Desert Camping and Leaving Utah

The day finally rolled around for the Wild Yogi desert camping trip, we were all pretty excited. Peter, a yoga instructor and a friend of Candice's, had organized this with Tim, who fits the previous description as well. After some running around the grocery store and gas stations, we were on the road, one more stop for s'mores supplies, then a couple hours into the West Desert we went.

We rolled into a camp spot deep into valley after many miles of dirt road. It was a good spot near a dried up river bed with plenty of grassy spots surrounded by cedar, juniper and sage. With the fire ripping I had some beers, joints and s'mores into the night, there was around 10 of us or so. I passed out in my sleeping bag next to the fire.

The next afternoon we headed to a grassy spot down the way a bit and Tim conducted a yoga session. The lot of us went through the various poses and ended with several minutes of silence staring up at the clouds all in our own head space.

Back at camp a few of us decided to hike up to one of the taller peaks nearby, a couple shots of vodka and we were off. We made it to the top pretty quickly and were able to look out on a lot of the valley. Tim used to take teens around this area, a wilderness program for delinquents, the kind I'd met in Provo when I was younger in a similar program, just not in the wilderness.

Back down at camp I carved away at a small piece of wood by the fire, eventually I jumped up on my own and climbed into the hills behind camp. I found a cliff looking out on to the valley and blew into my harmonica for a while before coming back down.

The group had retreated down into the dried up river bed, having created a new fire ring away from the wind that had now picked up considerably. We sat around a while, some instruments got passed around as well as stories, people slowly started disappearing into the night to sleep. Before long just myself and a few others remained, then just Cam and I. We gathered more fire wood and kept it roaring, had a couple more s'mores and plenty of beer, we decided it was our duty to finish all the beer. We dug out beds on either side of the fire in the dirt, comfy spots with plenty of warmth.

I woke up well rested in the morning, everyone had begun to pack up. We shot out of the desert at a fast pace, kicking up dirt the whole way until we got to paved roads again, soon enough we were back in Salt Lake. I gave Candice a massage and we both promptly passed out on the floor for a while. I took the rest of the night easy, I had the idea of hitchhiking to Vegas in the morning.

I woke up to see the snow falling, I figured I'd wait a day or more for my hitch to Vegas. Candice woke up feeling sick, but all smiles, she's always smiling. We had a quick meal and she went off to get some medicine and see a friend.

Kate, the new roommate, was on her phone a friend in Vegas, I was at my computer and she asked me to look up the cost of flights, expensive. Her friend was pressing her to come, I told her she should drive and I'd come with her, she was in. We packed our bags and waited for Candice to get back to say some goodbyes. We asked her if she wanted to come, she didn't. Kate ran to the car and I hugged Candice one last time. Her eyes gazed at mine as if she was searching for something, it reminded me of the last time I'd left Salt Lake when she dropped me off on the freeway. Spinning all the same as then, I ran outside and jumped into the car and Kate hit it, off we went towards Vegas.

I got a call from Candice before we made it to the freeway, in the mix I'd left my sleeping bag, we turned around to get it. I ran in to find Candice on the couch, kissed her a few times without saying much, ran to the basement for my sleeping bag, and finally we were off to Vegas.