(written on the 29th and 30th)
I kept waking up earlier than my alarm this morning, and looking at my phone, I noticed that the Asics shoe guy from Facebook Marketplace had messaged me, saying he’d leave the shoes on his front porch at 9:00 a.m. If I still wanted them.
Getting new-in-damaged box three-digit value shoes for 35 bucks, especially Asics, my favorite brand, was definitely worth the $7 in gas it would take to drive to South Jordan and back from Cory’s mom’s place.
The catch, of course, was my darn loud van. The people in the house next door wake up quite late, so starting my van as early as I needed to was a potential problem, Even though I didn’t need to be in South Jordan until 9:00. 😅
I got out of my van I think at 7:00 something, and saw Cory through the kitchen window, motioning to him that I wanted to communicate with him and seeing if he wanted to do it via phone or otherwise, and he motioned for me to come to the side door.
I let him know that I needed to leave earlier, and that I would rendezvous with him later to pick up a check for the automotive scan tool that he bought from me and to say goodbye.
He told me not to worry too much about the loud noise of the van, but given that the driveway had a slight incline to it, with the lower end at the road, I decided to try my luck at rolling the van backward onto the street and then rolling it down the street a ways. 🙃
It worked. 😁
It was relatively easy to get it out of the driveway, just cranking the steering wheel hard and giving it a little bit of a pull, then cranking the steering wheel as quickly as I could the other way as the van started to roll down the gentle slope of the road, which turned out to be absolutely perfect. 🎉
I stopped off at the Home Depot nearby to grab some fiberglass filler for the future repairs of the roof of my van (The nice older gentleman at the customer service counter pointing me directly to where I needed to go for the filler 🙏) since I was going to be a fair bit early to pick up the shoes.
I had expected nobody to be there when I picked up the shoes, the seller saying he was going to leave the shoes on the porch, and I could pay him via Venmo, but she happened to be just leaving as I walked up, and not knowing exactly how to use a venmo QR code from a screenshot that he sent me (since I can’t use my camera?), I asked if I could just pay her in cash, and that was fine with her. 🙏
I had been planning to meet Cory at his job location in Sandy, but he was a little late getting going, so I just headed right back to MillCreek and waited in the parking lot of the church across the street from his house.
In the meantime, I had sent a message to one of the people who’d previously messaged me interested in buying ammunition. They had wanted a whole ton, but we weren’t agreed on the price, they wanting to pay about $140 less for it than I was willing to take, but I let him know that I was about to leave town if he was still interested.
I told him that I would throw in a little container of loose 22 LR ammo that I had and a brand new 22 magazine, still in the package, and he replied back accepting my pricing terms and asking if I could meet his brother West Valley City, and that was good with me.
Cory showed up at his house a little earlier than expected, so I popped over from the church parking lot to his house, and he handed me the check for the scanner, giving me a little more money than I asked for. 🙃
We chatted for a little bit, and I actually remembered to snap what I quaintly call the obligatory selfie. 🙃
And with that, I was off to West Valley to meet the brother of the guy who wanted to buy the last several thousand rounds of my 22 ammunition.
Gratefully, the transaction went smoothly, and I was also able to offload the pellet gun pellets and the packet of small targets, giving them for free as part of the 22LR bulk purchase.
I’ve still got a whole ton of ammunition left–all the .308, .357, .380, and 7.62×39, but I’ve sold all the 22 caliber. 🙏
It’s nice to have a little bit of cash on hand for other purchases.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to connect with my friend Robyn, so I guess I’ll have to try and meet up with her next time I’m in Utah.
Looking at my route back to South Dakota, I decided it would be a lot prettier to swing by the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone (despite being a tad more expensive), and I have exactly a day and a half left on my annual national parks pass, so it would be a lovely, mostly prepaid trip. 🙃
So instead of taking i-80 East, I headed up a much more attractive Sardine Canyon. 😊
That meant the updated ammunition ad that I made when I thought my route was going to go through Pocatello and Idaho Falls was no longer useful. 🙃
Oh well. 😊
As I drove, I worked on memorizing 2 Corinthians chapter 12:7-10. I’ve been texting back and forth a bit with my New Branch president in South Dakota about my addiction and other struggles, and he recommended reading chapter 12.
I’m going to work on getting back into scripture memorizations. Super helpful in helping me stay focused on the things that matter most to me.
I stopped in a handful of different places on my way up Sardine Canyon, taking pictures and exploring.
I spotted the entrance to a cave in the side of the mountain, and did a little bouldering/scrambling to make my way up to it.
Clearly, either the property owner or the city or somebody doesn’t want anybody in there. 😅
I also stopped off at a beautiful little spring that I guess is actually just a place where part of the river finds its way underground and then bubbles back up later. Still, it’s beautiful. 😊
I stopped at the Bear Lake Overlook while also chatting with my sister Heather. I don’t remember what all we talked about, but I do remember that one of the things on my mind has been the lovely superficial concerns about the massively and sped up aging of my face from all the time I’ve spent outdoors without sunscreen.
Over the last week or so, I’ve had a couple of people tell me that I don’t look 44, more like in my thirties, and that’s nice, but that’s also from a distance.
With the comments, I had been feeling better, but yesterday, I saw my face in my brother’s mirror, and… wow. 😕
My skin has lost so much elasticity from continual, sun damage that I’ve got gazillions of super fine wrinkles all over.
😕
My oldest brother has more than a decade on me, and he doesn’t have anywhere near the facial aging that I do. Neither does my brother Richard nor my friends who are my age or older.
I royally messed myself up in that regard.
Apologies to my future wife. 😞
It may be superficial, but we’re still human, and physical attraction is important. Yes, we all get old and lose our youthful looks at some point, but with my genetics, it probably should have been another 20 years before my face started looking like it does now.
😕
And though I wish my concerns were purely selfless, for my future wife’s sake, there’s actually more fear for myself than there is sorrow for my future companion. 😞
My brain says: “What if women aren’t attracted to me, because I’ve got fine lines and wrinkles all over?”
What if nobody wants me?
I’m scared of that. 😞
I’ve been scared of that for a while because most of the women I was interested in that I’ve taken out throughout my life haven’t been interested enough in me to want to pursue an actual relationship.
I’ve had a few that either were or would have been, but most… aren’t even interested in trying.
So this just adds one more piece of fuel to put on that fire. 😕
I’ll get over it. Someday.
Anyway… Bear Lake. From the overlook, it looked like the lake might still be frozen over in places.
As I descended into Garden City, I noticed a small LDS chapel to my right, so I swung over to see if there was an outdoor outlet that I might be able to charge up my power station with, and gratefully, there was.
I don’t have my solar panel set up right now, and heading out into the middle of nowhere, I wanted to make sure that I had sufficient reserve power, if needed.
The power outlet came fully stocked with a wasp’s nest as well, so I carefully removed that and then propped the lid open so the remaining wasp inside could fly away (which it gratefully did🙏).
I was there at the church for about an hour and 20 minutes, chatted briefly with Cory but spent most of my time working on my journal catch-up efforts.
About the time I made it to Ovid, I got a message from a gentleman interested in buying all of the rest of my ammunition. Unfortunately, I was an hour away from him. Had I kept my original path, perhaps I would have been able to sell all of my ammo.
Then again, had I kept my original path, there wouldn’t really have been much to stop and explore and take pictures of and what not, so I might well have been a fair bit further.
Probably sixes.
I don’t think he was super duper serious because I offered to meet somewhere between, and he never replied to that.
So my route took me through Montpelier (which had an LDS temple that I didn’t even know existed), then through Afton and Star Valley.
Really glad I decided to take this route instead of the mentally and visually numbing expanse of southern Wyoming on I-80. 🙃
I don’t know what the area is actually called, but I’m going to call the section of the highway between Alpine and Hoback the Snake River Gorge.
It was beautiful. 😊
I think most of last handful of pictures of the day were taken on the way to or at the spot that freecampsites.net directed me to.
When they said the south side of Highway 20, I didn’t think they actually meant the highway itself. The spot the person was sharing as a place to camp for the night was simply a large turnout on the super steep, 10% grade mountain road on the way up to the ski resort and the pass west. 😶
😆
Having already put the time in to get there, and not really having any other place nearby, I decided to just give it a go. Most of the turnout was covered in snow, but it wasn’t too deep, so I figured I’d risk it.
I parked at the higher end of the turnout, so if in the morning I found my tires slipping and what not, I’d at least have gravity to help get me where I needed to go.
That meant that my bed was going to be at a slant, but at least it was a slant from head to toe and not side to side. 🙏
I spent the rest of the night journaling and veging a bit. Hoping for good weather tomorrow to get a good view of the Tetons. 🤞
Lift the world.
Bring it on.
~ stephen
Lift the World 