Snowville, Utaaah

So I haven’t mentioned prom in a while and it’s coming up in just a few days. One by one, the girls have been proposed to, and now there are three girls left: Lacy, Rae, and me. We’ve been joking with the three guys, Dan, Josh, and Kevin, and jokingly putting some pressure on them. Each couple decides their costume theme – some are going as Juno and Bleeker, some as the main characters of Moonrise Kingdom, and some as Lady Gaga and Alejandro. All outfits must be purchased in a thrift store or along a ride. Not knowing who my prom date is means that I’m riding past great thrift stores and I’m unable to prepare. The three guys have been joking about how funny it would be to propose to us on the day of prom.

This morning Lacy, Rae, and I took matters into our own hands. After the 5:30am route meeting, the three of us stood up in front of the team. “We are going to express our feelings about this issue through song,” Lacy said in her trip leader tone of voice. We stand shoulder to shoulder looking sad and begin to sing our rendition of “Dead Sea.” The chorus is originally, “The Dead Sea / You told me I was like the Dead Sea,” which we changed to sing, “Oh Dan please / Just ask already, ple-e-ease.” We then walked over to the guys and each grabbed them by their shirt collars, pulling them over to the front of the audience and sitting them down. Rae overheard Kevin mumble, “Well I guess we deserve this.” Halfway through “Dead Sea,” we had Ethan switch the song to “You’re the One that I Want,” from the Grease soundtrack. We kept the chorus the same, but changed the first verse:

I got stress, it’s multiplyin’

And I’m losing control

This proposal is slowly dyin’

Are you even tryin’?

I never thought I’d be singing Grease songs and dancing choreographed moves in front of an audience at 6am in Brigham City, Utah. We weren’t proposing to the guys though, we just wanted to put pressure on them to hurry up. So at the end of our performance we sat in their laps and each whispered into their ears, “You have 24 hours.” Lacy and I were the first to hit the road this morning, peacing out from our five star performance.

It’s weird to think that just two days ago we were in the state capital, and now we are riding through desolate stretches of land. In this middle of no man’s land was ATK, a company that manufactures and tests missiles for NASA. This huge industrial complex was also abandoned because it’s Sunday, and everything was so quiet and eerie I was reminded of The Hills Have Eyes. A lone security guard approached us and allowed us into the main building to use the bathrooms.

There were less than 30 miles left, but it felt like it was becoming a long day. In terms of mental strength I was struggling in these conditions, and knowing I had a limited amount of water and no tubes. The last twenty miles were on the interstate highway. I met up with Nyx, Amanda, Chris, and Hawa in some shade, and the five of us formed a paceline for the highway. We rotated who would “pull” or lead the way, every two miles. Ten miles out of Snowville I ran out of water and Gatorade. Knowing I have nothing to drink while on an interstate through a desert is terrifying.

Snowville, Utah has a population of less than 200. We all stopped into the diner in town for shakes and fries. We are sleeping outside in a park tonight. This week my chore group is in charge of preparing dinner when it’s not provided for us. Tonight we served pasta, sauce, corn of the cob, and watermelon. Everyone was a happy camper, except for three date-less girls who are scheming and counting down the hours.