71) Wyoming by Way of Utah Part 3

Wyoming by Way of Utah Part Three- Utah

Utah in the Morning

None of us slept very well, but the down time was important I think. A few hours after we attempted sleep we gave up. It was early morning and Reticence still wasn’t answering.

We continued to head for Salt Lake City, through the magnificent Rockies, each rising up out of a prehistoric moment to stand as a wall between me and the life I had come from. They engulfed me, embraced me. They were so beautiful, albeit snowy and cold. They breathed life into me.

After we got on our way, and smoked, I decided that I couldn’t stand how fuzzy my teeth were feeling. I dug out all of the essentials, toothbrush, toothpaste, and Dr. Pepper. I had never brushed my teeth in a moving vehicle before, and it is a bit different than brushing your teeth in a bathroom.

I was doing great until I needed to spit, and I just figured I’d spit out the window, but when I did my hat flew off. I loved that hat. It was burgundy with “Calgary” on it. My ex had brought it back from a run to Canada and it was perhaps the best thing I got out of that relationship.

We didn’t go back for it and I was sad. I told A that I had become my own redneck joke.

“If you’ve ever lost your favorite hat while brushing your teeth you might be a redneck.”

He thought that was pretty funny. So did I for a long time.

We stopped again to top off and try calling. This time Reticence picked up. I let her know we were on her way and would be there shortly.

She was surprised.

She told me that she was about to head to work, at Arby’s, and wouldn’t get off until 10 pm. I told her we’d be delighted to entertain ourselves until she got off work, and we spent the day mulling around SLC.

0/10 recommend.

Buying cigarettes was overly complicated, and expensive. Everything was expensive. We found a grocery store, and made sandwiches for lunch. Finding anything in Salt Lake City is hard if you’re not from there, which is laughable because they built it on a grid so it would be easy.

Well…That’s not the only reason they built it on a grid. The entire city is designed with religion in mind, with Temple Square at it’s center, and the streets form a grid around it.

Now, my family had been conservative republicans, but they did at least support the separation of church and state as absolutely essential to a free society. When my mom had been young, their Lutheran church got a new Reverend and he started to insist that these farmers, who had been out working in their fields for hours before the church service, should have to clean up and dress fancy to attend church. To that my grandpa replied that they were closer to “God” out in the fields, and they never went back except for funerals and weddings.

I had passed 9th grade civics. This felt like walking into a foreign world, and my mind was blown.

If A and I went into a store together, they would only talk to him. It was like I didn’t exist. “God” was everywhere, but not the one that my family seemed to remember at Christmas time, and not the one that I’d learned about in Methodist or Baptist bible study. All of those seemed pretty similar, and this one used some of the same words, but this was definitely different.

I was pretty sure I did not want to live in Utah.

We went to Arby’s while Reticence was closing up, and she was talking a mile a minute. I didn’t catch all of it, but she seemed happy to see me, and I was so grateful to feel like I had some anchor there.

She gave us the end-of-shift leftover sandwiches for which we were grateful, and we followed her home.

As we were pulling into the parking spaces at her apartment complex, C’s car just died. It was fine the entire drive, and it just gave up. I was grateful for the timing, honestly.

Reticence checked her lease, and she could only have one of us there for more than three days. That meant we had three days to figure out what we were going to do.

Reticence had just gotten divorced. Her parents had let her get married at 17, and she had a miscarriage that her marriage didn’t come back from.

She said it was particularly interesting being a divorced woman in SLC because you couldn’t even get a bank account without your husband to give you permission. Thankfully, her parents were there, and her step-father signed for her.

WHAT!?!?!?!?!?! Seriously? My brain still struggles to believe this.

It really helped Reticence to have me there to listen. She also grew feelings for C, and C grew feelings for her. I thought that was really convenient because C’s car wasn’t moving, so we decided he would stay there with her. I still remember his goofy ear-to-ear grin as we pulled out.

Wyoming

A said that he had an uncle in Pinedale, Wyoming. He didn’t say his uncle was nice, or welcoming, he just said that he had one, so we took off for Pinedale.

K was tiny so she rode in the back of the truck, which couldn’t have been comfortable but she was so grateful to not be in that group home it was a small discomfort comparatively.

We made it through Rock Springs without getting hooked on meth, and travelled up Hwy 191 toward Pinedale. Wyoming sounded wonderful. I was so tired of people, and suburban city life. I wanted open skies and fresh air.

Just outside of Boulder, Wy, we got pulled over for having a headlight out. I was not aware until then that A’s license was suspended. The officer gave me permission to drive A’s truck, a stick shift that I did NOT have experience with, to the county jail while he drove behind me. He let A ride with me to tell me what to do.

That drive was not the most fun I’d ever had.