“Salt Lake City (1)”
I moved to Park City, UT almost exactly 18 months ago. I’d been here for three weeks before — enough to know that it’s the ideal combination of small mountain town and cosmopolitan interest. We beat the socks off of Aspen or Jackson for limiting our yuppieness (thank you Church of Latter-Day Saints for scaring off many of the wealthy would-be suburbanites) and we have much better bars, concert halls, and access to civilization (40min to CostCo) than Mammoth Lakes. So yeah, Park City rocks.
The part that Park City didn’t cover at all when I moved here was friends. Every time I’d log in to Facebook to keep track of people who didn’t live near me, isolation confronted me on every friend’s profile that showed “Salt Lake City (1)”, usually preceded by “Claremont (349)” or “New York (112)” or similar. “Yes, Tom,” said Facebook, “you’re the only fool known to you or any of your friends to be living in Utah. That (1) is You.”
When I moved here my plan was basically “Apply to grad school, work butt off for 9 months, snowboard, and leave for graduate school when the startup fails.” I reasoned that the unlimited outdoor and exercise stimulants available and the exciting and all-consuming work, combined with some trips to the West Coast would keep me pretty happy for 9 months. It really did, but my startup didn’t fail on schedule and now I’ve been here 18 months. The startup still hasn’t failed (quite the contrary) but I’m running out of time for grad school so I am leaving in one more month. The weird thing is, I have friends here. I’m not really sure when that happened or what I did to deserve it.
It’s pretty cool though.