Point C: Sandy

Start drive time: 2:58 PM MST
End drive time: 6:26 PM MST
Miles today: 208
Total miles this trip: 876
Pit stops: Sublett, Willard
Bottles of urine spotted on the side of the road: 1

Flashback:
The last time I got to see my Idaho-dwelling aunt and uncle in September of this year, we went to Yellowstone for their son's wedding. At the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, my outdoorsman grandpa's wandering eye was caught by an interesting-looking camper attached to a Land Rover. Or Range Rover. Something Rover.

Seriously. There was THIS to look at and he wanted to check out another dude's camping equipment

My aunt's wandering eye was caught by the handsome gentleman driving the vehicle. (NOT FOR HERSELF YOU DEGENERATES, SHE'S HAPPILY MARRIED TO MY UNCLE.) It was at that point that I learned something new about my aunt. She is a huge fan of matchmaking. And she had learned that I am single. So naturally, she immediately struck up a conversation with him, exchanged first and last names ("This is my niece Amy H...She lives in Seattle."), found out what he does for a living, where he's from, that he's on a six-month cross-country road trip, and tried (not so) subtly to figure out a way for us to meet again, fall in love, get married, and live happily ever after. This then became the focus of the rest of our visit to Yellowstone. (Interjection: in order to protect the identity of innocent/possibly unwilling participants in meddling, this gentlemen will now be referred to under the code name of "Rover.") "Oh look! There's Rover again! We should invite him to come have lunch with us!" "So is Rover your type?" "Wouldn't that be great if Rover went to Seattle on his trip and you two met up?"

For my part (and witnesses will confirm), I tried very hard not to give them any encouragement.

Fortunately for the entertainment of my aunt, uncle, mom, dad and grandfather, we ran into Rover about four more times in the next two hours and shared touching, lovely little rom-com moments like when we all borrowed his binoculars to check out a huge nest and when my mom and aunt had a loud conversation about his smile and his eyes and how they would love little grandbabies/grandnieces with such beautiful eyes while he was WALKING RIGHT BEHIND US and I pleaded "stop. Stop. STOP. He's right behind us" in increasingly more panicked tones.

When we returned to WiFi range (and witnesses will attest that I was out of the room), my aunt and mom managed to find him on LinkedIn (because they had already gathered all the necessary intel for this operation), and I overheard the ooohs and ahhhhs over his credentials: "Rover went to such a good school!" "He speaks German just like you!". My aunt declared her intentions of taking things to a whole new level by connecting with him on LinkedIn and my dad finally came to the rescue (kinda) with a dose of "I think maybe this has gone far enough. But he did go to Harvard...."

Fast forward to the present:
Now that I am also on a cross-country road trip and still single, my aunt thought that wouldn't it be so great to send him a message and try to see if our paths might cross at any point during this grand adventure that we're both having (and then we can fall in love and get married and live happily ever after)?

And because sometimes we do crazy things for the people we love (I'M REFERRING TO MY AUNT, YOU GUYS, NOT THE PERSON WHO WE STALKED THROUGH YELLOWSTONE. GEEZ. YOU'RE ALWAYS JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS), I (this is so shameful to admit) aided and abetted the meddling by helping my aunt to figure out how to send messages on LinkedIn, for which I will surely repent to the god of sane life choices.

And to my aunt and mom's delight, he responded. And remembered us. And will be in one of the cities that I will be in at the same time.

So dear Rover, I'm soooooo sorry. And this is capital C Crazy. But my aunt gave you my number. So call me maybe.

End of Carly Rae Jepsen references. We return now to the road:

I'm really glad God used a ruler when he drew the lines around the Western states. The rest of the country looks like it was drawn by a preschooler.

There is a gas station in the middle of nowhere called The Sublett Fuel Stop that charges wayyyyy too much for gas but they have alpacas:

You better keep one eye open when you sleep, alpaca. Because I will shear you. I will shear your entire family.

And kitsch:

Guess what? THE PEN WAS EMPTY

And it's your only option if you don't want to break down in the middle of nowhere.

Utah has a lot of great things, most of which I will not be visiting on this trip because WE'RE ON A TIGHT SCHEDULE and I still have a lot of interview preparation and family-time spending I would like to do.

Excerpts from the section on Utah in the Encyclopedia Amyricana:

Population: 72,341,983
Capital: Salt Lake City
Birthday: January 4, 1896
Geography: Like a candy bar with the corner snapped off
Climate: Arid enough to dry out all your boogers but snowy sometimes too
Elevation: 13,518 feet at highest point (13,523 feet 6 inches when I'm standing on top of it)
Demographics: 97% Caucasian, 3% bummed out about how many white people there are
Religion(s): LDS, FLDS, RBCJCLDS
Popular attractions: Sundance, Park City, Arches National Park, Seven Peaks Waterpark
State nickname: Mormonlandia
State food: Green Jell-o

Notes about polygamy:
Contrary to popular opinion outside of Utah, polygamy has not been legal in this state since the prophet had a vision that God was no longer cool with one dude marrying a bunch of ladies. Coincidentally, and in no relation whatsoever to anything, this happened approximately at the exact same time that the United States was going to deny Utah Territory statehood because the US was like "If the rest of us are only allowed to touch one person for the rest of our married lives, you have to do it too. Fair is fair."
Certain fundamentalist sects of the LDS church continue to practice polygamy and FLDS women mark their adherence to teachings of Brigham Young by dressing like they just disembarked from covered wagons and by styling their hair like a 1990s Jordache commercial. The FLDS men dress like they drive Mazdas.
In spite of the challenge of only being permitted one legal wife, most Mormon couples are able to fulfill their state-mandated obligation to fill a small school bus with offspring.

The typical Mormon family can go through one of these in a week

Notes about prohibition:
The prophet declared that hot beverages and alcohol were not to be consumed by anyone, ever because they're really bad and only bad people drink them. The prohibition against hot beverages was interpreted as anything that contains caffeine and further teachings clarify that:
"Thou shalt not allow thy coffee to cool before drinking it so as to circumvent the word of the prophet. Even the gentiles, cast out from holy land, drink not their coffee cold. Thou shalt also refrain from the Bull that is Red and drinks of energy, for they too, are bad (and frankly gross). However, in order to protect the financial interests of the Church, which is a large shareholder of stock in the Coca-Cola corporation, thou shalt be encouraged to drink Coca-Cola."

(Author's aside: To the Mormons who may be reading this, I apologize for joking about polygamy, big families, and caffeine. I'm really thankful that I have a large, loving, and tolerant family that permits me to drink coffee in their houses. I will vote for a Republican sometime as a penance. Probably Jon Huntsman. He's great.)

Oh yeah. I forgot to mention that Utah has a bunch of dinosaurs.