"I may be some time," he said, easing on his fleece-lined boots. We laughed and clinked our empty ... [+]
For over four years I worked at a newspaper in Tooele County, a rural desert county in Utah. I had a coworker once say the county is a collection of almosts—it could be almost a fantastic hiking destination, if only the rocks were red; it could be almost an incredible boating magnet if the Great Salt Lake weren't quite so salty. But as it is, Tooele County is seven million acres of brown rock and dead sea. It is desert. It is desolate. It is lonely. It is the Nevada of Utah. When I covered crime there, I got to see plenty of it. I was miserable. I was lonely in a social desert that mirrored t