I couldn't sleep the hours before we left, so I didn't. Which meant I had been awake for almost 24 hours by the time we left. And I was MISERABLE. I'm not a pretty sight to behold when I'm incredibly ill either way, but this was especially bad, since I couldn't be in my own bed, resting. I won't talk about all of the unpleasantness surrounding being beaten up by pneumonia. It's really of no consequence. I shouldn't have gone on the trip, but I'd been planning it for so long, and so hard, that I wasn't going to let a silly thing like fluid in my lungs stop me from enjoying the four day with Frubs. And I really did enjoy it.
Since I had been sleeping in the car on the first leg of the adventure, Frubs hadn't gotten any gas like I advised him, and when we finally found a gas station, we had less than ten miles left in the tank. A yelled about this. A lot. I'm not proud of this, but it's something that happened. I am quite keen on throwing temper tantrums when I'm ill, in between bouts of crying, whining, and sleeping. It's what I do. It's also wildly unattractive, but fuck it all if Derek doesn't take it in stride.
I will interject here and say this: I've been questioning the validity of marrying Derek. I thought maybe I was doing it just because I want to get married. Not in some desperate attempt to fill some antiquated ideal of what my life as a woman should be like, but because I DO want to get married, and Derek is as close to perfect as I've seen. I thought maybe, despite all of this, I was settling. I wasn't happy with that, and I thought maybe I should call everything off. I wrestled with this for awhile. I am 100% I'm not settling, and I've made the right decision. Derek is amazing, we have fun together, he makes me laugh, he's kind to me, he's patient with me, and he values me. The value and adoration is overt. It's not weird, or hidden, and privatized so only we see it. He openly loves me, and it's not a secret that's been killing me for the duration of our time together. It's brilliant, and while we joke about our impending divorce (our current timeline is five years, and we're thinking of having a divorce pool at the guest table for the wedding. Everybody kicks in five bucks and throws a date on the board. If we make it past the date, we keep the money. If someone else picks the date we divorce, they...well, they probably don't get the money, but maybe they will. Tongue in cheek. My mom thinks it's gross), I think the years before it will be mostly rich and lively and fantastic. I'm looking forward to them.
Anyway, the trip.
Day one: Cisco, Sego, Ute Country, and the Definitive Perks of Not Being Shot
I had found two abandoned towns that I wanted to stop in on the way to Bryce: Cisco, Utah and Sego, Utah. We stopped in Cisco first, and it didn't really yield much. There WAS a very tiny post office with a creaky door, and when you peeked inside, big, black, bold letters are the first thing to meet your gaze, and they say: It's a nightmare after midnight.
The soft drink of crushed dreams and fuck you.
When I told Allen about it, he said it made him want to write. I told him it brought up the exact same reaction in me. At first, I thought maybe I had hallucinated it in a fever dream, but I pointed it out to Frubs. It was very real. To add on to the creeps factor, there were all of these symbols in every building around the town. A sort of cartoonish looking devil head (I think Frubs got a picture of it...I didn't take one, I know that for sure), with a cross on either side. One cross was right-side up, the other was upside down. I get that things like this are incredibly common in amateur graffiti...I mean, fuck, I see it all the time at Graffiti Falls...but there was something about it here that was unsettling. I'm not trying to make a bigger deal out of it than it deserves, I'm just noting it. It was about 7 in the morning, and an incredibly interesting start to the day. It also seemed like everything in Cisco was miniature sized. Most of the dilapidated shacks that used to be homes had private property signs all over them, and for us, it depends on how we feel that day regarding whether or not we pay attention. We paid attention. But, there was one property that didn't care about trespassers, so we obliged and trespassed all about the thing. I have to stress again that everything in this used-to-be-a town seemed so oddly small. I didn't take any pictures for scale, though I should have. But the entryways were small, the appliances were small, the distance from the floor to the ceilings? Small. Perhaps the nightmare after midnight is a full-on riot of midget ghosts. Or a host of murdered contractors killed by an angry mob of townspeople because they fucked up the execution of the town's design.
I'm sure this gives little to no indication of how very tiny it actually is, but in case it does, EVERY BUILDING IS LIKE THIS. Just...small. We didn't understand it. Everything in there was also extremely old, so aside from the weirdos that come here after midnight to experience real hell, and then puffy-paint their bizarro devil heads (because it wasn't spray paint, it really was puffy craft paint all over the place. Crafters...with an EDGE! On more than just their ribboning sheers. They've got a dark side...made of felt. BLACK felt), this place hadn't really been lived in since...the 70s? Perhaps the 80s? It'd been a long time.
The tiny oven, typewriter, bathtub, and television were all in this room, and maybe these help you process just how bizarrely tiny everything is. But in the corner, there was a book! It was old, and yellow, and slightly crunchy, but I didn't even attempt to smell it, because it would have been pee. I know it would have been pee.
I did love the kitschy little oven, though. I don't know why.
Odly...though, pneumonia considering, not so odd...I didn't feel very inspired to take pictures in Cisco. I was pretty half-hearted about the whole debacle. I just wanted to lie down. Frubs did busy himself with taking pictures of Jasper (Did I mention that's what I named my car? I did. It's Jasper. He's handsome, and we love each other), and I sort of sat down in the grass and moaned to nobody in particular, which did me little to no good, but seemed like a good idea at the time.
We got back in the car and headed to Sego. We drove through a little town, and I commented on how run down it looked (I am not entirely quick on the uptake when I'm delirious with fever and lung liquid), and how I hoped Sego looked as cool (just to insert a spoiler: that WAS Sego. I told Derek to keep driving, because I'm a moron, but a very persuasive...read: bossy...moron). We come to a mountain road, and we keep driving, driving, driving, until we see a sign that says, "You are not entering Ute Territory. Any trespassers beyond the fence will be shot on sight. Do not trespass." You make a very convincing argument, sign. So we didn't trespass. We kept to the portion of the road we were allowed to be on, and I kept babbling about Sego being close, it had to be close (yeah, it was. It was ten minutes in the other direction), and then we hit an actual gated fence that further demonstrated not to cross the fucking line, you god damn pale faces, you do not belong and we will shoot you where you stand, because you've earned it, that's why.
BUT.
It said something about looking at the petroglyphs from the designated pathways.
...Petroglyphs?
Fuck yeah, petroglyphs! We had, by my bossy, sickly demands, wound up at an absolutely amazing historic site that practically nobody knows about, covered in Ute, Fremont, and Anasazi pictoglpyhs and petroglyphs. From several different discovery eras (1883, 1908, and 1972). And it was just breath taking. To be surrounded by something so...I don't even have the word for it. Here are some links if you want to read up on them, but really, you should go see them yourselves. They're wonderful.
If you're playing Visit America, The Home Game, here are my incredibly paltry pictures of them:
Take the information with a grain...or a shaker full...of salt, and try not to buy into the extra-terrestrial hype. The pictures just happen to be really in focus and true to color.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thompson_Springs,_Utah (not really a wealth of information, but could be fun for a Wikipedia black hole excursion!)
http://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-americas/haunting-rock-art-sego-canyon-extra-terrestrials-or-spiritual-visions-001584
On the way back to the interstate to get back to Bryce (I figured Sego was behind the fence on Ute territory, and I wasn't about to fuck with that), Frubs figures out that Sego was the place we drove through. So we tooled about for a couple of hours in abandoned homes, an abandoned motel, a cemetery, and generally just walking the streets remarking on the odd quiet of the school, the still in the air, and the eerie feeling that always settles into an abandoned town the way a deep cold permeates your bones.
The chairs are from the inside of the window building. I've started to make taking a window picture mandatory every time we visit a new abandoned place we've discovered. They can say so much, not to get all queer with it. But with this one, you can see the horrid exterior of the outer house, with the peeling paint and the warped glass, and in the window's reflection, you can see another abandoned, unloved home with a dead tree right across the street. Kind of poetic, in a weird, weird way. But maybe that's why I love it so much. It's all so bizarre.
Coming up next in part two:
Racketeering and You: A beginner's guide!
For now, I have to go to bed. I am thoroughly exhausted, and I have missed my critters so. Please understand I'd like to talk about my trip in-depth, and we're only at about 1pm on the first day. These posts are going to be fairly long. Save yourselves...I'm a rambler.
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