Salt Lake City, UT— After driving for three hours yesterday, my mother practiced yoga in the parking lot of an Applebee's in Grand Junction, CO. I believe this was a first of some kind.
Then a local radio station billboard on the outskirts of Salt Lake City proclaimed March to be "Kenny Chesney Month" and promised to play a Kenny hit at the top of every hour. In unrelated news, I was informed upon crossing the state line that I am officially the only Jew in Utah. Apparently the Lipschitz clan from Scipio moved away last week.
We ate dinner in Provo yesterday, which is somehow a far stranger place than Salt Lake City. Here's what I gleaned from our time at the local T.G.I. Friday's: In Provo, 'vodka' means 'water'. And as far as I can tell, it is some sort of Provo rule that brunette people be heavyset and blondes skinny (I did not encounter one exception, myself included).
Oh, yeah — I almost forgot. Everybody in Provo is also a Mormon. Now I'm not saying the two things are related, but Ma and I did stumble upon a packed, PACKED, galactic-bowling, milkshake-loving, Brigham Young-is-smiling-in-his-grave-at-his-chaste-young-followers spot called All Out Fun. The neon lights blinking down the lanes combined with the crisp, smoke-free air made All Out Fun sort of hypnotizing. Everything here is just so…clean.
Except polygamy. That's kinda dirty.
More Cross Country: The Mom Chronicles to come from America's biggest little city, Reno. Sadly, P.J. (Joe Bardi to you laymen) informed me yesterday that while there it would not be a good idea for me to shoot a man just to watch him die. Woulda been a great post Peej, and now you ruined it for everybody.
This article appears in Mar 1-7, 2006.