Tripping in Utah

I woke up in Salt Lake City with tripping on my mind, and that would define the day. The new roommate and a couchsurfer were headed up to Yellowstone and offering me a ride, I declined it after a bit of consideration, I had ideas for some days in Utah still.

Candice went to work at the crystal shop and I tweaked the Trip Hopping site a bit, hours passed and I decided to hop on the bike and bug her at work. I got there and mentioned the magic chocolate I'd been given saying today was the day, she agreed. I left her at work and went to the coffee shop waiting for her shift to end.

She swung by later just to say she had a few things to do, and sure enough she was back about an hour after that ready for a trip. We decided beer was the thing to kick it off, we walked down the block each eating half of the ice cubed sized mushroom chocolate I'd been given while hitchhiking days before.

We had a beer at a bar she'd once worked at, we talked with the waiter she'd once worked with. The chocolate kicked in quicker than expected, we finished the last of our beers and headed for the door, down the street and to our bikes, smiling wide.

We rode back to her place, me slightly ahead of her, glowing and smiling while riding along. We landed in her backyard, her garden, and plopped on the grass staring at the sky. It had been a gray day with fits of rain, but now the skies were blue with giant white fluffy clouds passing by. Kate came into the backyard at one point realizing what was going on and let us be.

We laid in awe at the magnified beauty of it all, laughter and uncontrollable leakage of tears from our eyes. We'd decided that we'd personally sucked up the moisture of the stormy day, this being the reasoning for the sunny skies and our overall moisture coming from seemingly everywhere, eyes, nose, pores, wetness.

We wandered around the yard once we were able to tear ourselves away from the clouds, investigating a wooden box, her garden and the sights and sounds from beyond her yard. The one thing that remained consistent was the smiles on our faces and overwhelming feeling of awe. We found ourselves on the grass a few more times, peering at the vortexes and kaleidoscope effects of the clouds.

We found ourselves near her car, unable to get inside since it was locked, the car had been broken down for months anyhow. All at once I felt a tightness in my stomach and throat, a shortness of breath and a feeling I'd only felt once or twice in my life, as if the end was upon me, death as it were. I walked into the yard to contemplate this before alarming Candice or anyone else, I peeked into the sky again. At that moment death didn't matter as much as it did a second ago, it didn't even mean the same thing. I laid out in the grass again as the feeling continued, a smile was on my face that pushed the limits of my cheek muscles.

As I laid there the feeling of death evaporated leaving me purely with ecstasy. Candice looked over at me from her thoughts to say I looked peaceful and happy. Her blonde hair fell from her knit hat to the side of her face, clean and pure adorned with a simple natural smile, I'd never seen her more beautiful. My eyes were glued to her for a moment, then my head turned back to the sky and my fleeting but extensive thoughts.

Candice mustered up the motion to go to the bathroom and went inside, I wouldn't see her for hours. I laid out for a while with my thoughts until standing up, I wandered inside. I filled up two glasses of water and wandered downstairs, I found Kate watching a movie, smiled and walked into Candice's room. It was dark and smelled like of purposeful scents, candles or incense or some such, no sign of Candice though. I wandered back upstairs and forgot about her, thoughts were racing through my head so quickly that focusing on any one thing became ridiculous and boring.

During the next hours I went through fits of genius and insanity, banging the side of a banjo in between. At times I felt twisted and demented beyond recognition, I imagined I may never come down from my current state and couldn't be happier. My mind scrolled through all the stages of my life in great detail at a rapid pace. I considered many of the people I'd met in my life and projected times yet to be had. A few times I wandered downstairs to find a movie being unwatched, something about a wedding, I contemplated going into Candice's room, her door was now shut. I decided not to disturb her knowing that any number of things could be going through her mind as they were with me.

Later in the night she emerged upstairs, at that moment I was pacing the room still entranced with various thoughts, coming down from the height of it all though. She turned on the lights wanting to use my phone, I dug it up, I'd been ignoring it all day despite the occasional vibrating growl it produced from it's spot buried in my bag.

We shared insights and stories from our various experiences, which were identical in nature and varied only in specifics. Then night calmed down from there, we rested in her room with a movie and eventually found a way to put some food in our stomachs, ending the night with more talk about our thoughts and slowly waning to sleep.

I woke up the next day feeling refreshed. The day went by without much incident, a bike visit to Candice's work, her head hurt. Later we had dinner and beers as some people dropped by to enjoy.

The following day we found ourselves at Peter, Denny and Parker's place. Candice got to cleaning, a big party was in the works. As the night came in, so did people. We all got to drinking and whatnot, eventually Bobby showed up with kegs, he's the brew master at the Bohemian in town. The party raged on, a beer pong table emerged, the cutest girl at the party got paid $40 to punch her boyfriend in the face, things were looking good.

The night finally began to fade as the beer ran out, eventually Peter, Denny, Candice and I were laid out in one of the bedroom's laughing the night away as the sky became bright and the birds got to chirping.

After perhaps an hour of actual sleep, I was up and out the door with Peter and Candice, off to REI where Candice was in search of a cheap sleeping bag. We left her there and made a visit to Cam's place, then came back when she was just checking out. We got some baked goods at the grocery store only to decide that we wanted to go to the Blue Plate Diner. We enjoyed a nice breakfast there, I slammed down a coffee in the wake of drinks, trips and little sleep.

After a brief stop at Candice's we were back at Peter's relaxing, and then finally back at Candice's where I crawled into my sleeping bag for a few hours. I woke up and grabbed a couple slices of toast, then chased Candice down to a brewery a good 20 or 30 minute bike ride away. There was a monthly couchsurfing meet up there, I drank a stout and had some conversation with various folks until it was decided that there was a party worth going to.

I biked the good distance back where I hopped into a car and headed to the party, hosted by a guy Phil who I'd met a time before. I drank beers and cups of jungle juice while sharing some hitchhiking stories with interested people who were traveling though. The night started winding down and Candice and I caught a ride back home where we faded.

I woke up in the morning with the road on my mind, I intended to go up to Jackson Hole, Wyoming to visit my mom and sister. It had been a good trip in Utah, but a packed bag and blue skies always begs for motion.