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I’ve been living in Utah for the past 3 weeks. Here’s my full report.

If you include Zion and Arches then I've spent nearly a (nonconsecutive) month in Utah this year. I didn’t really do much touristy stuff while staying in Salt Lake City, but I still feel like I got the whole spectrum of experience. 

I was coming from a housesit in Las Vegas, and I had a one night gap between housesits so I slept near Zion(checked out Kanarra falls during the day) before making it to Salt Lake City. I decided to park at the same hotel I stayed at when I was checking out Zion a couple weeks ago and just sleep in my car in the lot. Since I stayed at that hotel before, I’d be logged into the wifi(I could reach it from the parking lot) and I knew they had free breakfast so in the morning I’d just walk in and grab some food. Then I’d drive a few hours up to Salt Lake City.

(Kanarra falls)

Once I got into SLC the plan was to grab dinner and then head over to meet up with the pet owner and get a run through of dog/house responsibilities. I checked maps and there actually is an H Mart in the SLC area, 15 minutes away from the house I'm staying at. Decided to check it that out too before getting to the house. It was pretty big. The aisles were wider than the one in Cupertino, and very few shoppers, granted it was a weekday afternoon. Also only a third of the patrons were Asian. In the same building was also a Chi Cha San. It was open but there were no customers. The only people were two workers behind the counter, just sitting and scrolling on their phones. 

I grabbed dinner at a local Hawaiian BBQ chain. It was at this strip plaza that also had a sushi restaurant. I was just looking at the sushi restaurant’s menu posted on the window, that said all rolls were 50% off. Not a limited time offer, just a perpetual 50% off as I saw the menu had printed the price x-ed out with the 50% of price under it. A girl approached me and asked if I was John. I was a little confused. “No?”

“Oh I’m supposed to meet a John here.”

“Ohh got it.”

Literally 10 seconds later a guy walks up “Hey I’m John.” The internet says this area is 5.4% Asian, but from my experience in the past couple weeks, I’d say it’s less than that. So I just thought it was funny that she thought I might be the person she was meeting up with. She thought she might be meeting up with an Asian person? I guess it was a blind date?

So this first housesit is technically in South Jordan. 20 minutes south of Salt Lake City proper. It’s in this new development called Daybreak. It’s like 1.5 squared miles of very similar looking houses. There’s a lot of new development in the SLC metro and its these neighborhoods where all the houses look like someone just came in and copy pasted. This neighborhood is kind of like that but there’s a little more variation between houses. There’s a lake in the middle, that has a big island that has some more houses. There’s no stores within the neighborhood, although on the very edge there is a Harmon’s and some restaurants. Not a far drive, but it feels far driving by block after block of similar houses. I don’t think neighborhoods are usually this big. There is an LDS church in the middle of the neighborhood though. A lot of the houses have swinging or rocking chairs on their porch. Front yards are pretty uniform. This neighborhood is probably what people were imagining of the white picket fence American dream back in the 80’s. I saw things that I feel like is only described in pop culture and I don’t really see in real life. Lots of kids biking around and playing, a father and son playing catch in their front yard, some kids set up a lemonade stand, people just sitting on their rocking chairs on the front porch, kids flying kites, kids drawing with chalk on the sidewalk (I did later see that a kid wrote “I hate gay ppl” on the sidewalk though…). Whenever I walked the dogs, there would be kids that would say hi to me. It felt like I was in the Truman show… 

The house I stayed in was in line with the houses you see in Secret Lives of Mormon Wives. The decor feels very sterile, modern, and minimal. Looks like a staged home. Everything was white or gray. The mom, Cynthia, could have passed as someone on the show too. Sassy with a sense of snarky humor. Making comments like “I love these dogs more than my own children” within earshot of her kids. But she was super nice and hospitable. She made me feel like part of the family. Definitely social butterfly. Also looked like maybe she had some plastic surgery done on her face? Is that unnecessary to point out? This area is heavily Mormon, and I learned recently that Mormons don’t drink coffee. And I realized this was the first housesit where the tour of the house didn’t include a “do you drink coffee” followed by explanation of their coffee set up. As someone who doesn’t drink coffee, it was funny to me that every housesit I do they have to point out their coffee contraptions and explain how it works. And maybe to someone who drinks coffee it's not that foreign, but to me every house it feels like there's so many variations of making coffee. It's not just a "add hot water to the powder" or whatever. Just a reminder of how coffee centric society is. With doing all this housesitting it is cool to see different houses and appliances. They had pretty nice appliances, their fridge was backlit, like the entire back panel was a light instead of just a bulb somewhere at the top. Another housesit I did the fridge had shelves that could retract halfway so you could fit a tall jug without removing/adjusting the whole shelf. I’m at that age where that’s what impresses me now. They have separate water they buy; “The best water you’ll ever taste”. Cynthia explained to me how the city water is bad because it has “chemicals and Fluoride”.  I told her I have very low standards and don’t really care. She responded “When you’re old like me you’ll care”. At the end of this housesit I actually saw on the news that Utah is banning Flouride from the water and RFK Jr. saying how this is a step forward in health. I asked Alex about it( the one dentist person I know) and he was like yeah that’s so bad that they’re taking out Fluoride because apparently Fluoride from toothpaste alone is not enough.  

She also mentioned she wished she could lend me her Costco card because it’s so much cheaper than other grocery stores but they’ve been cracking down and checking ID’s. She brought this up one the initial call we had, and multiple times the day we met, which to me felt very nice that she really wanted me to have everything I needed. Later in the night when we were chatting she brought it up again and she told her daughter to go get her Costco card because maybe that one could work. But we were like yeah that’s not going to work… I don’t have much semblence of a teenage white girl… But that’s how desperate she was trying to get me to shop at Costco. And then later she even had me test out riding their electric bikes should I want to go for a ride around the neighborhood.  

And then of course she explained all the dog responsibility stuff. The dogs free feed so she said to just top off the food bowls whenever. This slightly bothered me because the bowls were pretty big and she clearly keeps them full. This means there’s food on the bottom half that just always stays there because she tops it off before the dogs finish it. During my stay I made sure the dogs finished the bowl before refilling to make sure it was a fresh batch. 

One of their daughters is special need (but pretty high functioning) so they had those electronic knobs where you punch in the key code for their pantry and theatre room. “Or she might sneak in and stay up all night watching TV”. 

After the tour of the house, Cynthia kept apologizing for the “small house”. They were supposed to only live in this house for a year while their actual house was being built but the contractors used up all the money and filed for bankruptcy and the property was foreclosed. They filed a lawsuit along with 8 other people who also were going to be part of the complex. So now they’ve been living in this “small house” for 7 years. I told her this is not small at all. She mentioned how at one point there was 8 people living in the house so maybe that's why it felt small, their other daughter and her husband were living here as well. I only met 2 of their kids, so I guess they have 3 or 4 total. The oldest, the one with a husband is 26 years old, and the kids I met seemed like high school. 

Oh yeah they also have a farm in Massachusetts. That’s where they had dog sitters before. Cynthia told me her bad experiences with previous dog sitters. One of them, she specifically told them specifically not to use the outdoor shower to wash the dog, but they did anyway and it resulted in the septic system getting clogged and it cost $600 to get the plumbing people to fix it. When the sitter left, she left the key in the door and it was in the winter so it was frozen in there so she couldn’t unlock the door and had to get in the house through a window. Another sitter seemed normal when they met in person but started bothering neighbors and threatened to burn down her barn. She flew back early and kicked him out. She had another one where they just told her they were gonna leave a few days early because they had another housesit they were going to that overlapped. So she had to frantically look for someone to sit for her dogs those last couple days while she was on vacation. These were people who didn’t have any reviews and she decided to take a chance on them, so she said now she only accepts people who have good reviews. I get it, but on the sitter side that’s like the whole need experience for a job, but need a job for experience.

I found out that they actually used trustedhousesitters as sitters before too. Their WHOLE FAMILY did a month long housesit in France. “That was actually so nice, because I personally reject any applications of sitters that are bringing kids. I don’t want kids with their grubby hands getting my couch dirty”.

Later in the night we were just chatting while they were packing. 

Cynthia asked if I ever had dogs or pets as a kid.

“No, my parents would never.”

“Is that an Asian thing? Like you guys don’t wear shoes in the house.”

“Uhhhhh, maybe? I don’t know”. 

I wasn’t offended but I’m like would you attribute that to an Asian thing? Of obsession with cleanliness of the house? 

But I told her how my mom is a neat freak, and she was like 

“That makes me feel better that I’m not that bad, because I’m pretty crazy about cleanliness. I vacuum every two weeks and have cleaners come every month”. Oh also they are a SHOES OFF house! And when one of the dogs was eating and getting crumbs(like barely noticeable) on the floor she was like “Ugh you’re getting crumbs everywhere” and she was trying to clean it up. 

At some point she asked where my people are from. A question that I think people get offended by but I don’t. I know when people ask questions like that they mean ethnicity. I don’t know what the big deal is. 

“I’m Taiwanese”.

“Where’s Taiwan? Is it a country?”

I was surprised by this question because she’s pretty aware of politics and there’s the whole things with the US supporting Taiwan as a country. 

Her daughter answered with where it is. 

And then her husband was like “It was owned by the French as some point and then handed it over to China”. 

I corrected him “That’s Hong Kong”. 

“Oh right”. 

And then she asked a question that I thought was hilarious “What food do people in Taiwan eat? Pho?”. 

I said it’s basically just Chinese food. 

Eventually the topic somehow ended up on politics. Which is great because whenever I’m in a more conservative place I always want to ask about their political beliefs and such but it’s kind of taboo to ask. She was going on her spiel about Kamala Harris, and then half way through was like “Wait sorry do you like Kamala? Before I talk more shit about her”. 

“Uhhh, I don’t love her”. 

And then she continued. 

“Have you heard her talk? She can’t make a single cohesive sentence”. 

Her daughter chipped in. “Yeah like when asked about how she hasn’t been to the border. And she answers ‘and I haven’t been to Europe’. No ones asking about Europe, that’s irrelevant. They’re asking if she’s been to the border”.

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=599594984766187. (Here’s the clip if you guys want to see)

She took jabs at Gavin Newsom as well. 

“Do you know about what’s going on with Gavin Newsom?”

“I honestly don’t really hear anything about our governor.”

“That’s because they’re trying to hide it from you!”

She mentioned how China had some meddling that resulted in Joe Biden winning the 2020 elections. And China probably had something to do with Gavin Newsom getting re-elected as well. And telling me how China actually owns a lot of land in America. I actually knew that. There was a headline earlier this year about how Missouri was suing China in regards to covid stuff and if China didn’t pay $25 billion then Missouri was going to seize 42,000 acres of farmland that China owns in the state.

I want to clarify, none of this was a standing on a soapbox lecture, all of my conversations with her were extremely lighthearted. Like you know how we laugh about all the ridiculous stuff Trump does, is the same way she’s joking about how bad Kamala and Joe Biden are. 

And then somehow the conversation shifted to covid. 

“I was always really stubborn about wearing a mask. Even at the airport I’d wear it under my nose…

Most germs pass through hands and touching, not through the air.” And then she put her hand up to her mouth like she’s telling a secret, “and y’know the six foot rule was made up”.

Apparently every time they travel, they sign an updated version of their will just in case they die. “In the state of Utah you need to have two witnesses for it to be legitimate, so we’ll have our daughter Madison and you sign it”. 

It was only like two pages. “Here read through it so you know it’s legit and you’re not signing your life away to us”. 

And then she joked with her daughter, “This is so if we die you don’t have to live with mean ol’ grandma and grandpa.” 

So nothing really to it besides signing it but still an interesting experience as a housesitter.

Just some other tidbits I learned from talking with them: 

-They lived in Colorado for 6 years. In Aurora and Colorado springs. They were telling me how Utah and Colorado are similar in the sense that it's very nature/mountain-y and they're just polar opposites politically. "Like people in Denver treat dogs like they're human". They lived in DC for a bit too, and then in Utah for the last 7 years. They were originally from Utah though. 

-They visited Moab for the first time ever a few weeks ago. They were there the weekend before I was there. 

-Their go to “vet”, I put that in quotations because it seemed like she wasn't even sure if he was a legit vet, has a whole operation in his backyard for cleaning dogs, neutering etc. and he has a whole operations where he owns 300+ dogs that he fosters out to people and brings them in to breed and makes money off of that. 

This housesit was 2 weeks long. At this point in time I’m pretty much living month to month. At the start of this housesit I had no idea where I was going after the 2 weeks was up and was pretty actively looking for housesits on a daily basis. My main priority right now is having housesits that can line up back to back and are longer than a few days so I’m not constantly moving. I’m not focused at all on going to specific cities, I just literally need housing. 

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I found another housesit in Cottonwood Heights. It was for a week and lined up back to back with the South Jordan housesit. It’s another suburb in the greater SLC area. Also 20 minutes from SLC proper and right up along the mountains. Elevation wise its 600 feet higher than Salt Lake City. Since I’m already in the area, I met up with the pet owner the weekend before the actual sit to get acquainted with the dogs and the house. 

The vibe was on the opposite side of the spectrum compared to the one in South Jordan. 

I met the mom, Winslow, and her son Bodhi, who is in elementary school. The dad was in Alaska and wasn’t getting back until the day before the sit started so I didn’t get to meet him. They needed a sitter because they were going to go to Moab to do some canyoneering. 

There’s a lot of Buddhist influence in the decor of their house. When she first introduced her son to me, I thought it was “Bodie” like the ghost town in California. Later when I saw something with his name written on it I googled “Bodhi”. It refers to the “final enlightenment” in Buddhism. The house is on the old side and things were clearly old used. For example the plastic cutting board looked like it was attacked by a machete wielding dog. But they make an effort to keep it relatively clean and orderly. Very homey and comfortable. They converted their garage into an entertainment room and built out a whole climbing wall which was really cool. She mentioned how her neighbor across the street is a 90 year old lady. “On trash day she usually just pulls her bins to the end of her driveway, if you could just move it so it’s against the curb that would be great”. When trash day came around I actually saw someone else who was not in an adjacent house go into her garage to pull them out to the curb. It’s cool that the community is looking out for the elderly. Every day at 6:50 PM the Alexa goes off with a “Wellness tip of the day”.

The mom and dad are mountain guides, and the mom is a wellness coach as well. They actually started their own little mountain guiding company. She told me that in the beginning she and her husband lived out of a truck for 4 years. Mainly based in Seattle and then going into the Cascades for mountain guiding. 

Here’s a snippet about her on their site: 

“Her first backpacking experience was with a handmade backpack from a tarp and seatbelt webbing. She thrived with the challenges and soon she realized her heart was in the wild. For 8 years she worked in wilderness programs and did a lot of mountaineering, climbing, and backcountry skiing. At one point, she asked herself, “What is the coolest job I can imagine doing?”, and ‘Mountain Guiding’ popped into her mind. Her and her husband Todd moved to the Cascades to ski and climb.

In 2002 she began guiding for Alpine Ascents International where she worked for 10 years guiding. Winslow has guided all around the world on peaks like Denali (9X), Aconcagua, (2X), Nepal (11X), Mongolia’s highest peak, and Antarctica’s Mt. Vinson and skiing to the south pole (5 seasons).

Bodhi, her son, was born in 2013. Winslow wanted to be around for him instead of launching all around the world and so got trained as a Yoga Health Coach which began a journey of deep healing and exploration. Interestingly, she has been combining her coaching and guiding ever since and often have clients that work with her in both ways."

Anyway, so they took me to a nearby park with trails where they usually walk the dogs off leash. Half way through the hike was this pond. The mom wanted to show me the whole loop but Bodhi wanted to stay at the water. There was this whole interaction where she was telling him to come and him saying he didn’t want to. There was quite a bit of back and forth. 

“We’re not coming back here, we’re doing a loop.”

“I want to stay here.”

“Fine then can you meet us back at the car then? We’re going to take the dogs on the loop though.”

“No I want the dogs to stay here with me.”

“No they're coming with us, we’ll meet you back at the car”. 

When I write this out, it sounds like such a normal conversation, but in the moment it felt surreal because she was not talking in any sort of scolding manner that I would typically expect in this situation. Like I’d imagine the same scenario with an asian mom, the mom would be yelling at the kid to hurry up, but she was communicating with him like a peer. And I absolutely love that. That’s one of the reasons I love the shows Bob’s Burgers and Home Movies is the dynamic between parents and kids. Even though the parent usually gets the final say, they still entertain the kid’s ideas and walk through the logic of why they need to do a certain thing instead of just “because I said so”. Later during the walk she was telling me how there was a rally she needed to take her son to. “Not sure what your political stance is, but there’s this protest going on at the state capitol today. I’m going to take my son to show him what it looks like to express your opinions.”

I asked her more for more info about it. Apparently it was a nationwide thing basically protesting Donald Trump and the stuff he’s been doing. Surprisingly I had not heard about it. Also it was at that moment I realized these people were the minority liberals of this area. It was 12:30 by the time we finished the hike. The protest was 12:00 - 2:00. 

I figured I’d check it out and drove up there to catch the last half of it. 

As I got closer, I saw a bunch of police officers directing traffic and a whole street closed down. I assumed it was because of the protest, then I got closer and saw it was just for an LDS church service.  

I was able to find parking a 15 minute walk from the Capitol. As I approached the crowd of people chanting I was hit with a wall of emotion. I almost cried. It’s exactly the same as the first minute of when I was watching Dear Evan Hansen on Broadway. Not from the the actual sentiment of the message, but from the raw passion being put in. Like the fact that thousands of people brought together on a unified purpose. Like this is patriotism. I sucks that the term patriotism has been republican-washed. Like I think we all do want to make America great again lol. People brought their kids, there were people like me who came alone and didn’t have signs. Not surprisingly pretty few college aged people. The colleges here lean conservative, and from what I’ve read the younger generation seems to be leaning right. What pleasantly surprised me was seeing lots of middle aged people. People who looked like they have regular desk jobs and kids in high school. Growing up in Cupertino, it never occurred to me that middle aged people would be politically active beyond sharing their opinions at Thanksgiving dinners. And the thing is the vibes these people gave is similar to our parents. Like they showed up with posters and everything, but their demeanor was very reserved and quiet. Just standing there timidly with their signs. I guess that just speaks volumes of what the fuck is up with our government. I did see some funny signs like “I’m not usually a sign girl but…wtf” and “You know it’s bad when even the introverts show up”. 

It was actually a really peaceful and mostly lighthearted protest. Even though the signs were angry, the vibe was wholesome. People were energized but not angry. It was a sense of camaraderie that we’re all here for the same thing. On the outskirts of the protest where people were more spread out people were sitting on the grass, it was almost like a picnic day, with someone giving a speech in the background. 

I did two touristy things while at this housesit. The first one was going to the trilobite quarry to dig for fossils. It was a three hour drive out from the city. And the last 30 miles was on dirt road. When I arrived the only other visitor was a father and son. The owner was super nice and gave the whole educational spiel and showed me the strategies for finding stuff. I asked if he lives nearby because it was so remote. “Yeah sometimes I won’t go home for weeks at a time, I’ll just camp out in the desert.”

I came on a weekday, which he said usually gets about 20 people, and on Saturdays or spring break there’s about 100 people a day. A 2 hour session to dig was $44, and 4 hours was $70 and a whole day was a little over $100. Quick math it comes out to about $9000 a week. Not a bad gig. During slow hours he’s literally just digging for fossils himself. Doesn’t really seem like there’s any way to enforce how long you’ve been going at it. But my arms were pretty tired after 2 hours. And during the summer when it’s hot I imagine I’d last even shorter. I overheard him talking to some people that came later that there are legit people who will come for three days and they’ll be bound to find really good or rare ones and they sell them online to collectors and it basically pays for their trip here. He showed one he found and said it was worth $5000. 

It was really easy to find fossils of trilobites, but it was a bit harder to find a really good big one that was intact. 

The other thing I did was the homestead crater hot spring near park city. It looks pretty ugly on the outside but the inside was cool. The water is around 93 degrees, so not as steaming hot as an onsen but still fun. Went for a walk in downtown Park City after. The radio was playing on the speakers in one of the stores I was browsing:

“Bernie Sanders will be in Salt Lake City on Sunday …”

Hmm that’s cool I should check that out. 

Sunday comes around. It’s the last day of my housesit. In the morning I went to a nearby hotel to get some breakfast. Oh yeah I’ve been going to a hotel like every other day to mooch off the free breakfast. I found a hotel with a really nice one. On top of the usual fixings of scrambled eggs, sausages, toast etc. they also had guacamole, and blueberries. They were frozen blueberries which are cheaper than fresh ones but still. I probably at $20 of blueberries/guac each time. And then I’d stash a bunch of apples, oranges, and bananas in my backpack to take back home for my smoothies. Guys I promise I’ll stop this degenerate behavior once I get a job.

I come back to the house and find out one of the dogs has ransacked my duffle bag, and opened my bottle of fish oil capsules, and also a box of edibles. That is not good. There were still 4 pieces (40 mg of THC). I found the vet number and called it. They’re closed on Sundays but they provided a number for a 24/7 emergency vet care. I call the pet owners. 

“How much did she eat? Maybe take them on a walk and see how they do, and if you think it’s serious then maybe take them to the vet.”

I hear her tell her husband what happened. 

“Todd says they’ll be fine, he knows other people’s dogs who got in some weed. Just keep an eye on them, I’ll take a look and see what the interent says”. 

I called up the emergency vet number. They asked a bunch of questions. How much THC? Was it an edible or flower? Was there any chocolate or xylitol in it? How much does the dog weigh? What are the current symptoms? 

At this point I could tell it was Zia who ate them, she was being way more mellow than usual and walking really slowly. Almost swaying a little while walking. 

Vet said based on dosage and weight, there wasn’t a need to bring her in. 

“Just keep an eye on her and make sure she’s still awake, and that she can still walk, even if she’s wobbling or uncoordinated while walking. As long as she can stand and walk it should be ok. If she’s not getting up then it would be time to bring her in. It’ll be normal to see incontinence, so some dribbling urine. Just keep her somewhere with low stimulation. Symptoms might last for around 12 hours.” 

I updated the owner with the info from the vet. I basically just nudged Zia every 30 minutes to make sure she was still functioning. The owner was really calm the whole time. Probably since she’s a yoga/wellness coach. I kept her updated on Zia’s state. They got back around 5:30 PM. Once Zia saw them back she was jumping and all excited so I guess it pretty much wore off. Phew. Winslow thanked me for taking care of them, she seemed unphased by the whole debacle.

"I was looking on the internet to see what we should do. AI was so helpful."

Her son then started telling me about all the times their dogs have had chocolate and grapes. Also when I had went on the trail with them before the sit, Winslow had told me how they lost their dogs once (off leash at the park and then spotted some deer and chased them), and it was I the middle of winter too, but they showed up back home 2 days later. So these dogs have been through it all. She then started telling me about their trip. Their son’s bike broke so they bought him a brand spanking new $2000 one. They did some rock climbing, some canyoneering, and some mountain biking. “Bodhi climbed Ancient Art, here let me see if I can show you some photos”. She showed me photos on her phone. Tech bros at the climbing gym got nothing on this elementary school kid. It definitely would win show and tell of what you did during spring break. 

Here’s a photo for you guys from google of what Ancient Art is. 

I told her I was going to head out. The Bernie Sanders thing was starting at 6:00 PM at the University of Utah. On the drive there I got a text from her “What’s your Venmo”. I told her she didn’t need to pay me. But the fact that she offered made me relieved that she wasn’t mad at all about me drugging her dog. 

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Parking sucked, as expected for an event like this. But I got lucky and managed to find one after about 15 minutes of circling around. I started walking over and overheard a lady walking the opposite direction saying that they were no longer letting people into the stadium due to capacity. I figured I’d still try to check out the scene. There were a bunch of tables surrounding the outside of the stadium with people selling Bernie Sanders merch. I was just circling around he stadium for a bit and at some point someone came out and was like “we’re letting more people in again!” Good thing I lingered. I got in and there were actually a decent amount of seats (nosebleed or behind the speaker) open. AOC was already halfway through her speech. I honestly was a little zoned out the whole time. I was still recovering from the whole dog thing. And I was tired too. Whenever she made a point, people would stand up and start clapping. Kind of like at the State of the Union whenever the president says something and half of the room gives a standing ovation. I was not a fan of this because I was tired. Why did I have to keep standing up and then sitting back down. Can we just let her speak uninterrupted. Then Bernie Sanders comes out. 

The TL;DR of the 45 minute speech is more or less just what the left has been complaining/calling out. Donald Trump doing stuff that favors the rich. Appointing billionaires like Elon Musk rather than the people. I felt like there wasn’t really anything new or revolutionary. More just reiterating the complaints of the left. There wasn’t really a clear call to action. The vibe felt different from the “Hands Off” protest at the state capitol I went to the week before. This felt more cult-ish. Hundreds of people huddled in a building, constantly clapping and echoing what Bernie is saying. I’m not saying it is a cult. It was just cult vibes. I guess that's the difference between a protest and a rally. And also that the speakers here are pseudo-celebrities that have a cult following unlike the average politician.

At one point some lady in the front of the mosh pit fainted. Bernie paused his speech to make sure she was ok. After a couple minutes they shouted for the medics to come over. People cheered. I thought that was kind of funny because this lady is fainted and we’re cheering. I mean yeah we’re cheering for the medics but it still seemed funny to me. They gave her some water and after a few more minutes picked her up and wheelchair her out of the stadium. 

“MEDICARE FOR ALL!!!”.

And that was pretty much it. The outro music was Pink Pony Club. I thought that was a wack song but when you match a song to an experience it makes it better. I like it now. 

I thought it would be cool to see the popular congress people in real life. But I think the protest at the capitol was by far a cooler experience. 

And that concluded my time in Utah. I slept in my car at some parking garage, and then the next morning drove to Wyoming which is where I’m at now. I’m in a really good mood here. I can’t believe I get to stay at these houses at places like this for free. I won’t write a whole thing for Wyoming. It’s more or less what you’d imagine Wyoming. My house is super remote, 2 miles of dirt road to get to it. It’s actually a pretty nice house. Neighbors are really spread out. It’s giving Brokeback Mountain. I’ve never watched that movie. But I’m a 20 minute drive from Jackson, and a 40 minute drive from Grand Teton National Park. I’m going to try go get a photo of the Ye album cover. And then also check out a roller derby. Oh yeah and at Albertsons they were selling skinned whole rabbits.