Okay honestly, even I impress myself with what I manage to get done sometimes. So as a reward, I got myself a blueberry rum butter donut from Cafe Juniper after giving a presentation. They didn't have the savory breakfast pastries pictured on Google that initially drew me there, but this is fine.
Also I just wanted to note that this guy had a bubble cavity too. And now I would like to be reunited with my deep fryer to make more donuts.
I was in between Airbnbs in the middle of the week, so I kind of forgot I would be limited by parking enforcement. On the way back to parking spot #1, I passed by an alley that advertised Roctaco. They divide their tacos by protein type, but each taco is inspired by a different cuisine, and ya'll know I love shit like this. I went in for the quick eats and giant octopus mural (and the reminder that I can get the best simple and weird meat tacos back in California) and stayed for the elotes side. Went with the Chancho taco with carnitas and raspberry sauce. At some point, I saw that raspberries is one of Utah's things along with funeral potatoes and green jello, so this is really the only thing that drove my decision. The meat was nice, and I liked the texture of the tortilla, but I could've done with less sweet sauce for lunch.
Side note, they had all these stickers to indicate which taco was which for those who get more than one, and I loved it.
I had taken my taco + corn to the SLC temple to look for a patch of grass or bench. Which I found and after a quick stroll around the temple grounds, I had about an hour and a half to kill before my next meeting and two hours before I could check into the new Airbnb that I share with Joyce for the rest of the week.
It seemed like an okay idea to go park in front of the Airbnb, take a long walk to music through the nearby cemetery, dial into the meeting from my car, and then check in and decompress before dinner. Well, 2.5 of those things happened. My phone was on the verge of dying, which cut my walk short, so I spent no less than 40 min just sitting in my car, waiting for it to charge on my laptop. In this quiet neighborhood where children were walking home from school and the occasional dog walker slid past my car... I made eye contact with none of them and read and re-read a magazine I found in the backseat. At some point, I thought I could maybe get close enough to the house to use the wifi, so I pulled up on the street about 4 houses just to find that my plan to mooch wifi did not work. That did not look shady at all... Well, if anyone came up to me, I could easily say I'm just waiting til 3pm before checking in.
The meeting came and went, and I had sweated out half my body weight while the afternoon sun beat down on my precious metal box, so I immediately jumped out with my suitcase and went up to the front door... only to find there was no keypad as described in the check in instructions. And... are there people moving around inside? Is there an entrance to another unit somewhere? I walked around the side of the house, where I thought it was strange to see a car parked in the driveway, to a side gate. I literally stood at this side gate with my suitcase texting Joyce for help. None of this made sense.
I checked the address.... and then I checked the address again. Turns out Google decided to totally change the address I had initially put in. I wasn't even on a street with the same name. What the fuck Google. The actual Airbnb was just around the corner from my previous Airbnb *facepalm.*
After an entire day of trying to figure out where I could go to try to work and not have my car towed, I realized I didn't really have to move at all.
The only thing I could think as I drove to the correct address (that by the way, I still can't figure out when it will decide to pull up the wrong vs correct location) was that I was so fucking privileged to be driving away after basically casing a home in a quiet suburban probably predominantly white neighborhood. As far as I know, no one took down my license plate either.
I took a good hour ish to decompress and frantically tell my story to David and Jennie. And then I was calm and hungry again. So I popped by Diversion for poutine and wings on my way to the Great Salt Lake Marina where there was supposedly a pretty view of the salty lake. I literally cradled my food while walking to the edge of the water. Which was not a trivial walk. And it was cold. But my food was toasty and kept my fingers warm.
It's not the freshest smelling lake. But the setting sun and the surrounding mountains were nice. The dried swatches of salt over the sand were fun and felt like walking over snow. There was a couple taking engagement photos near me. So I felt compelled to take some inspirational photos with the love of my life too:
By the way, I took care to lick clean all of my wing bones and tuck them in one side of the container. But there was basically a bird carcass every two feet (lovely, I know)... so I feel like I very well could have tossed my bones in the sand and no one would know.
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