The president is in Salt Lake City. I can tell because there are guards all around the Grand America hotel. I can also tell because there are signs welcoming the president to Salt Lake City. On the way up, and the way back, the train had to wait for something presidential (not for the president, I have no idea what we were waiting for, certainly not a motorcade...)

They have put concrete barriers all around the presidential compound, otherwise known as the Grand America Hotel.

 There are armed guards standing all around it, at each street corner and alongside the barrier.

There are even dogs with them.

Of course, it could all be a decoy and the president could be in the Motel 6, down the street.

All traffic is being routed completely around the hotel, the streets are empty.  There was also a Budget rental truck and a Le Bus performing who knows what function. Perhaps the Le Bus is doing what Le Busses normally do, carrying old people around the country and staying in nice hotels so they can snap pictures of tourist things. That makes me wonder, though, whether there are still actual people staying at the hotel or whether it is just a rather large White House for a day.

Which also begs the question, how much does it cost to shut down the Grand America for a night and day while the president visits? If it was not shut down, there certainly wasn’t traffic going into the hotel parking lot… One of my employees, who is a very different person from me, wanted the afternoon off to go listen to the president speak. I hope he enjoys it, I’m not sure what I would think about visiting that rally, politics always suck… Does a presidential visit always cause this much disruption? Or is it only in Utah, where they are so rare. (Why would they visit? The Republicans already know they’ll win and the Dem’s will always lose. It’s the most guaranteed state in the union.)

I don’t want to spend much time on current politics (at least when they don’t involve medicine) but I will close with one word: 

Peace!