That Sad Morning

Never trust your friends.

I learned that lesson 9 years ago on a warm summer's eve.

This insanity had been brewing for awhile. Little Derek, eyes aglow, had finally badgered, cajoled, prodded, and begged me enough that I agreed to go with him on a drive to witness what he called the Astronomical Observation Tunnels.

You must know that at this time, I was quite wary of going anywhere with Little Derek. See, I'd heard the tales of him inviting Big Phil on a drive, only to accost Big Phil and make him drive for 16 hours into Idaho and Wyoming. I knew that acquiescing to Little Derek's requests would have consequences. I knew that some of them would be catastrophic, and that some of them would be as majestic as the 4 majestic things spoken of in Proverbs chapter 30, verse 28-31:

29 There are three things which are majestic in pace,

Yes, four which are stately in walk:

30 A lion, which is mighty among beasts

And does not turn away from any;

31 A greyhound, A male goat also,

And a king whose troops are with him.

Despite my reservations, Little Derek, Big Phil, and I went to the local grocery store where we bought supplies for our trip. The supplies were these:

1. A cluster of ripe bananas
2. A chocolate bar
3. A Kielbasa sausage

Little D had the necessary wood and accouterments to start and sustain a fire in the back of his Jeep. (The Jeeth Of Deeth )We therefore did not need to purchase any supplies for the building or sustaining of a fire.

Little Derek explained that the Astronomical Observation Tunnels were found in a remote desert area in Box Elder County, Utah. For those who are not familiar with the geography of North-Western Utah, it should be explained that directly to the west of Salt Lake City is an arid desert where there is very little development . The land is not without a certain beauty, although the beauty is perhaps not apparent at first glance as one might have a propensity to think of this area as a bit of a wasteland. Shrubs, salt flats, and rolling hills and mountains are the norm. Very little water is to be seen west of the Great Salt Lake herself.

After buying our supplies, we left the Salt Lake Valley at roughly 6 in the evening, with plenty of daylight still at our disposal. We headed west until Little Derek pulled us onto a road I had never seen nor heard of, nor have I traveled since, which we rode upon without incident for a substantial period of time. We then came to a place where the road was intersected by train tracks. Although it seemed insane to me at the time, Little Derek pulled off the road and started to drive parallel with the train tracks. There was a very small dirt path along the side of tracks which made driving possible, although I feared that if an actual train came, there would not be enough room for the two of us to co-exist on the tracks. Little Derek, as is his way, assured me there would be no incident and insisted that if a train did come, we would be given room to continue living our lives rather than dying. He insisted that the train would give us quarter.

After driving a good distance on the fairly uncomfortable side of the tracks, we did, in fact, come upon a stationary train. Little Derek was correct in his previous assessment and we found that the dirt path upon which we drove was just wide enough for the train and for our vehicle. When we got to the head car of the train, we decided to stop the Jeep and to get out and try to talk to men running the train. This proved to be very fruitful.

We got out and were immediately greeted by the main captain or conductor or whatever you call the guy in charge of the train. I apologize to the reader for my ignorance of train terminology, but I digress from my story. He explained that they were a cargo train carrying coal and other minerals. They had stopped to let the train rest for awhile. (that is an embellishment, by the way. I have absolutely no recollection of why the train had stopped.)

I don't know who asked the question, or how things came about, but the conductor allowed us up into the main chamber of the train, where we were able to live out the fantasy of every child who has ever lived on a continent where trains exist: We got to pull the chord that makes the train say "Choo! Choo!" If that isn't cool to you, you have probably suffered severe brain damage. After 20 or so minutes of train chat with the conductor, we had to get back on the dirt path to continue our voyage.

At this point, clearly excited about our run-in with the train, I felt certain that this trip was going to turn out to be great. How could it not? The darkness started to fall around us as we continued to venture deeper into a land that was unfamiliar to me, despite being less than 100 miles from my home.

Soon, total darkness was upon us. The stars shone above us, and looking out of the window, I was reminded that city life often robs us of moments like those: moments when we look at the stars and the galaxies and remember that we are....oh shit I almost turned this into a Steinbeck story. Back to the action.

It came to pass that we were nearing our destination. It should be noted that Little Derek had assured us pre-departure that he knew the exact location of the Tunnels, and that he would have no issue guiding us there safely. Truer words were spoken a lot of times, like every time someone didn't lie. Derek did, in fact, have a general knowledge of the location of the Tunnels, but that general knowledge served us poorly in the intense black desert which would soon force the Jeep to become our own private vehicular mosh pit.

See, Little Derek had never mentioned that we would be going off road. Soon, the Jeep was shaking back and forth with the force of an earthquake. My large head was nearly hitting the ceiling as the Jeep entered craters and crevasses in the desert floor. Several times Little Derek nearly plunged the Jeep into a river or crack in the earth that would have meant the doom of the Jeep. After what seemed like an eternity, and felt like I had been in a Prize Fight with a young Iron Mike Tyson, we finally, and luckily, stumbled upon the Astronomical Observation Tunnels.

Not to ruin the anticipation, but they were just 4 giant concrete tubes in an X formation with some holes cut in the top, possibly for Astronomical Observation. See that picture ? You make sense of it. Those two dudes on the Tunnels are not from our party. They were some other fools who somehow found out about the Tunnels. Now they know how damn disappointing they are. I'm sure some people will think they are cool, but to me, they are the work of an insane person and the sight of one of the worst nights of sleep I have ever had.

We walked up, in, and around the tunnels and surveyed the land briefly. We then agreed that it would be time to prepare a fire and cook our victuals. After Big Phil and Little Derek got the fire cracking, we prepared and ate the kielbasa sausage, which was, of course, delicious. Little Derek then entertained Big Phil and I by preparing a culinary favorite of his: Bananass.

If you've never had Bananass, the concept is simple. Take a ripe Banana, split it open without removing it from it's peel. Then gently place pieces of chocolate bar into the peel, shut the peel over the banana and chocolate, and cook over an open flame. The chocolate inside the peel melts beautifully and when eaten with the banana, make a special dessert. There is, of course a downside to Bananass. See, when the bananass is placed over the open flame, the outer part of the peel burns, creating a highly unpleasant odor, which can probably be smelled from space. That's the ass part of bananass.

After our humble meal, we sat around and enjoyed nature and each other, regaling ourselves with tales of past heroic deeds, mishaps, and blunders. A good time was had by all. As the embers of the fire burned dim, we decided it would be time to take our slumber.

I don't know which genius decided we should sleep in the tunnels that night, but I'm going to blame it on Little Derek. I'm going to state this simply: Picture a giant tube. Picture that tube is made out of cement. Now picture sleeping on the rounded bottom of that tube, without a pillow or blanket. Needless to say, it was not a pleasant sleeping experience.

Big Phil and Little Derek awoke with the sun the next morning. I, having never properly slept, greeted them. After small talk we killed the fire with our urine streams and got in the Jeep. Not wanting our adventure to end, we decided to drive the short distance to that Mecca of Evil, West Wendover, Nevada.

For those who are not familiar with North-Western Utah, West Wendover is a city approximately 120 miles west of Salt Lake City. It shares the border of Utah and Nevada with it's brother city, Wendover, Utah. West Wendover is a very small town with nothing of note other than 5 casinos where games of chance are offered. In case you're stupid, that means gambling.

Little Derek and I had at this point started to develop the nasty little habit of driving out to West Wendover periodically to partake in Blackjack. Up to this point in life, we would drive out, wager a relatively meager sum of money like $40 dollars, and come home. Sometimes we would win, usually we would lose. It didn't matter because we would have the greatest of times on the way to and from West Wendover, mostly by passing the time with freestyle gangsta rapfests. Sure, halfway through the trip home the raps would nearly always devolve into insults hurled at the other person's mother, but up until that point, many a funny thing would be said. (let's not kid ourselves, many a funny thing would be said after that as well, sorry Gyorge Ann.)

So on this morning, as we were so close, we decided to swing over and see if we could have a good time. There are some relatively nice casinos in West Wendover, but for some reason, probably because we are insane, we usually decided to gamble at the worst of them all, the Red Garter Hotel and Casino. The Red Garter looks like a whore-house from the late 1800's and smells like 1 trillion people all decided to smoke a cigarette and use the carpet for an ashtray. The dealers are usually the grumpiest, crotchety old Cubans who wear 10 pounds of cheap gold jewelry. It's just our kind of place. The Red Garter was also the only place in West Wendover that offered $2 Blackjack, or BJ as we call it.

We arrived, went to the ATM's and got out some cash with which to play. Even Big Phil decided to play this time, something that he rarely did at this point in our gambling careers. We sat down together and the massacre soon began. Hand after hand of Dealer 21's, Boyd 19's. Nothing went the way it should. Soon, I was out of money and had to make a Walk of Shame to the ATM. The same thing occurred. Walk of Shame after Walk of Shame I returned to the tables, only to be quickly dealt with by the Evil Lord of Gambling, Gamblor .

Little Derek had long since ran out of money, while Phil had wisely won 40 dollars and gotten out of the game. After several hours had passed, I dropped my final f-bomb on the dealer who gave me a 19, only to have him make a 20, and left in shame. We sat on the curb of the Red Garter where I sadly sat in silence for a few minutes.

Big Phil was the one to ask the question: "How much did you lose?" The response:

"My whole tuition for next semester. I don't know what I'm going to do."

Little Derek was in no happy mood, having made a walk of shame or two himself, but even he lamented this turn of events asking what I would do.

"I don't know."

We walked to the car with heavy hearts. We piled in and started to drive. Just before we left the city, Big Phil expressed that he was hungry. Little Derek and I agreed, but I angrily reminded them that I had no money left in life. Little Derek echoed that he was broke as well. Big Phil munificently offered to buy. At this point, there was but one restaurant left in the city, and it was called Taco Burger. We all like Tacos, and we all like Burgers, so we decided to not make the drive back to the other end of the city where there is an Arby's and a McDonald's. Taco Burger would do just fine.

After looking at the menu, we all agreed that we had to each purchase a Taco Burger. Nothing else would do. We decided to eat outside in the front of the little restaurant. I tell you that on that day God showed no mercy to us. Not only had I lost over $1000, but when I bit into the Taco Burger, nothing could have prepared me for the unholy concoction of spices which got crapped into my mouth. After one bite, we all spit out the Taco Burger and agreed on one thing as we got back into the car and headed home: Taco Burgers effing suck.

And that, my friends, is the tale of That Sad Morning.


(PS) I didn't really lose anywhere near $1000 dollars or my whole tuition, but somehow over the years that is what the story grew to be in Little Derek and Big Phil's minds, and maybe even my own, until one day last year when the story was re-hashed and I remember that I really only lost like 200 bucks. No small chunk of change mind you, and definitely a bit of money I could have used towards tuition, but not my whole tuition. Time really does make stories better, doesn't it?