Moving right along, our first (of many) long distance fire seasons was coming to an end. I was only just getting the gist of our inconsistent communications when suddenly we were talking and texting daily. I was exhilarated, but also a little overwhelmed, I needed to adjust my expectations again. Meanwhile my friends kept asking 'who is this Josh and why have we still not met him?'. We'd been together, but physically apart for nearly 7 months, they were comically suspicious of our relationship.
Come October, Josh was laid off. Having struggled with the application process the winter prior, he didn't get the permanent job with Wasatch Helitack, and was still working seasonally for the feds. We made plans for me to visit him in Sandy, Utah. Can anyone remember what happened on the East coast during late October 2012? Hurricane Sandy. What kind of weird coincidence is that? The superstorm knocked out power, flooded streets with debris, and created general havoc for a few days in Southern RI. As a result, my flight to Sandy, UT was delayed, of course. I made it out there just in time for Halloween. We attended a party where I was a zombie while he played an excellent 'smarty pants' (Sandy-left, Smarty Pants-right).
We both returned to RI in November. We wanted to be together with our families through the holidays and decided it was a good idea to try the whole 'living together thing'. Over the course of those few months our connection, the fun we had in each other's company, and feelings of mutual love and caring were undeniable. So in early January 2013 we packed up my car (along with our 2 dogs and my cat) to embark on our first cross-country move. I was all-in, ready to be in the same state and time zone.
For anyone that hasn't had the pleasure of driving across the continental U.S., it's really not as fun as you might think. It’s beyond boring. And it’s expensive. Another epic test to our relationship: spending long, tired hours in a car together. The states between our destinations went by at a snail’s pace, even though the speedometer read 80 mph or more. All in all it took us 3 nights and 4 full days to drive the 2300+ mile journey from our hometown in little Rhody to the sprawling Salt Lake valley.
As we pulled into the driveway on that 4th day, Josh calmly declared that the house was 'a little messy'. Dude, what a massive understatement. He had recently decided to renovate the bedrooms on the top floor of the house. Belongings were strewn everywhere, building materials still lay in heaps atop the bare subfloor. He showed me 'our' room for the meantime. A naked queen mattress was placed in the corner, schlumped at the sides, it sat atop a comically smaller twin box spring (to make it higher, I guess?). A plastic accordion curtain served as our door.
Josh had extra rooms in the lower levels of his house, which he had rented to old crew mates in the past. I took note of what must have been hundreds of empty liquor bottles and beer cans on display above the kitchen cupboards. I felt like I had walked into a fraternity and was looking back at my undergraduate years. This bachelor pad was in serious need of a woman's touch. The desire to start cleaning flooded my veins, all I could think about was how much work lay ahead as I silently questioned why he hadn't cleaned this stuff out before my arrival. I wondered if my facial expression was speaking for me, I imagined it to look something like Steve Carell's.
Josh proceeded to introduce me to his….our roommate at the time, let's call him Patrick. A ski-bum that was living in the basement. He was wearing flip flops and I couldn’t help but notice that something seemed off about his feet. I stared and silently counted his toes. He must have caught me because he blurted out how much 'it sucks to wear a ski boot with that extra pinky'. His company didn’t bother me, but I think we all knew his days in the house would be numbered now that this serious girlfriend was moving in. He'd move out the next month.
The very next morning, Josh declared that we would need to take a romantic trip to the dump. All the demolished building materials needed to be discarded. 'Yes!' I thought, 'let's get all this junk out of here!'. I happily helped load up the trailer and we drove the long winding road to the top of a literal trash heap. I kid you not, it was the size of 2 football fields and the smell was absolutely horrid, even with the windows up. Like when you are stuck driving behind a dump truck, and the stench seeps in through your vents, you're incapable of escaping it. It was like that, times 10.
A small booth at the entrance housed a lonely attendant who instructed us to drive the car right on 'up', pointing somewhere towards the middle of the landfill. Once there, we can unload our shit. What...the...fuck (pardon my profanity, I was raised by salty fisherman). Here's some pics to help you smell it.
I looked at Josh, no doubt giving away my feelings about this little ‘date’ he planned for us. He laughed nervously and pulled the car as close to the top of the refuse pile as he'd dare go. We opened our doors and began to step out. I can remember us, almost in unison, realizing that the scum and household garbage, which had been marinating under an oddly warm winter sun, had taken on the properties of an east coast saltmarsh. Our sneakers sunk multiple inches deep, the trash muck sucked at our shoes and squished noisily with every step.
It was a real life bog of eternal stench, without the rock summoning monster to conjure some helpful stepping stones (come on, you've seen the Labyrinth, right? David Bowie?).
Utterly revolted, we gagged and held back vomitous tears as we hucked the drywall pieces, plywood and 2x4 parts off the trailer. My favorite pair of red skate sneakers with the (previously) white laces were getting covered in the smelly brown waste. We finished the job with the haste of rabbits darting from a predator and began to climb back into the car, eager to speed out of that nightmare. I gazed at my shoes and with a frown, slipped my sock-covered feet out of them and clambered into the passenger seat. The suction helpfully held them in place. Utilizing the car's all-wheel-drive system, Josh drove towards the exit as I gazed forlornly at my poor sneakers shrinking in the distance, gone forever.
Despite the rocky start and loss of my favorite shoes, those first few months living in Utah flew by. We worked on home renovations, I cleaned like a helpful little tornado, and we took vacations to sunny Las Vegas and Moab with our dogs. (I wanted to tell the Vegas story, but Josh said no, sigh).
I loved learning about the area and was in awe with the terrain. The mountains were jagged and rocky, impressively steep and seemed to butt right up against us. It felt like a dream to be living somewhere so vast and beautiful. I was excited to share my adventures with friends and family back home, and to make new memories with my man. Alas, I was living a fairy tale, blissfully unaware of the struggles that lay ahead.
Here's Josh's additions:
"Yep, took her to the dump".
Until next time,
Erin
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