driving doing nothing on the shores of Great Salt Lake
I stood in the Great Salt Lake. Not exactly in the water…the Lake smells pretty foul…but in the mud where the Lake is supposed to be. Apparently, according to the old couple I asked to take a picture of me standing in the Great Salt Lake, Utah is experiencing a bad drought at the moment, so the Lake is starting to dry up. They said the last time they visited the Lake was flooding so Utah had to raise the highway and pump a buttload of it into the desert. The old couple did not use the term “buttload” I don’t think they would because as soon as they finished telling me about the Great Salt Lake they asked me if I was interested in the Church of Jesus Christ. I smiled and said, “of course.” They were old, come on, cut me some slack, I respect my elders…was I supposed to respond…”No, are you interested in the Church of Cthulu?”
So they went on to tell me all the great places in Salt Lake City I could go to see the history of the Church of Jesus Christ. Mental note: even though I was considering how nice SLC looked from the highway and how it might be a nice place to live, I probably wouldn’t fit in…
I then went back to my Hyundai Accent and headed west, far away from SLC. No offense if you are from SLC. It was very pretty from the outside, but I need a good stiff drink every now and then.
Something inspired me, as I hopped back in my car, to put on the album Bossanova by the Pixies. I didn’t put it together until I was driving through the Great Salt Lake Desert and the song, “The Happening” came on…I gave a long sigh of feeling complete with my connection to this band that I have loved since I was a wee lad. These are the lyrics I connected with:
i was driving doing nothing on the shores of Great Salt Lake
when they put it on the air i put it in the hammer lane
i soon forgot myeslf and i forgot about the brake
i forgot all laws and i forgot about the rain
they were talking on the 9 and all across the amy band
across the road they were turning around and headed south with me
it got so crowded on the road i started driving in the sand
my head was feeling scared but my heart was feeling free
the desert turned to mud it seems that everybody heard
everybody was remembering to forget they had the chills
then i heard the voices on a broadcast from up on the bird
they were getting interviewed by some Goodman whose name was Bill
i’m almost there to Vegas where they’re puttin’ on a show
they’ve come so far i’ve lived this long at least i must just go and say
hello
I too forgot about the laws and looked down and found my little car going a buck 10. I didn’t think my car could go that fast and I nearly gave myself a heart attack. I suppose it was appropriate because seven miles North of where I was driving is where some guy in a really fast car set the land speed record, I’m sure Hyundai had nothing to do with that, so I applied my break and brought it down to a tame 80. I had to drive that fast, everyone else was going 90. Just like when I was careening down the Sierra’s and everyone was going 90…if I went any slower than 80 someone would have slammed up my tail pipe. My car’s tail pipe. Silly.
So I tried to make it to Battle Mountain, Nevada. That was my original plan because, as it turns out…Battle Mountain, Nevada was voted “The Armpit of America” by the Washington Post. I know this because they have billboards proclaiming it on the way to Battle Mountain..followed by “so make us your pit stop.” How could I not want to stay in a town with that kind of humor?
But I didn’t make it. I decided to stop in West Wendover, NV at a hotel called the Red Garter. It wasn’t as trashy as I hoped, in fact, it is supposedly the oldest casino hotel in West Wendover, so it has heritage. Why would I want to stay in some place with heritage? I want cheesy. I dread my trip back with my friend Mike…he’s as bad as me and I can already see us stopping every ten miles for stupid things like “The future birthplace of James T. Kirk,” or “The biggest ball of twine in Minnesota,” or “the geographic center of the United States.”
I actually really do want to stop in the “Geographic Center of the United States.” I read that the place that is proclaimed to be said center is actually not the true center. The true center is actually one mile down the road in some guys farm. The guy didn’t want to sell his land so they could put a motel and pillar there…so…they put the center a mile down the road where another farmer saw the profitability of such a venture. I don’t really know if it is profitable at all, I really don’t think many people really want to go to the center of the United States…except me…and maybe fans of Neil Gaiman who have read “American Gods” and want to follow the same path of the main characters in that book. Of course, if I were to do that I really should have stopped at the “House on the Rock” in Wisconsin, but I thought I had less time than I actually do. If I knew my boss was going to screw me over, I could have dilly-dallied cross-country a little more. Dilly-dally…that’s actually what the old couple I make in the Great Salt Lake said they were doing…dilly-dallying from Oregon to Colorado…maybe I’ll run into them in Colorado and they can tell me where I can find the History of The Church of Jesus Christ in Denver.
I have to go find my way to the Mission…
