July 6th/7th
What happens when the coordinator of your show in Salt Lake City doesn’t even remember talking to you? A cancelled show, seven disappointed bandmates stranded on the tar-spotted sidewalk, and finally a mad drive toward Nevada in a search for accommodations fitting for a famous rock-star band.
At 11:30 at night, we found the perfect place: a nearly-treeless rest stop in the middle of Utah’s salt flats, surrounded by a vast darkness broken only by a single twinkling light in the distance. The stop had an overhang and some space to lay out, so we grabbed our blankets and sleeping bags and curled up beside or on the picnic tables. Lying on the concrete with only a sleeping bag for padding was not, admittedly, the most comfortable thing in the world, but it wasn’t as bad as I expected. A cool salty breeze, dry and sweet, ruffled my hair, and the nearby highway provided a comfortable white noise. I was asleep within the hour.
When I woke up, the sky was lit with gold and pastel. Now I could see the salt flats: a vast lake of solid white, with a well of glimmering gold to reflect the rising sun. Jagged blue mountains painted the horizon as sunrise clouds roiled overhead. The breeze, scented with an ancient ocean, fluttered across my hair and bare shoulders as I sat up.
After everyone woke up, I walked out onto the flats. Huge salt crystals, patterned alternately like snowflakes and polyester carpet, stretched out before me, white and perfectly flat until they touched the mountains. The salt crunched beneath my shoes, the air quiet around me. The salt was cracked into patterns like dry white earth, the needle-thin riffs filled with bubbly formations. I have never seen a landscape like it.
Waking up to the sunrise, without so much as a tent flap to separate us, was one of the most beautiful moments of my life. I’d trade a night in a soft bed for a sunrise like that any day.
~Lisa Shafter
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