2002 Olympics

813 13th Ave.  The East Bench

Salt Lake City, UT         February 9, 2002

This is our location for the opening ceremonies and fireworks.  Neil parked the truck at 7am to save the parking space.  Around 4pm the crew arrived and began to setup.  Many of the neighbors stopped by to see what we were doing and this guy had some neat dogs.  Jeff, Robert, and Ken are pointing to the Rice-Eckles Stadium way off in the distance.  We had plenty of time, the opening ceremony didn't start until 7pm.  Our camera was the first live image on NBC from Salt Lake.  We had this wide shot of downtown. 
Two night earlier we were on top of this same hill for rehearsal.  We found out that night that the official torch was doing a hand-off right at our location.  They had a neat artistic camera shot from up here.  Jeff and Christian helped rehearse the passing of the flame.  The olympic people only had one torch so Jeff had to improvise.  Then we all got a quick chance to hold a "real" olympic torch.  This torch came from the torch factory but was broken and used just for the purpose of rehearsal.  Jeff and Christian, in the green hat, got to hold the torch.  As night fell the real torch came running by and the torch people got their shot.  

Some friends I met out at the NBC Field shop came up to visit us on the hill and watch the fireworks.  Sara in the red hat and Beca with the yellow scarf.  Finally at the end of the evening the fireworks went off.  They were good fireworks but way down at the stadium.