June 28th was a very eventful day. We got up incredibly early in the morning, checked out of the hotel, and hit the road. We had to get from Cedar City, Utah to Nampa, Idaho by 7:00, and it’s easily an eight- or nine-hour drive.

Since our travel route took us through Salt Lake City, I was excited at the prospect of seeing my friend of over twenty years, David Bible. We left a bit later than we planned, so for a while it looked like we wouldn’t have time to stop in and see him. I called him to break the bad news, and he called back a few minutes later with an offer we couldn’t refuse; if we stopped in at his restaurant, he’d have some food waiting for us.

We were very excited at this prospect, naturally, and I set the cruise control a bit faster to make up as much time as possible.

Remember how beautiful I said that Utah was? Well, Salt Lake City was certainly no exception. In fact, even in June, there was no shortage of snow-capped hills along the way.

We made really good time, and since it was Saturday, we didn’t have any traffic to deal with in SLC. We had plenty of time to stop in and see David, and I can’t even begin to express how glad I am that we were able to do that. Suffice it to say that not only was it amazing to see Dave again (it had been about three years), but I also got a new favorite café in the process. That restaurant is the Sego Lily Café in Bountiful, Utah.

Dave is the chef there, and the mastermind behind the majority of the creative and amazing cuisine, which I’ll discuss in a moment. For now, though, it’s time for a few pictures. Dave gave us a tour of the entire place, but we spent most of our time in the kitchen, talking and watching him work his magic.

I wish I could say that those fries lasted longer than they did, but I have to confess that after one bite, I knocked the precariously-balanced plate onto the floor, destroying the plate and rendering the precious fries inedible. Luckily, Dave had given us a box of them to take with us on the road, but even if he hadn’t, that one bite would have been all I needed in order to pronounce them the best fries I’ve ever had in my whole life. And the dipping sauce. . .oh my gawd. Forget ketchup, mayonnaise, or any lame combination of the two. Once you’ve had red pepper aioli to dip your fries into, there’s no going back. When Dave told me that on the phone, I said, “You didn’t just say ‘red pepper aioli’, did you, because if you did, I just got really excited.”

We stayed there for about twenty minutes (not NEARLY enough time), and then we had to get back on our way. Dave sent three different sandwiches with us, along with an amazing salad and a box of those incredible fries and aioli. We passed around halves of the sandwiches, each time proclaiming our current bite ‘the best.’ I talked with Dave today to get the full story on the sandwiches, and here’s what they were:

– grilled chicken panini, with pesto, provolone cheese, and tomatoes

– tarragon chicken salad, with onions, cashews, and a bunch of special ingredients

And then there was my personal favorite, which was Dave’s special, hand-made creation:

– merguez sausage (lamb and roasted red peppers), in a subtle and spicy red harisa (in Dave’s words, ‘a classic Tunisian condiment’) sauce, with cucumbers and onions. Absolutely unbelievable sandwich.

RIGHT NOW, I’D LIKE TO TAKE THE OPPORTUNITY TO TELL YOU THAT IF YOU LIVE ANYWHERE NEAR SALT LAKE CITY, DO YOURSELF A FAVOR AND EAT AT THE SEGO LILY CAFE.

SERIOUSLY. GO.

AND BRING ALL OF YOUR FRIENDS.

Thank you. Okay, so on with the trip. The landscape was consistently beautiful, but Salt Lake City gradually got more and more industrial (and less attractive) the further we got from the city itself. In a very uncharacteristic outburst, I raised two all-encompassing middle fingers to the city of Ogden, in which my blog stalker lives. From then on, the trip settled back into good conversation, and the landscape changed gradually from rocky cliffs to rolling, green hills covered with sagebrush, to amazing open spaces and skies.

Finally, we arrived at the site of the tour’s final show, the Flying M Coffee Garage in Nampa, Idaho. We unloaded our instruments, had some coffee, and took some pictures.

Justin took some pictures of Breanna, but neither of them realized that I was upstairs taking pictures of them at the same time.

Breanna has some family members who live in Idaho, and they were in attendance at this show. Breanna talked them into taking a few pictures of us. Here are the best ones.

This was our best show of the tour. We were excited, but relaxed, and although we were tired from the trip, I think we tried extra hard to make the show special, because it was the final one of the tour. For some reason the cello sounded particularly excellent. Every once in a while, I feel like I have a particularly good night, and this was definitely one of them.

After our two-hour show was over, we packed up our instruments and then stuck around drinking coffee, eating snacks, shopping for little gifts (the Flying M has an abundant supply of cool little gifts) and, of course, taking pictures.

Finally, at eleven o’clock at night, we packed up and drove back up the highway to Breanna’s uncle’s house in Meridian, where we completely crashed almost immediately upon our arrival. It was quite a day, but that means that now there’s only one more day left. . .ON TOUR.

OneYearAgo