What happened last week

 I went to the pool

And about 30 minutes into my workout I felt like I needed to text my friend Aaron and see how he was doing because I have not seen him in the pool for a while

So I texted him And I asked 

Aaron,

Are you alive?

His immediate response was  

No !

I then said 

OK…….

I’ll go get the casket…….

But…you have to bury it…….

I then asked if he was working?

And he said 

no my car battery is dead. 

I’m trying to jump it, but it’s not working.

I then asked him do you wanna borrow my car charger?

I said I have a free day. Would you like help 

Not wanting to take me away from my time 

he was reluctant for me to come over

But I said, don’t worry about it 

and so I drove over there, and I hooked up my charger to his car

and I had just used it yesterday and it jumpstarted another car just fine…….

But for some reason it did not work on his car

So I brought the charger cord for my battery charger in to his house

And I plugged it in, then I went and used the restroom

Aaron is terrified of spiders and I think they’re amazing creatures, so I was surprised when I saw a spider on his toilet plunger

And after I was done, I asked him about it, and he was not even aware it was there

Later he checked on it and told me it was a black widow, and he was thankful that I told him about it

We tried again to jumpstart his car, but it just would not go. 

It was really strange.

At this time he was really stressed out because he didn’t show up for work,

He had called his boss and told him everything

His boss told him to get it taken care of, and they would see him tomorrow

So after my charger was completely full

I hooked it up to his car and I let it charge

And I said, let’s get in my vehicle and go for a drive while your car is charging

At first he did not want to because he had so much stress and anxiety on him

Together as we were talking 

We had the typical question going back and forth

well, where are we going to go?

He was very indecisive

So I said, I have an idea 

get in my car

He did, and I had no idea where I was going

but I just started going away from his house

 so he could forget about his problems

I ended up going up Provo Canyon

Up towards bridal veil Falls

We parked right next to road where there is an overlook that you can look down at it from up on the road

And there were two people sitting down in the freezing cold water at the base of the waterfall acting as if it was not cold, but that was glacial water

I think that was pretty dumb……..

We then got back in the vehicle

And I continued to drive north again

 not knowing where I was going

but to get him as far away from his thoughts as possible

As we are going up

 we noticed how deep and fast the river was getting

 it was starting to flood out some of the bridges and roads 

So we pulled over into an outcropping and it was weird 

because it was a huge parking Lot area 

but it said no parking 

and then it had this really small sign that said 

zip line

He then pointed out a road that I had never seen before, and we drove down it

 We got to the end of the road and there were a couple of people repairing the road because the water had washed it out

They told me that the zip line was $80 a person

We decided it was too much and so we turned around and left

We continued to go up towards deer Creek

We had our fishing poles with us, and we were debating where we wanted to go fishing

We drove up towards the Provo river, and we fished there for a while

But it was so shallow. Our spinners kept catching in the grass 

 so it was kind of frustrating.

So we drove down the road looking for a deeper spot to fish

 and we decided that we were going to go fish at Jordanelle reservoir

And as we got closer, he noticed how close we were to Park city from the signs

we had talked about Park city about a week ago

so I decided rather than going to Jordanelle

 We were going up to Park city

Last week he was talking about the Alpine slide

How he had never done it, and he always wanted to find out more about it

So I drove him up to it

They had a bunch of new attractions that I had not seen before

We both got a pass to do the mountain coaster and also the Alpine slide

 it was a two for one pass

At first we could not find where to go because it was kind of confusing, so we just ended up looking around everywhere

Finally, we both decided we’re going to go up toward the mountain coaster

And it was a really long straight up the mountain to get to the top.

 It’s on a chain that pulls you up the mountain while sitting in your cart

And when I got to the top

 there was somebody ahead of me that was stopped dead in the track

And I pulled on the break !

 I did everything I could !

but I hit right into the back of them.

And the guy working at the top said

Don’t feel bad…….

 you couldn’t break any way 

the brakes don’t work in this section…….

But

that bump that you gave them is just what I needed

 because I couldn’t get them to go forward 

so thank you !!!  he told me

I then had to stick my foot down in the dirt to get me going. Luckily, I’m tall so I could.

And coming up right behind me,

 Aaron, 

who is right in back of me just crashes into me 

just like I did to The people right ahead of me.

Because he could not break either

I knew it was coming, so I prepared myself…….

Luckily, no one was behind Aaron, so he got to go

Without being hit in the back of the cart

That was one of the smoothest G-force roller coasters I’ve ever been on, which is kind of nice with my back

And it was pretty quick. It took us probably about 10 minutes to go up the mountain and it took us about 4 minutes or maybe less to go down.

He had a huge grin on his face

When he reached the bottom

 It was really fun.

Next, we took the sky lift, which usually takes skiers up to the top of the mountain

And the people loading us up said 

you don’t have to put the bar down if you don’t want too…

 and I said OK 

so I left it up

Well, halfway through the ride, I looked over, and Aaron was pinned to the side of his chair, and I asked him what was wrong

And he said 

if it was my idea, we would’ve pulled the bar down

I then asked him do you wanna pull it down? 

He said no I’m starting to get used to it.

I then leaned over the front and said wow look at that bluebird down there, and he would not move at all. It was pretty funny.

I was definitely pushing the limits of his comfort with the bar up

So I then sat back, and we talked about many things and how beautiful it is where we are at

 and how lucky we are to live in Utah

We got to the top of the ski lift and they handed us two yellow carts

Aaron was confused because he thought once we got to the top we would just go down the slide

But that’s not the way this works. 

You have to walk quite a ways with your cart 

before you get to go on the slide.

We had another good talk as we were dragging our carts along

We got to the area and I told him to go first 

because I had been there before 

and he was there trying it out for the first time

There were two tracks next to each other

He was in the right track 

I was in the left

The operator of the ride explains to us how to break 

and if you don’t brake in certain areas, you can go over the side

And then I said, yes, that is true

Which made him think about how fast he was going to go

while he was on it

His face changed right when we both said it……..

Before he left, the operator said, make sure you guys don’t race

And then he let him go down the right side of the track

And at first He started quite slow, but he started to pick up speed.

Then the operator said I could go ahead after a minute of waiting

And within 30 seconds, I had caught up with him

And I passed him,

Aaron didn’t like that very much 

So…….he let off the break quite a bit

And he started going way faster than he thought he was

And he passed me 

And then all of a sudden he slowed way down

 and I just kept going by at a super fast speed

It was fun to relive those memories of going down the slide

I made it to the bottom

And there was a lady there recording us and she asked if it was scary, and if it had breaks

 Then I explained it was perfectly safe and that you could go your own speed

 as fast or as slow as you wanted 

that made her a lot happier because she was scared to get on

And as I was talking to her

 Aaron finally pulled up next to me and overheard a little bit of what I was saying

And he said yeah, he is right. You can break and go as fast as you want. 

He left way after I did, but he got down here way before I did…

Aaron told me at the bottom that his wheels had gone up and over the edge and came off track and then came back on the track and that scared him a little bit

 so he slowed down

After that, we then walked back to the car

As we were driving back home, I noticed that we could go right back to where we started fishing

a different way back as if we drove in a big circle today

So I started to drive towards Midway so I could go to the back road

And I asked Aaron if he had been ever been to Midway

 he said no

I then said

  WHAT ??? 

you’ve never been inside the volcano?

He didn’t even know that there was a volcano/geyser in Utah

So I drove over to the Homestead resort 

As you pull into the parking lot 

it doesn’t look like there’s anything on the property 

But as you’re driving in 

if you go back towards the golf course

there’s a hill in the middle of the resort

This is an old hot spring /geyser/volcano 

(A very little one, but we don’t have to get into that)

If you walk towards the north 

they opened up a hole that you can walk into the side of the volcano 

That has filled up with a hot spring water and you can go inside and scuba dive or snorkel inside of it. 

It is a really cool place.

Again, he was like a child again 

It was really fun to watch him explore and look around while he was inside the volcano/geyser

You can walk around for free and check it out

But you have to pay if you want to swim…….

We then exited, and I said 

OK…

now let’s go up to the top and look down

He was excited that he could do that too.

So we went all the way around to the south

right towards the front of the building

And there was a staircase

That led to the top of the hill

I decided to be funny to see if I could run up the whole thing

And I challenged him to do the same thing

At first, we started out at the same time 

But later when I got to the top

I turned around and he was halfway up the steps

I have no idea how long it took, but it was at least 60 steps I think

When you get to the top, they put a grate over the top area so you can look down in the cavern

And they also put a bridge over the volcano opening at the top

 so you can walk all the way over it and look down into the cavern 

where the water is and where people are swimming

I then showed him around the Homestead area 

And then we drove back towards town

and I said OK we’re gonna go this way

And we drove right back towards the place where we fished in the beginning

 and he was amazed that he had been so close to the volcano, but never known about it

We then drove back to his place

tried to start his car

and again it did not work

even after charging for that long

So we were talking about getting a battery

 talking about all the different things we could do 

and we ended up deciding

To go to the store and buy jumper cables

And jumpstart his car from mine

which we should’ve done in the first place…….

And we let it charge for about a half an hour

From my car battery to his 

Again, talking about today and what we went and did 

After we got done talking, we tried again to start his car

And it started immediately up

I then drove home

The next day he texted me in the morning and told me that his car started right up 

and we just talked back-and-forth about yesterday 

And he told me that that was one of the best days he’s had in years

He said 

I will never Forget yesterday

it has been my absolute favorite day

and when I woke up yesterday 

I was so miserable and frustrated 

and I hated life so much because of my car and my life

Thank you so much for taking time out of your day 

to help me have a better day

That meant the world to me…

And it all started in the morning with a simple text

That I was inspired to do

Just from jokingly saying…….

Aaron, 

are you alive?

::David::

6-25-24