Semaine/Week 33 - Summary / sommaire en anglais

As we’re updating our weekly blog, we’d like to underline the fact that Quebec City is celebrating its 400th anniversary (the second oldest city in North America). Traveling from one State to the next every week, we are often reminded of the significant role played by many French-Canadians explorers, trappers and missionaries in the development of this continent. They left us with a language and a long standing cultural heritage that is well entrenched in the life and evolution of North America. Happy birthday Quebec City!

Our gallery of the week includes over 150 photographs of our last-year journey and about 100 more covering of our current stay in Salt Lake City and the area. As we toured many different locations and sites in a quite short time, it is impossible to be fair to all the great sceneries, experiences and warm welcome we witnessed. The State is home to some of the most remarkable sceneries of the country from Bryce, Zion, Kodachrome Basin, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef, Arches, Natural Bridges, Goblin State Park, Dead Horse Point, Sundance, Park City, Moab, we’ve highly appreciated the diversity and the beauty of these sites. We also were impressed with the spectacular setting of Salt Lake City, its amazing culture including the Monet to Picasso exhibition, its Arts Festival, concerts, etc.

Our guided tour of the beautifully renovated Capitol building has been another highlight of the week. The large group of State employees that we had the pleasure to join and our great guide were definitely an asset to a better understanding of not only the history of the building but also to the particularities of their political system. We usually don’t reveal our preferences but we both agree that the Capitol of Utah ranks in the top ten of the 31 visited so far.

As the US economy is in a free fall, the national campaign is picking up on the issues that most directly impact the population -- fuel cost, jobs lost, stock market value and continuing foreclosures crisis are relegating the war and border issues behind the scene for the time being. As we continue to probe people we meet for their voting intentions, our in-house poll shows a slightly narrower gap between the parties (Democrats: 50%, Republicains: 40% and still a high rate of undecided 10%).

Anyone wanting to experience Western States natural wonders should start by visiting Utah.

Our warmest regards,

Suzette and Gilles Samson
AGSNA

http://www.agsna.com/
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