Mike commutes solo to the airport, from where he takes off for Portland. He chats with special guests Leon and Alan, spilling some tea about Matthew, and heralds his stay in Portland through Saturday morning.
Good afternoon, this is Mike George reporting from Salt Lake City, Utah, at the Love's Truck Stop along the way to the airport. I'm going to take this opportunity to have you accompany me on my connection here between the truck stop and the light rail to the airport. It'll be a fun little adventure in public transit.
To show you where we are right now, I’m at the Love's truck stop. I need to kind of meander my way over to the light rail station over on North Temple Street. You can see it's a beautiful day outside, a lot of trucks out and about doing their travels. Oh, there's a BLM truck. Shout out to BLM, Black Lives Matter! Something tells me that's not what that particular truck stands for, but had to try. Oh, Maddie—Matthew Gutierrez—just joined. He is in the fun position of, for once, being on the remote end of one of these things. So hi, baby!
From the Truck Stop
Let me see. Oh, we have all kinds of... we have all kinds of people online, it seems. This is fun. This must be the end of the workday when y'all are ready to decompress and see what the hell I'm doing in my life. Um, oh goodness, I need to stop and make sure I have my... all my things and that you can all hear me and that this thing is working correctly and all that jazz. All right, guess while we're... while we're stopping right now, this is a good opportunity to do a safety moment, since I'm... since I'm already doing kind of the initially unsafe thing of videotaping myself while being a pedestrian and negotiating all this big old truck traffic here as well as the usual bout of inattentive motorists that are on the road with me. So anyways, yeah, safety moment is to be aware of where you are and who... what else is coming along. So you might kind of see me pause every now and then or even just kind of make some mental notes on here about approaching traffic. So anywho, we merrily stroll along here, this nice little in-town Love's kind of on the periphery of Salt Lake City. I just got my... got my old A-Transmission duffel bag. This thing comes in handy more than a few times even after a life, as well as my carry-on backpack.
I have a truck here that's waiting to go here. Let me see, should I be a jerk and go in front of him? Nah, we'll be good, we'll be patient. He's already pulled out into the intersection anyways, so plus I'm not even in a hurry in the first place. So yeah, there's our good old American flag rising over the interstate interchange over there. This guy's taking a while to get out here. Oh, there we go. Yep, kind of second-guessing himself. All right, there we are, the intersection is clear. All right, ah, nothing like a little bit of camp, you know, a little bit of hiking on the beautiful boulevards of the United States, home of six-lane wide avenues and, you know, all that fun wide, wide avenue stuff that we take for granted in America. Oh, here's our... here's a Denny's coming up. All right, I think I need to go... here's the North Temple Avenue coming up, which appears to be... yeah, that's the street that the rail is on. So need to go westbound, which is away from the mountains—mountains being over that way.
Walking to the Light-Rail Station
Alright, here is the street I needed to cross. Oh my god, can I make it across this in 13 seconds? Let me do it. All right! Oh goodness, there's not a... there's not a station over that way. Let me try... oh, there's a train coming! Shit, I need to find a... got to catch that train now! Oh crap, I'll just have to walk this way. I'm on my headphones right now, so I'm not sure how the music works when I'm on these headphones. Although I'm sure y'all can tell how bad my cardio is right now from that breathing I'm doing after that intersection, for that intersection. There's the train passing me by, 'cause my slow ass couldn't get to the station on time. All right, oh my god, I really need to fucking do some cardio, like whoa! All right man, we got a lot of people who have joined but haven't sent any comments. Come on, you all are hiding in your cubicles at work, I'm sure, trying to pretend like you're doing productive things on your computer when instead you're just watching my ass negotiate a 12-lane road.
Goodness gracious. Well, fortunately for me, they have a Taco Bell drive-thru in case... in case I really needed to calm myself down after that little stroll. All right, oh what is this here? La Dona... Mary Tacos Dona... Maddie, oh my god, I would love a Bloody Mary right now! And something tells me those Bloody Marys at the airport are going to be like $10. I ain't fucking around at that airport! All right, I need to take a break. I'm following Matthew's advice, take a break. Oh my... but there's a view of downtown Salt Lake from where I am, kind of got the mountains in the background. So yeah, oh you know what, I'll have plenty of time to rest when I get to that station. I'm going to... I'm going to be pissed if I stand around and see another... another train pass me by. All right, oh look at this, some local drivers needed, I guess all the lumber places are in need of some... some delivery help. Shoot, Matthew, maybe I can get my CDL at Cumberland Lumber, one of Home Depot's smaller rivals, I'd imagine.
Alright, let me see who all has at least joined us tonight if they're even still on. We have Leon, my baby Matthew, Paul Hinders—a fellow Ohio Splash member, uh, Abby Macker. Hi Abby! I don't even know what time it is, is this probably what, 4:00? Yeah, 4:30 local time, so what is that, 6:30? Okay, it's like dinner time in Ohio. All right, I think we're getting close to this... this rail station over here. Yeah, for those of us who are just joining us, I am just in the... kind of the transfer right now between Matt's freight truck and the light rail in Salt Lake City that will take me to the airport to then go to Portland and then take a Lyft to my car, and then hello, and then... and then be in my Mazda once again. It's been too long! Hell, maybe I'll even do some Facebook Lives from the Mazda, even though I generally personally don't like to be all do be up all up on that when I'm driving. Too many distractions, you know, too many distractions.
So hi again. So yeah, this is actually... gosh, we've been going out and about in Salt Lake City an awful lot, kind of gotten to know the city a bit from various individual vantage points and individual weekends. Salt Lake City, from what I can tell, is quite a lovely place. A land of fun little ironies, a land of opposites, a land of contrasts. Uh yeah, I don't know, that's all I can say kind of without going too much into the weeds on that. All right, so getting close to the rail station here. Oh, they even have a little crossing guard at the rail station. That is cute. See, that is something you can't replace with a robot, is a crossing guard. I mean, you kind of can, but well, I guess they already have... they have actual gates, gate crossings, but you know, gate crossings don't say hi to you or go that extra mile to make sure that you're safe and happy, you know. There's none of that charm, none of that exceptional customer service.
Oh goodness. All right, I'm always curious about whether these things actually register how many times people push their buttons. Oh, maybe it does. It seems to have changed awfully promptly. Oh, and it even gave me a whole 22 seconds to cross. Oh okay, so a construction zone going on. What do we got here? Last train information... I don't think that... All right, now to the train station. Yes, so I'm getting this ticket here to go to the airport. Let's see, full fare, here we go. Looks like $2.50 is our flat rate here. Hopefully the credit card machine works today. Would that be convenient... credit card, come on. Insert and withdraw credit card. Okay, thought I did this... these old machines, you know, never can tell. What is going on with these new age machines? Oh yay! Oh my god, that was so instant, how nice! Oh yay, that looks like it. All right, oh shoot, let me go this way, their way over there. All right, looks like Salt Lake City Airport, going... I'm going the correct way, that is a good sign. All right, there's a view of... the northbound tracks here, or I'm sorry, northbound... this is westbound, westbound tracks going out from downtown to the airport that away. Looks like I caught the after-work folks who are presumably commuting on their way home after a long, busy day of some hard work.
Awaiting the Train
Oh goodness, none of y'all have... none of you guys have said anything yet, y'all are awfully quiet. Hmm, guess I've just blown your mind with all the crazy shit going on here right now, right? Is that what it is? Hi again. So this should take about 15 or so minutes to get to the airport. Nah, probably longer than that, probably half hour, we'll say. Then I have to, yeah, get in, and I probably won't be able to Facebook Live from the airport, although it would be fun to see how far I could get with that. Oh, I already felt... I already feel kind of sketchy uh even Facebook Live-ing around other people I know. Like, I know when I'm... I know I don't like it when people videotape shit around me. I get sketchy about that, especially if I'm, you know, one of those things. Never like it when that stuff's off camera, never know what happens with that information.
Ah, a guest request! I see Alan join us again. Alan Draper, hello sir! I'm in the sun now, what are you up to?
Alan:
I'm walking to the bus stop.
Mike:
Oh shoot, so you're... oh man, you're going to the airport to go to Vegas, aren't you?
Alan:
No, not till tomorrow.
Mike:
That's tomorrow, okay. That would have been funny if you were going to the PDX airport to go to Vegas on the same day that I'm trying to get to PDX.
Alan:
No, I'm going downtown.
Mike:
Oh okay, nice, that's cool. What... what part of town are you in now? Oh, I think I'm losing you, Alan. Oh, it seems we have lost Alan for a split moment. Oh, and here is the train behind me! That is for me at the moment, but let me watch all these fabulous folks get on and off. Yeah. Oh, all right, looks like that gentleman got onto the train successfully. Yay! That would have sucked if that wasn't the case. Oh, there we go, there goes the downtown train. All right, now we just wait upon the airport-bound train slash wait on that boy to hit on us! Shit, I should have gotten a little bit of a view of him for the camera for y'all on Facebook land, but that looks kind of sketch when an Asian boy just be holding up his camera to your face like you're some sort of B-list celebrity. Oh, there is somebody doing some jackhammering out here. Oh, Alan, is it hot out there?
Alan:
It's 84 here.
Mike:
You're what? It's 84 degrees? 84 Fahrenheit, I assume, right?
Alan:
Yes.
Mike:
That's good, that's a relief. I mean, I wasn't sure how close those wildfires were getting. So you know... oh, there's actually a train coming! Oh yay, this is exciting for our audience! Here we have... that is actually the downtown-bound route train that I was just seeing. Never mind, false alarm! So, oh I think that one just dropped off, I'm not even sure, I don't know how this technology thing works. But yeah, oh yeah, I don't know if Yazan might be interested, but I have a job interview tomorrow! So, at the Army Corps of Engineers doing hydroelectric generation stuff, so a fun little transition away from transmission, which I'm actually kind of excited about. So you know, transmission is sexy, but it's just wires and shit, right? The generation and the plants, that's where all the... that's where all the fun is, right? Ah, oh goodness! These... I think these trains are spaced roughly 20 minutes apart, so I think since I just... since I just missed that last one, I might be here for a hot minute or so.
So there is still time on this broadcast for some juicy questions to me about Matthew or about our relationship or about, hell, even just anything in general, as always. Um, I guess since I have nothing else to... to really talk about personally, I'll just do kind of an NPR NewsHour update for y'all. Um, these are the articles that I'm aware of that are happening in the world today. Um, let's see, oh I have to... I have to think long and hard about this a little bit. Um, Trump, oh my goodness! Yeah, Trump's folks got busted for their emails, which just adds more fucking ridiculousness to the spectacle that has become the news. So, I mean, we all knew this was going to happen, but it's just funny to see it in print. Um, Donald Trump's boys getting taken out by the email... using their personal emails, that's a bunch of nonsense.
Let's see what else. Uh, Manafort's getting investigated... like the rain, you know, the news is starting to kind of choke up on Manafort. He's sort of the key player in this Trump thing. Well, I shouldn't say he's the key player, he's one of them. He's definitely been responsible for a lot of... a lot of funny business around the world—Ukraine, United States, now I think even... fuck, there was another country that he kind of had his hands in in the, you know, campaigning and... and everything. So anyways, they're kind of starting to go in on him, which is exciting. Um, let me see, in natural disasters, I mean, uh, there hasn't been anything exciting about... you know, there hasn't been anything exciting on the natural disasters front. Um, they're still kind of cleaning up uh after... they're cleaning up Puerto Rico and really they're trying to get power and basic infrastructure um set up there. Um, infrastructure... there is a... now a train coming!
All Aboard
Alright, I have to get my... now I think this is one of those things where I voluntarily... where it's like the honor system, where they assume that I've paid the ticket and nobody actually checks, but you got to always... you never know. So here we are! Oh, that's... wait, okay, the airport, yeah, okay. Oh, that was tricky, all the doors opened. Okay, let me see, going to hang out up here for a little bit. All right, so yeah, so for all of you on Facebook Live right now, I've just entered the light rail system of Utah's... the Utah Transit Authority's system servicing Salt Lake City. I think a lot of this they built back in 2000... in the early 2000s when they were hosting the Olympics here in Salt Lake City, the Winter Olympics. So yeah, here we go, just humming on along. These trains move pretty fast, too. This is not bad for just a light rail system, I feel like I'm going at least 25 miles per hour, probably potentially faster once we kind of get away from the city a little bit.
Next station: Salt Lake International Airport.
Oh wow, this is like a dedicated ride here. Please check for personal belongings. Well, this is certainly exciting. So, it feels so nice to just kind of chill on a train, and it's so quiet. It's not like that BART system in San Francisco. My god, that was just a nightmare, you could hear all the fucking metal on metal, the wheels, the brakes, the squeaking, uh the squealing noise of the brakes, it was just... just atrocious. Um, oh, and here's some airplane! Wow, we're actually a lot closer to the airport than I originally suspected, but there's an airplane coming in for landing, I presume, or maybe it's taking off, I can't tell. It's just kind of hovering in the sky, kind of guessing it's landing since the airport's over that way. Oh wow, yeah, this is my first time flying out of this particular airport. Really my first time, I don't think I've even been transferred through here.
Arriving at the Airport
So this will be a new experience. Oh look at... oh yes, look at that! Look at that plane coming down! Yes! So yeah, I will be in Portland until Saturday... Saturday morning, so I'm going to arrive in Portland late, late uh this evening, around... well, I'm probably going to get to Leah's apartment at 11:00 tonight um by the time I get my car, um you know, all that jazz, get back into the city. We're slowing down, which indicates that we're... oh yeah, we're at the airport, or at least in the... at least on the parking lots. Wow, there's so many cranes out here, so there's obviously a lot of... lot of activity going on in this area. I don't know if they're building extensions to the airport or just other kind of... other businesses, maybe some logistics companies out this way. But now we are slowing down.
Yeah, so I'm not... I'm not sure how long I'm going to keep this broadcast going. Um, my hands are pretty full when I... but then again, I won't have my duffel bag I have to carry, I'm checking that in, so I might have my... hand, I might have some free hands enough to do some... some Facebook Live updating and kind of, you know, use you guys to stay sane while I'm traveling solitarily on the... on the road, which whatever. It's nice to kind of have some free time for your... for your own brain. International Airport... oh, I think we are here. So um, yeah, let me kind of get ready to... get to disembark here. Please exit. Oh my god, it's so hard to put your shit on while this thing is braking while holding the phone! Oh my god, this is like... all right. Oh, thank you! Oh, I love it when people actually wait for you to get off the train, even though I didn't have my shit together, to be fair. Uh let's see, let's see here... I am over... oh yeah, that's the airport.
Alright, I think you were the one that helped this. All right, we are in the ticketing terminal of the Salt Lake City International Airport. It's really quiet here. I hear the whirring of the... of the baggage drop machines, just kind of a calm... kind of a calm vibe here. I always love going to the airport, you just see the biggest variety of people like in modern society everywhere—everything from the business executives to the cute surfer boys to just random people on these random trips to people like me annoyingly on their phone the whole time recording every minute of their journey. All right, let me see, I have to recall what airline I'm in. I think I'm Delta, which is... oh, I already passed Delta. I think... nope, Delta is... oh, I think it's in the far wing of this terminal. I better double-check what the hell I'm doing here. All right, so yes, we are indeed taking Delta Airlines.
It's a nice little airport, it's not... not overwhelming, it's not... doesn't take forever to walk through. At least not yet. Oh shit, I must have missed... oh fuck, where is it? Oh, Delta, K-M... oh, this is... yeah, this is the second terminal. I maybe I spoke too soon when I said this was a small airport. I'm in the wrong terminal! Oh, do I really... oh, I had to actually probably wait on that... I probably had to wait on that train, there probably was a second airport stop, I'm thinking. Oh boo! Well, I'll tell you what, Facebook Live, I don't think this part of the journey is very exciting while I try to figure out what I'm doing, so I'm going to let you guys...
I'm going to go for a little bit. I might hit you guys up when I'm actually through security and killing time in the terminal, maybe have some beers with you guys. But uh, until then, I'll talk to you guys soon. Hats off for now!
