The last bits of grandstand are coming down as we speak. The building wraps are all gone now, reduced to mental pictures 30 stories tall. What was once the elbow of a hockey player or the tip of a snowboard is back to what it used to be ? somebody's office window.
The bright red PLAZA Hotel sign is blazing again, released from its Lausanne-mandated exile.
Twin Peaks above The Avenues is again dark at night, the five glowing interlocking rings that for 17 days kept everyone (including enviros) warm have been permanently unplugged.
Main Street has returned to Main Street. The light rail cars on loan from Dallas are back in Dallas. TRAX again runs all the way to the end of the downtown line, which is the Delta Center and not the Salt Lake Ice Center.
People staying at the City Creek Motel are no longer falling asleep, or trying to, to the sounds of The Goo Goo Dolls or Nelly Furtado next door; the motel parking lot is no longer bathed in 24-hour light. The Dee's Restaurant on North Temple is catering again to locals. The Maverik station across the street is selling gasoline again.
CNN and ESPN are no longer renting roof space atop the ExpoMart. Neither is ABC. The Voice of America isn't originating from just below on the fourth floor.
You can drive along the perimeter of 200 South and West Temple and South Temple and 200 West and 300 West again; the concrete barriers that kept these streets closed are as long gone as the hundreds of National Guardsmen who patrolled behind them.
The frozen floor of Rice-Eccles Stadium has long since melted, soon to be replaced with artificial turf and, before you know it, another Ute football season. The student dorms above Fort Douglas are filled with students again; Officer's Circle is once again Officer's Circle.
The Absolute! Restaurant on 200 South has returned to its Swedish menu; the Austrians who commandeered the place have long since returned to Austria.
The corner of Main and 200 South is no longer inhabited around the clock by ticket scalpers. Nobody is shouting "Who's Sellin'?" You could stand there all day and not find two for women's downhill.
You can enter Temple Square without passing through a metal detector. You can walk into the Salt Palace if you don't have a badge hanging around your neck with your picture on it that says you belong to the media.
The hedge in front of Baci isn't lined with pins anymore. The Gallivan Center isn't doubling as a stable for the Budweiser Clydesdales. There is no line looping around the block waiting to get in.
The concrete moat protecting the IOC from the outside world no longer surrounds the Little America Hotel; at the Hilton, Bob Costas has checked out. Down the street and around the corner at the West Coast Plaza, only the echoes of a French skating judge's rant remain.
Snow has left the city streets and is quickly disappearing from the foothills; ski parkas are no longer the height of style; nobody's speaking Finnish and Dutch and Japanese out loud; Mitt Romney has moved back to Boston.
And perhaps most sobering of all, the Medals Plaza has almost completed its reverse metamorphosis back into a parking lot. Get there early and you can park at the same place where they hung four medals around the neck of Janica Kostelic while all of Croatia wept with joy.
It's been just nine weeks since the Olympics came to town and just six weeks since they left.
Seems longer though, doesn't it?
Lee Benson's column runs Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Please send e-mail to benson@desnews.com and faxes to 801-237-2527.