Day 5: Utah and Her Oddities

**This is where Utah's oddities began to emerge. None of this day's events are fabricated or exaggerated. We were just as shocked as you probably will be when you read how the day's events unfolded.**

With solid plans to hit the road by 7am, 8:30 rolled around to find us struggling to put our Rubix-cube Jetta back together with all the supplies we had torn out of it during our gnat-fueled fury the night before. In true Gehrig-woman fashion, we hit the road at 8:45 (1 hour and 45 minutes behind schedule), more than confident that we would make up the time with furious speeding.

Two hours into the trip, the Jetta took a turn for the worst. Halfway up the San Rafael Swell (75 by 41 miles in size and around 6,000 feet in elevation), we realized that even with the gas pedal completely pressed down, FedEx semis towing 3 trailers were blowing past us. We knew no good could come from this. We made it to Salt Lake City at 1pm and found the local VW repair shop. An hour later, we were informed that our mass air intake valve was almost completely clogged with carbon and fuel gunk. What we had hoped would be a simple adjustment to the engine check-light and a filter change, had turned into an estimated 6 hour ordeal. We had wanted to arrive in Reno, Nevada (approximately 9 hours away) by 5p.



With nothing but the clothes on on our backs, pennies in our pockets, 2 dead cell phones and a computer, we headed west further into the industrial smog of the great Salt Lake City. (We were nowhere near the beautiful lake we saw later or the gorgeous foothills. We were stuck in the commerical automobile sector of town). We found a park, and realizing how hot Utah is in mid-June, continued walking on down the street. We spotted a Hair & Nail salon and immediately thought about the possibility of painted nails and time to burn. As soon as we entered, we immediately realized that our light-skinned features were few and far between in this African-American hair-weaving and corn-row shop. We were quickly ushered to the back of the shop as soon as the word "nails" escaped our lips. After a brief and confused exchange, we bid the woman good day and continued on our way. Next door, the friendly Subway workers (we were sorry to see that one had a severely injured arm and a lazy eye) informed us that we were but a stone's throw from a Walmart, which might have had a Starbucks next to it, but they didn't remember. Even more exasperated that this would be a 10 block trek, we left disheartened. Thanks to lady luck, we came across a friendly, chain-smoking, cross-eyed and partially toothless woman, sitting in a tree's shade next to Subway. More than happy to guide us to the closest coffee shop, she suggested that we hit up Carl's Junior downtown (approximately 10 blocks in the other direction as previously mentioned) because "dey got coffee der." With the suspicions that she had no idea what she was talking about, we thanked her and immediately walked away with a little spring in our step. We passed Salt Lake's finest and most impoverished areas included within the same city blocks. Our favorite example was the Ducati/Maserati/Ferrari showroom next to a run-down children's playground littered with tires and miscellaneous metal scrap. Thoroughly disgusted now with the host city of the 2002 Winter Olympic games, we rounded the corner and came upon a cupcake shop. What luck!! They had a large neon sign proclaiming free wi-fi and excellent cupcakes; we knew we had found safe haven in "Mini's Cupcakes." As we stepped into the shop, both of us immediately realized that we had set foot in a hybrid of an "I Love Lucy" and "I Dream of Jeannie" set. Apparently, the store owner just couldn't let go of her love of retro 50's and 60's decor. We purchased our goodies, charged phones and surfed the internet on a bright red velour couch to pass the time. We kid you not - a flat screen TV (the only modern device in the shop) played a single episode of "Jeannie" continuously in black and white in the background. Finally, at 4:30, we got the long-awaited call from Malik, our friendly VW representative, that our car was ready to be picked up. As we were gathering our things, one of the friendly bakers who had heard of our ordeal, gave us two of his friends' contact numbers in Seattle if we had any more car troubles. His name was Job and he was from Nigeria. On the way back, three more odd things occurred. 1) Martina and I stepped back into the Subway on the way back to the mechanics shop to grab a bite to eat on the road. As we stood in line to order, we witnessed a woman pay for her bottle of Sprite with a cup full of nickels and pennies. We overheard her promise the cashier that she would return with the remaining 29 cents needed to complete the transacion, "when she got out of rehab." She left the store with Sprite in hand. 2) Almost back to our destination, we passed the same shade tree we had encountered earlier in the day, only this time with a wide assortment of more odd people. We looked at one another, confused because this exact spot was where we had spoken with the Carl's Junior Lady, and had been passed by a white bus full of happy-looking people with their arms hanging out windows. 20 feet later, our suspicions were confirmed. We passed a sign reading "Mental Health Association of Utah." 3) A man that had passed us 1 hour earlier in the day, running at such a speed as if he was outrunning a small velociraptor, was the same man that kindly informed us that we were pulling out of the VW parking lot with our pillows on the roof of our car. We were left to ponder why he had been at the dealership as he sped off running again in another direction, most likely being chased this time by a jackal.

The rest of the day passed in a blur. We took a major and accidental detour around Salt Lake City and then were treated to the beautiful scenery of Salt Lake itself and the surrounding mountains. We both immediately thought of New Zealand photos we had seen and briefly contemplated how we could fit it into this roadtrip.



We spent 45 minutes crossing Salt Lake Desert on I80 W. Just as we were sure the day couldn't get any stranger, we passed a bizarre structure resembling a tree with tennis-ball leaves. Thanks to Bonnie Cannon (our friend that loaned us a wireless chip for internet use on the road), we immediately found the strange spectacle online. Check it out at here. Currently, it's 11:30am, we still haven't hit Sacramento and we're still trying to makeup for our late departure from Goblin Valley this morning. HA! One last picture. We've been blowing through massive swarms of insects on our hell-bent path through Nevada on the way to the Redwood National Park. We captured this moment with a picture. Hopefully tomorrow's blog will find us lounging under the boughs of a Redwood Tree. Goodnight for now.

Stephanie & Martina

PS. Oh wait, we have one last addition to today's blog. We just traveled through California's Agricultural Inspection Point and had our one orange and container of Sam's Club kiwis bought in bulk, confiscated from our cooler. The lady is probably sitting in her checkpoint hut adding to her daily fruit intake.