Utah’s Full of Bees
Utah’s considered fair game. I’m not going to get into the history, but one thing I noticed on a recent trip is that there are a lot of bee references. For instance, bee hives on the road signs. Bees are considered industrious and productive, and those are values that are near and dear to the influential LDS community. The name “deseret” means honeybee, according to the Book of Mormon. There was even a proposed State of Deseret that never came into being, for various reasons, including size and politics.
Our destination: Salt Lake City. Penny was making a bee line for the gem fair, and I was along for the ride (along with Mazie and Zookie, our good and bad dogs). I’ve been through Salt Lake City several times, back in the 80s. What I remember most is staying at my buddy Jon’s ex-girlfriend’s apartment and the growling Rottweiler that stopped me from leaving my room. That was on the way back from Breckenridge, without Jon, who had hooked up with a local girl who could keep up with his drinking problem. I tried but failed, and after about a week’s worth of lost days in the Rockies, I turned around to join forces with less alcoholic friends in the High Sierras.
I couldn’t help but compare Salt Lake to our home in Boise, where we’ve lived for the last couple of years. Salt Lake City looks like it was built on purpose. Boise simply rolled out of bed and didn’t bother to comb its hair.
I woke up at 3am, thinking it was time to go. 530 is bad enough. I couldn’t just fall back asleep, because that’s not how my brain works, or my body. So I laid there wishing I were asleep, till the alarm went off.
Penny drove most of the way. I completed the final hour and dropped her off at the gem fair. Now it was just me and the dogs. What do you want to do, dogs? Go for a drive? Okay.
The mountains around Salt Lake City are more dramatic than ours. Jagged and tall. And even from way down in the valley, you can see the fall colors. Or maybe the mountains are rusty. We drove up into the foothills and found a place to park where I could eat my BBQ chicken. Then back into town, because I didn’t feel like driving too far.
Rules are meant to be broken, especially on road trips. That’s why I ordered a brigadiero from Parfé Diem (in the Sugarhouse neighborhood) and a second dose of coffee, a caramel latte at the Bean Yard, where they have three highly intriguing siphon machines. Coffee is a visual art, with the siphon acting as an exclamation point.
I left the dogs in the car, but it was a cool, rainy day, and I could see them from where I sat. I wasn’t gone long, and they were still there when I came back. How about the park next? Dogs love the park.
Not sure if it was a typical Saturday afternoon in Sandy, but the place was full of people. The only benches faced kids playing, so I walked the dogs instead. Mazie’s a puller, with her own ideas. I just went where she wanted to go, which was erratic. Even if you pay close attention, dogs still get tangled in ways that cannot be reverse engineered.
The beehives didn’t fully register till day two of our two day whirlwind tour. I started seeing signs of them everywhere. Not actual beehives, mind you. Utah isn’t known for having more bees than anywhere else. The connection is mostly symbolic. We probably have more bees up in Idaho, but here we call them flies. They have their own season. Flies are what bees would be if they had no purpose. Not sure how I’d feel about bee season, though. That many bees might hurt.
We made it home without being stung, which is good. As beautiful as Salt Lake City is, I enjoy being somewhere that feels like it was having too much fun the night before and didn’t consider the consequences. Maybe because that’s how I wound up in this world, too. As far as accidents go, Boise seems like a happy one to me.
