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| Hot Spot Drive Inn, Salina, Utah, Friday, September 7, 2018 |
Travel Date: Friday, September 7, 2018
A pure black sky and a white sign boasting Hot Spot Drive-In
in big, bold red and blue letters.
Bright red neon announcing HOT DOGS, SUNDAES, DRINKS. An early 50s modern
cantilevered concrete awning lit up with cool white fluorescent lights. Hopperesque plate glass windows showcasing
stainless steel commercial kitchen equipment.
People milling about the night.
Wouldn’t you stop? We did.
We started on our great adventure hours late. The normal stuff. Watering plants, feeding dogs, cleaning the house. For some reason Marci is most concerned about having a clean house when we are not there to enjoy it. The rest of the time she cares less. We won't get into that here because a) I love my marriage and want it to last not only through this life but into the eternities, b) although I love my marriage and want it to last into the eternities, I do not wish to experience the silent treatment for the remainder of this life, and forever on into the next, which is exactly what will happen if I don't soon shut up, especially if it's that time of month (Damn it Steve! Learn what to leave out.); and c) most of my female readers will assume that I am a typical male and sit around watching TV while griping about the house being a mess, and anyone who knows us well, knows that simply is not true. True, I am unorganized and make Marci's life miserable by constantly asking where's this, and where's that--especially my wallet, phone and keys--but I do my fair share of dishes, laundry and cleaning. However, there's simply no way to convince my female readers of that fact thanks to their lazy husbands, so I won't even try.
Anyway, now that I'm in trouble, let's continue:
We ate dinner at Hot Spot in Salina, Utah, which according to the 2010 census boasted 2, 489 people, a healthy-sized town by central Utah standards .
It seemed the place to be. Night
life central. Several couples stood on
the walk talking while waiting for their orders. And quite the wait it was. We went through the drive-though. I figured
the food would make the wait worth it, but I was wrong.
Marci ordered a grilled ham and cheese and was surprised
that it came with lettuce, tomato and a pickle.
What surprised her even more was that the combination was
delicious. However, the rest of the food
made our drinks desirable the way a man waking up in the Sahara with sand dune
forming over his head desires that one last hot drop of water in the canteen
fifteen feet in front of him. I had ordered
parched sweet potato fries. Marci
ordered small cinder deep-fried mushrooms.
Our drinks were very good in deed.
Probably the food is normally tasty. It looked like all the people enjoying the
warm September evening were local. Most
of the couples were high school age, but there were some adults who appeared to be in their
fifties. So, I don’t think it was a case
of this is the only thing to do in town
and we’re a bunch of hormone-driven teenagers driven wild to meet under the
fluorescent lights of the night no matter what the food is like. I think we were just unlucky enough to catch
the Hot Spot when the employees were too busy to manage things well. I would go back again. I have been there before, although it’s been
a long time. I don’t remember the food,
but I do remember getting great shakes there. I'm not yet ready to write off such a cool monument of Americana over one bad experience.
After that, we hit I-70 and headed east. I was a little annoyed with myself over the
fact that we left so late. The drive from Salina to Green River offers some of
the most spectacular scenery in the country, none of which we would see on this
very dark night. But the music and
company were good. I had spent hours making
just the right play list during the week leading up to launch time. It almost came out perfectly. Somehow, I accidentally downloaded all of Elton
John’s Elton John and Don’t Shoot Me, I’m Only the Piano Player albums. Both
are great, but some of the songs just didn’t fit the feel I was going for—a
Texas roadhouse honky-tonk highway vibe. One great unplanned track, however, came from my inability to operate an I-phone properly, "No Shoestrings on Louise":
I love the repetition, syntax, and imagery, especially in the third verse:
Come on down, come on down from that ladder
Henry, get your head, get your head out of them clouds
What she wants is to go on kissing on a swineherd
You might as well kiss the boss man's cow. (John)
Elton John and Bernie Taupin were so great at capturing America. It's a negative view, but an honest, loving view--the way the best people accept both their troubled relatives and their troubled selves, with arms wide-open, but also with eyes wide-open. There are so many such songs by these collaborators, among my favorites, "Blues for Baby and Me" and "I've Seen That Movie Too". America smolders jazzy-blue-smokey-gray through both the lyrics and music, a neon heart red, white and blue. What could be better for a road trip to Texas--perhaps the simplest, most complex, backwards, forward-thinking expanse of contradiction in a nation not so unlike like it.
Anyway, before I get too grandiose and spectacular, flinging great brushstrokes of blah blah blah across the canvas of this post, let's just say that after an hour and half of winding our way up and down through the dark, knowing full well there were unseen canyons, cliffs and buttes all around and below us, as we listened to greats like "Amarillo by Morning" by George Strait and "Ghost of a Dog" by Edie Brikell, we arrived at Green River State Park in Green River, Utah
sometime around midnight and set up camp in the dark.
All went smoothly. It was 82 degrees when we arrived, and so I
assumed our sheets and one blanket would be adequate. Oh how wrong I was. I’m not sure when the temperature dropped,
but whenever it did, it plummeted the way temperature can only do in the
desert. By morning, it was in the low
50s. That doesn’t sound bad, but when
you’re sleeping on a cot, open screen below you, and just a sheet and light
blanket on top, it’s plenty chilly. We
woke up at 2:30, at 3:00, at 4:00, and at 5:30, when I decided I had enough and
got up to go to the car to write.
I sat in the car and watched the sky slowly green on the
eastern horizon, the big black bulky forms of cottonwood along the Green River slowly separating themselves from the night. Around 6:30, I gathered my essentials
together and headed down to the showers.
Works Cited
John, Elton. "No Shoe Strings on Louise." Elton
John. By Elton John and Bernie Taupin. 1970.
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