The Nightlife of SLC (Mormons: Party Enemy Number 1)

Things you cannot do in SLC and Greater Utah:
Drink real beer
Buy real beer
Dance
Smile

Things you can do:
Pray
Be Mormon (Really just an extension of the first bullet)

We should have known better when the Xpress Shuttle driver at 2:00 A.M. responds to my question “are there any bars still open” with maniacal laughter.

Yeah. So SLC is not exactly a party town. First of all it is close to impossible to get real beer. And if you can find real beer by going to one of the few state-run liquor stores it costs a fortune. And I’m not being cheap here. I mean 12$ for a 6 pack. Yea, that sounds reasonable.

What can you get? You can get near beer. Mmmmm. About 3.2 percent alchy, this stuff is piss water. Beer flavored water. Dirty water. It doesn’t make you drunk. It makes you need to pee, constantly. It makes you sluggish and tired. Not exactly party sauce.

To the bars: There aren’t any, by law. There are only “private clubs.” These require a “membership fee” that must be paid on a weekly or monthly basis so that you can then pay them for food and sauce. Awesome, I like that. And remember these “clubs” we paid to become a member to still serve shit beer and won’t pour a drink with more than one shot in it.

So that’s the bad. And it’s a long list. Onto the good:

The Mexican food. Every stripmall seems to have 5 Mexican joints to grab food. TK ran in to one on a smoke break and wouldn’t shutup about the awesomeness he had consumed. Fired up and hungry, more of the gang went the next night and were blown away by the eats. More blown away were my taste buds from eating one of the hottest hot sauces I have ever tried in my entire life.

DIS. The Days Inn South of Midvale. Probably more amazing than a power stash find in the backcountry. Super cheap. Way nicer than we deserve. Right on the bus route to the mountains. And equipped with the ethereal Bobby Sharp: their ghost general manager who haunts the place and only responds to email. Also the continental breakfast was probably one of the biggest surprises of the trip

The Uta Bus. Basically for free, right next to the DIS we could hop onto a bus at 7:15 A.M. and in one hour be at Snowbird, Briton, or Solitude (and Alta for those skier snobs). Generally we could always strike up convos with the drivers or the other people going to the mountains to ride or work. Lot of weird people out in these parts and a hell of a lot of people with some whacked out stories.

We met a guy working at Brighton on the bus who had married a half Paki half Mormon woman two months after he met her. He was odd, but a funny guy.

Our bus the first night coming home on Friday was the man. First of all, we had the bus to ourselves so we could carry on and rockout however we saw fit. Bullshitting with the guy for awhile, we started to close in on the final stop. Instead of just taking us to the bustop, the guy goes “fuck it, where are you guys staying I’ll just drop you there.” Yea, he was well tipped.

In conclusion, do not go to SLC to party. Go there to shred, and bring all your own booze. There are good times to be had there, but sure as hell not at their Moron Private Clubs.