I love to fly, but so rarely have the opportunity to do so that each time is a jarring experience, as if I somehow haven’t done so since some imagined history of flight before the Wright Brothers—a horse-drawn aircraft, if you will.  I’m imagining only one service provider for my hypothetical pre-Wright era, and it would be named Pegasus Air.

It is odd how going on a vacation makes me remember more vividly moments from other vacations, the kinds of things that otherwise wouldn’t come to mind.  In this case, I found myself thinking of a return flight from Reykjavik, where there two young European women who were overwhelmed with joy to be going to NYC.  I hope they had the time of their lives when they got there. 

At the same time, I wondered why people leaving planes tend to look a bit smug, that maybe they’re thinking, “Hey, I survived, but you chumps which have yet to take off might not be so lucky”.   Fortunately, the flights weren’t eventful, as it occurred to me on the first leg that one thing nobody wants their flight to be is memorable.  At worst, they don’t want it to be memorable to their heirs.  I was listening to music I had copied to my phone and was wondering if my playlist of Buddy Holly and Jim Croce hadn’t been such a good idea.  Still, there was a memorable moment on the return stretch from Salt Lake to Chicago when the plane’s shadow on the clouds was somehow in a circle of rainbow.

That I was flying while there is a government shutdown in progress had me arriving at the airport earlier than I usually would have.  I was also apprehensive about a video that was supposedly playing in the TSA checkpoint area of various airports, where secretary of homeland security Kristi Noem blamed long wait times on Democrats who refused to compromise on certain issues which would enable the budget to pass.  I knew some airports, such as Chicago, were not showing it, but I also did not see it at the other airports where we went through security.  Ironically, the wait times were less than I have experienced on previous flights.

Not that O’Hare was exempt from other annoyances.  We had a layover there in both directions and found the place to be so cramped, noisy and crowded as to have me thinking the Muzak system should be playing the Star Wars cantina theme at all times, as it was almost like being dropped into that alien environment.  Trying to be thick-skinned, I felt like I put on so many extra layers of it that I could be mistaken for Ed Gein.  The issues weren’t confined to within the building, as the return flight taxied for so long after landing that I wondered if we had landed in Madison, WI, and the pilot was driving the plane the rest of the way.

Landing in Salt Lake City, our ultimate destination, immediately showed this was a very different place than Chicago.  We exited the aircraft to step into what looked to be the world’s most immaculately-maintained shopping mall, and one which was nearly absent of people.  Then we descended into a subterranean area bathed in deep blue, where moving sidewalks took us to the exits, all to the sound of Pink Floyd’s “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”.  It was quite soothing.

I never before considered visiting SLC, and we were going there for the purpose of seeing The Beta Band on a reunion tour.  The day after we arrived was the next round of No Kings protests against Trump and, while I support all the issues for which people around the country were marching on that day, I didn’t feel like vacationing somewhere like Portland (another tour stop) where there was more potential for a National Guard member to crack my skull with a baton.

Still, what little I had heard about SLC did not have me very excited to go there.  In the past, I had been informed it is in a dry county.  Even though I don’t drink, that implies this isn’t a fun place.  Somebody told me it was even hard to find coffee, as the allegedly overbearing Mormon population there even shuns caffeine.

Turns out I was misinformed on all counts, and I am now going to…um, spread the gospel that what I found completely subverted my expectations.  There was no shortage of bars and coffee shops.  There were even multiple “adult” stores.  Many stores openly displayed their support for LGBTQ+ people.  I would guess those were all recent developments, except The Heavy Metal Shop, which does exactly what it says on its heavy metal tin, has been “Peddlin’ Evil Since 1987”, as says their slogan.

There were also a great many vegan and vegetarian options—far more than what is readily available in the city where we are from.  My favorite was Vertical Diner, which sells only vegan versions of diner comfort food.  They also have a very quirky sense of humor, pouring my coffee into a mug reading “I [heart] Mormon Boys” on one visit.  Another vegan restaurant with similar fare is Vegan Daddy Meats, which makes fast food without any animal product.  The only fault I could find in their “V’arbys” beef and cheddar is it failed to emulate the original in that it was more tender and tastier.  One place we didn’t visit was Sips, a drinks place famous for its ridiculous combinations of colas, as I have always heard one shouldn’t mix their drinks.  Curiously, it was a bit difficult to find conventional fast food, as well as grocery stores. 

I also don’t recall seeing a single drug store of the likes which can be found roughly once every mile in the place I reside.  The absence of such stores made it difficult to find such garbage one must eat on vacation, such as cotton candy flavored like Dr. Pepper, in case you have ever wondered what it is like to eat fiberglass insulation (that this is the product of a company called “Taste of Nature” seems too absurd to not be an intentional joke).

Like every city we visit, I ended up hitting multiple record stores.  That must have been in the forefront of my mind, as I had a dream the first night there of a track called “Going to Your Revival” by a supergroup named Cavern of the Unwanted Fetus.  This nonexistent song was so full realized, that I recall the lead singer was Sam Coomes of Quasi, and that it sounded reminiscent of later White Stripes.  As this record does not exist, it wasn’t one I bought at Randy’s Records, Diabolical or Fountain Records.  But I did bring home some finds from the first and last of those, but didn’t find anything I wanted at Diabolical.  On a side note, I have a candle at home that supposedly smells like a record store, but it only smells vaguely basement-y.  Randy’s reminded me a more accurate scent would be patchouli.

Some other stores of note were Blick Art Supply, where “Bop Scotch” by Stereolab just happened to be on the sound system while I was there in my t-shirt for the same album, making this feel like some sort of providence. 

But that was nothing compared to how overwhelmed we were at Tabula Rasa, a store which so thoroughly covered our variety of quirky tastes as to feel like something out of a dream: books on art, architecture and the occult, fountain pens, hand-pressed reproductions of antique greeting cards.  The place was a hazard for our credit cards.

The store is in an amazing shopping center with similarly distinctive businesses.  Trolley Square is a repurposed industrial building, refashioned to be a two-story mall.  Though it had several vacant store fronts, such a place in the city I call home would be lucky to have just two or three spots filled.

The city itself is a pleasure just to drive or walk around.  Streets and sidewalks are wide and treed.  As a vendor at a farmers’ market told us, those deciduous trees were all from seeds brought there by the first settlers, and this is evident by the bare mountains which are always somewhere in sight when one is outdoors.  It is like the city, which is perfectly flat, is walled in by these on the sides which do not abut the store of the Great Salt Lake.  Seeing maps end exactly at the base of these hills made me think of the mountains which would restrict the play area of early computer simulation games.  I also thought of arcade’s Battlezone, and the mountains that can never be reached.

Yet one can drive into those mountains at a few key points.  The most astonishing drive is up Big Cottonwood Canyon, which winds through Wasatch National Forest.  I imagine the Wasatch would be the ideal place to spot a sasquatch.  The drive ends at Brighton, which is nearly 9000 feet above sea level.  By that point, the pine has given way to tall white birch, and I was unnerved by the visual of the tops of houses that barely peeked out over the tops of these white sticks, as if they were giant creatures trying unsuccessfully to crouch down and hide among the trees.  Speaking of houses, an attempt to sneak a peek at the sole Frank Lloyd Wright house in Utah proved to be unsuccessful, as there wasn’t even sign of a drive at the location to which we were directly by GPS.

Speaking of which, the Volvo SUV we rented was quirky.  I don’t believe I would ever have gotten used to this bizarre mechanism which shifts through the gears in an odd manner.  Worse, there was some sort of electrical issue, as the hotel notified us one night that the lights were on.  I went down to the garage to discover all the lights, inside and outside the vehicle, were on.  Upon starting it up and turning it off again, the lights also turned off.  I could have done without the opportunity for the car took to potentially run down its battery. Even stranger, the front desk called us three times to try to tell us about this, except there wasn’t anybody on the line each time. Trying to call them call on the phone wasn’t working, either, so I didn’t know what was happening until I used my cell phone. I think I can speak for everybody when I say nobody ever wants any weirdness involving their hotel room’s phone.

We didn’t see much of the lake itself, except for a day trip to drive the long causeway out to Antelope Island.  It is apparently named for the pronghorn which were mistaken for antelope, but the only animals we saw there were bison.  That there was text in the pamphlet we were given saying how to spot when a bison might likely charge gave me pause.  I wondered about the rifle reports we heard and who was shooting at what, thinking somebody couldn’t possibly be culling the bison. 

Still, the scenery was beautiful there, and a bit like wandering into one of the Lord of the Rings movies or even a Roger Dean album cover for Yes.  Also, even though we were beside salt water, the air still didn’t smell like anything.  Even there, the humidity was so low that the sunlight takes on a curiously sharp property that was remarkably different than how it is diffused in the very humid air where I live.  I was also glad it was on the chilly side during our visit, as we weren’t overwhelmed by brine flies. 

Something we did not see there are brine shrimp, among the few things which live in water so high in saline.  I had always assumed the Pixies’ song “Palace of the Brine” was about Sea Monkeys (which are brine shrimp), but I never realized it is specifically about the salt lake, with the “palace” of the title being Saltair.  Alas, the most recent iteration of Saltair Palace was not the one used in 1962’s Carnival of Souls, which burned down so long ago that hardly any ruins remain.

All in all, Salt Lake City subverted my expectations, and entirely in good ways.  I had anticipated the surroundings to be beautiful, but I never expected to see bare mountains towering in the distance in most directions one glanced.  I had also not expected to find a liberal oasis in a literal desert.  As many locals would tell me, the area beyond the city limits, where it becomes that desert, is very conservative.  Eventually, I would return to the area where I live, where those distinctions are more blurred.  I doubt I looked smug when leaving that last plane, but I was glad to have arrived there safely.