but Salt Lake City will always hold a place in my heart. The way it was, before everything changed.