There's something about Utah

Today, as a tool to refresh my memory of Aimless events, I've been watching video I made while riding with the first person who ever picked me up. During the drive from Richfield, Utah to Cedar City, the driver, Dennis, was quick to mention a drink called Reliv. Reliv is one of those "miracle cure" drinks that people get tricked into selling as part of a pyramid scheme. He told me about how it "cured" his chronic fatigue and his wife's head pains, but that's not all he said about it.

I don't think Dennis was trying to sell me Reliv--I haven't watched all of it yet--but while watching this footage I realized for the first time that he was a "distributor" of the drink. In fact, he was only driving through Richfield because he had just taken (or sold?) a bunch of Reliv to family members in central Utah.

I had no idea at the time how many snake oil salesmen I would end up meeting in Utah, but damn near everyone I met in Utah tried to turn me on to this kind of shit. If I didn't show any interest in buying it, they tried to get me to sell it. (Remember, pyramid scheme.)

So I did a little research today, just hoping to find a little information about Reliv, Xango, and the blueberry drink some old ladies at a Salt Lake City truck stop were selling. Why Utah, specifically?, I wondered.

Are you ready for the answer? You're never gonna guess this...

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Yes, the mormons.

These companies are not necessarily sponsored by LDS, but almost all of them have LDS folks at the top of the pyramid. I haven't looked too deeply into it yet, but it's pretty creepy.

I wonder how Dennis (a mormom) is doing now, almost two and a half years later.

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Aimless
Aimless Video Evidence

The scary part

After a very slow start, my first attempt at writing a book is really starting to come along. Almost 6,000 words into it, I'm just getting to my first hitchhiking experience. It's hard to write about the "Quasi-Aimless" leg of the adventure because there is so much I need to leave out. But there is also a lot I can't leave out, like the story of my first time hitchhiking. I can't wait until I get to the experiences I actually want to write about. There are so many of them.

It's not going to be difficult to write a 300-page book about my travels. The difficult part will be writing it in a way that will make it easy for people to read and enjoy. Am I a good enough writer to turn an incredible story into an incredible book? I know sometimes I am, but I also know sometimes I'm not. That's the scary part.

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Aimless
Aimless Video Evidence