Chapter 18: Salty Getaway
“Is it really only Monday?” Kaitlyn asked me as we were prepping our bikes behind her Subaru.
We were parked in a rest area off of I–80 West leaving Salt Lake City, near the exit for Utah Highway 38, the first non-Interstate road we’d take on the rest of this week’s planned riding. US law disallows bicycling on Interstate highways, which seems sensible to me, but it would have been nice if there was a reasonably safe alternate way to exit the city without using a car. Then we could have sent Mary on her way from the hotel, without making her ferry us out here. Oh, well.
Along the way, we’d passed nearby one of the big marinas on the Great Salt Lake, patronized by people with boats so big they needed to remain moored out here, rather than be towed out on trailers and parked behind their suburban castles. I knew such people from when I used to live in Salt Lake; one had told me the slip fees were rapacious.
I’d stared out at the expanse of the lake as we passed it on the Interstate, wishing we could go swimming in it right now, knowing we couldn’t. It was daylight, and while our biking outfits were fairly similar to swimwear, we wouldn’t want to be biking in wet and salty clothes later in the day. The right thing would be if we could strip off, swim, shower off right there on the lake shore, sun dry, and get back into our biking clothes to resume our journey, but that’s just not likely to happen right here in the heart of Utah.
The Great Salt Lake is one of the largest salt water lakes in the world. It’s salty because it has no outlet and it sits up against the Bonneville Salt Flats, which are so flat and broad that they race high-speed experimental cars on it, that being more economical than to set up an equally good test track nearer to their point of manufacture. Mary had told me the salt flats are miles broad and even more miles long, which is a good thing when you’re pushing an experimental vehicle to hundreds of miles an hour and your brakes are little more than a parachute.
We were headed for one of the campgrounds off the lake’s southern shore, well shy of the flats out on the lake’s west side. It was about ten miles from the rest area, any easy ride for us. We occasionally pushed ourselves to exhaustion without fear of later pain, because we had the option of healing up with Gaia’s help. That was enormously freeing, psychologically, leading us as it did to take longer and harder rides than we would have without it.
Kaitlyn snapped her fingers at me. “Earth to Davie!”
“Oh, yes. Um, right, it is indeed just Monday,” I answered, coming out of my reverie. “It has been a very busy weekend, hasn’t it? Here’s to a more relaxing week.”
“Oh, I’ve had plenty of fun and relaxation, too, but yes, it’s good to get out of the crowded city,” Kaitlyn said, stretching for the sky, showing off her tight abdomen, flattening her chest.
Kaitlin and I had changed into our biking clothes in the car while her mother Mary drove, waiting until there were gaps in the second lane of traffic before swapping the next item out. It was a great game, and Mary had enjoyed our antics.
“All right you two, have fun!” she said, preparing to leave. “You’ll call if you have trouble?”
“I don’t know if our mobile phones will work out where we’re going, but we’ll be able to bike back into cell range pretty quickly if need be,” Kaitlyn said, reassuring her mother.
“Okay, well, I’m off. Thanks for the loan of the car, Kate-love.” Then she got in, closed the door gently, and pulled out carefully. You drive other people’s cars differently than your own, especially when they’re watching.
We rode out through a few small towns to the campgrounds up in the forested hills off of the Southwest arm of the lake. We ended up about a 45 minute ride from the lake proper, but it was much more isolated up here, and we could get back down to the lake later in the week.
We got to the camping area I’d selected back at the hotel, checked it out, and agreed that we’d like to stay here. I paid the fee and filled out the paperwork while Kaitlyn went on ahead and selected a spot.
Kaitlyn had picked one of those right out at the edge of the campground, near a small creek; she pronounced it “crick.”
We got the tent set up and tossed the sleeping pads inside to finish self-inflating in the little greenhouse we’d thus created, then we zipped everything up and took a leisurely ride up the canyon past several other campgrounds, checking out the scenery and getting familiar with the area.
Several times along the way, we’d repeated our game of butt-slapping. Our bike shorts are padded, so we can hit pretty hard without hurting each other, which then led us to turn it into a game to see how fast we can pass the other in a standing sprint without losing control of our bike or making the other lose control of theirs. Practically speaking, it was a form of high-intensity interval training, but the game element made it fun rather than a grueling series of exercise reps. In this way, we trained ourselves up quite nicely. Beat the heck out of a gym, I thought.
At one point, it started raining, so we parked beside the road and quickly slipped our rain pants and rain shells on, then resumed riding up the canyon. I rode beside Kaitlyn and watched as she fiddled with her rain shell’s air controls for the first time out on the road. We hadn’t yet had call to use this rain gear back in dry Moab, but it looked like she’d been practicing at home, because she quickly got it adjusted to her comfort; then we resumed our ride just as we were before.
We rode until the road ran out at the well-named Loop Campground, where our only choice was to go back down the valley to our campground or park the bikes and continue on foot up the Deseret Trail. We chose the latter, cable-locking our bikes to a nearby tree and removing the secondary water bottles from the bike frames to use as canteens.
The rain stopped shortly before we got here, so we hung our rain gear on the bikes to dry out while we were away.
This gave us the minute we needed to get our breath back, after which we started hiking up the trail toward Deseret Peak. We weren’t going all the way up today; the peak is a mile higher than the surrounding terrain. We just wanted to get well back from the campgrounds.
At one point, Kaitlyn commented, “Oh, this is a lovely spot, Davie!”
“Isn’t it, though?” I agreed. “My muscles are feeling a bit tight; it’s time for a little healing. How about we hike up this slope here,” I said, pointing up the side of the hill the trail was carved into, “and see if we can find an isolated patch of nature up there?”
Kaitlyn smiled at me, knowing what I had in mind, so we began taking a winding path up the steep hillside. This part of the trail wasn’t much higher than back in Moab, just a thousand feet or so above the surrounding desert plateau, so the thin mountain air wasn’t a major hindrance to us. The difficulty was all from the steepness of the hillside itself.
We had to get up to a local peak before we found any area level enough that we’d want to sit down and quietly experience nature. It was an even better view from up here than down where we’d left the trail.
While looking around, I saw a large flat rock jutting out of the trees, like Pan’s own diving board into the forest.
Kaitlyn saw it, too. “There,” she pointed. “It’s perfect.”
“Isn’t that a bit exposed?” I said, worried.
“Naaah. Anyone close enough to see details will be looking at the underside of the rock, and I don’t see any helicopters around. You just did that climb; how many people do you suppose would even think to try following us up here? No, Davie my love, this mountain peak is ours, for this afternoon at least.”
I gave that some thought and then nodded, following her up towards the promontory, enjoying the sight of her gluteal muscles working under the tight bike shorts.
We stripped naked in the trees, then I walked to the center of the ledge and sat down, maintaining cover from below. Kaitlyn, though, walked right past me and peered over the edge.
“Aren’t you worried about being seen?” I asked her, a worried tone in my voice.
“That JRE mission taught me how to steer my life presence sense around pretty well. I’m using it to look down the hill now, and there are no humans around. There’s a deer bedded down over there, though,” she said, pointing. Then she turned back to face me with a smug grin on her face.
I stood and joined her at the edge, both of us now letting it all hang out, the light breeze tickling across our completely bare bodies. It was an amazing view and an amazing experience.
When I’d had my fill, I walked well back from the edge and lay down on my back invitingly, head toward the cliff edge and waited for her to come to me. Out here in nature, I could last as long as Kaitlyn was willing to go, connected to Gaia for control of my body.
Kaitlyn needed no express invitation. We’d agreed on this nonverbally through the bond. She knelt over me, leaned down, and kissed me long and softly, her glorious breasts swaying invitingly, so I reached up and gently fondled them. Then she walked gingerly up on her shins and straddled my face, inviting me to do what I willed. We were in rapport with Gaia now, so it came to the same thing as what she willed.
Through Kaitlyn’s eyes, I saw the vista stretching out before me as I felt my own tongue gently stroking along our mentally merged crotch, teasing in toward the center. And then the world popped, my eyes shut too tight in delight to take the scenery in any more.
I tongued Kaitlyn energetically while I caressed her flanks, her belly, her butt, her back, her breasts. I rode her bucking and rolling hips expertly, like a surfer riding familiar waves. I pushed her to several crashing orgasms before we agreed through the bond that we’d had enough. She returned to kissing me, laying in my arms as her sensitivity cooled.
Then, with only the slightest of maneuvers, she slid herself onto my stiff rod, sinking most of the way down before bottoming out. We held that pose, kissing for another minute before she began to move, her breasts swaying gorgeously with her movements.
Kaitlyn pushed herself through several more orgasms while I held on tight to my control, getting mini-orgasms with each Gaia-assisted clench of my PC muscles to hold onto my ejaculation.
Eventually, Kaitlyn decided she’d tortured me enough and gave a thought through the Gaia bond, “Now, Davie. Now!” She’d timed it perfectly, and my pulsations matched those of her latest orgasm, each spurt of my ejaculation pulled deep inside her by a clench of her own strong PC muscles and then milked upward by her vaginal muscles into her ready womb.
Kaitlyn enjoyed the orgasm bolt upright, raising her arms to the sky again in a victory pose, perfectly achieving her biology’s demands. Then she collapsed onto my chest, our genitals still joined, and she fell asleep into my own arms. I was maybe 5 seconds behind her into a postcoital nap.
Some time later, we awoke together, still in rapport, our genitals having relaxed and separated.
“Your turn to see the scenery, Davie,” Kaitlyn offered with a smile.
“I already saw the scenery. Some beautiful young woman was bouncing up and down on my cock for, oh, I don’t know, maybe several weeks, and there was even some nice forest area behind her. Beautiful sky. All very nice,” I teased.
“Ah, but wait until you see it from the other direction!” Then she heaved herself to the side to gain enough momentum to flip my six-one bulk around on top of her, and I saw what she meant.
The vista was indeed even more amazing with a beautiful naked woman underneath me. And I was getting hard again.
With Gaia’s help, I plowed her field in a continuous plank pose, our bodies touching only at our interface point while I watched the changing light to the sounds of my fiancée’s passionate cries, occasionally looking down to admire the way my strokes caused her breasts to wobble in steady circles. Amazing. Just amazing.
When we’d finished, we didn’t fall asleep again, just sat on the cliff edge, our legs dangling over, not caring if anyone else could see us. Well, not caring as long as we saw them first! We silently healed ourselves from the ride and the scrapes and scratches we’d received from our rough stone bed. Up here, it all seemed easy.
Through the rapport link, Kaitlyn answered my internal thought, «Of course it is, Davie: we have access to much more life up here on the mountain than we are used to. This place is teeming with the power of Gaia!»
I realized that she was right. «I wonder what magic would be like in a jungle!»
«I guess you will just have to take me home to India sometime, then!» she proposed.
I squeezed her bared brilliance to myself. That sounded like a great idea to me.
When we decided to leave, Kaitlyn said aloud, “Here, carry the clothes. I’ll watch the trail magically for other hikers.” By keeping a little distance from Kaitlyn, the clothing was no sap on her magical power, so she was able to stretch her senses out quite far, ensuring that there would be no chance of someone coming upon us before she “saw” them magically first.
It occurred to me that we might even be able to use this trick to leave the clothing behind with the bikes next time, provided we stayed vigilant enough to either hide or get back to the bikes before a fellow nature-lover closed the distance.
We gingerly hiked back down the hillside, taking our time to enjoy the feeling of the warm summer forest air on our skin and the shade overhead.
We got down to our bikes without seeing or hearing any hint of another person, but since we’d parked on the edge of a campground, we decided we couldn’t hold off putting our clothes back on any more. We dressed, got back on the bikes, and largely coasted back down to the campground, hardly pedaling at all.
We’d skipped lunch, and after the day’s multiple exercise sessions, we were both famished, so we cooked up some of the fresh food we’d brought, saving the dried stuff for later. I was in charge of that while Kaitlyn went off to refill our water containers, since we’d drained them pretty heavily on the rides.
By the time she got back, I had our early dinner ready, and we feasted.
The sun was getting low on the horizon, maybe 5pm or so, which meant we had about 4 more hours of sunlight today, so close to high summer, so I proposed that we bike up to Stansbury Island, actually more of a peninsula connected to shore through a narrow causeway. I’d looked at it on the maps back on the hotel’s WiFi, and it looked to be a fairly isolated spot to get down to the lake.
“If we ride hard, we can make it out in about an hour and a half, have an hour there to enjoy the lake, and then take more like 2 hours to get back up here, it being mostly uphill that direction. We won’t be back until after dark, but most of the tourists should be gone when we get there.”
“I’m up for it,” Kaitlyn said, and off we went.
The road we took out to Stansbury Island is imaginatively called the Stansbury Island Road. It’s paved at its start in Grantsville, but at the point where it wyes off from Utah 138 — which it overlaps for a stretch — it’s a dirt and gravel road all the way out to the tip of the peninsula along its shore.
The peninsula is pretty desolate, without much growing on it. It reminded me a lot of the Moab area, actually.
We biked almost out to the tip of the peninsula on the main road, leaving it on a mountain biking trail at one point to get up to one of the higher points on the peninsula. When we got to a good viewpoint, we stopped and took in the view, partly for its own sake, partly to get a sense of where we’d like to go swimming.
Kaitlyn spoke first. “It’s busier than I would have guessed from the map. We got passed by several cars and trucks. A couple of times, I was worried we were going to be hit.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. Sadly, I went on, “I don’t think we can get away with skinny dipping right now.”
“What if we just camp here for the night? We’re well-fed, and we can make our way leisurely back to our campsite up in the forest tomorrow. It should be warm enough tonight to do without a tent. Or clothes,” she said with a grin. “And then we can sneak down to the lake after the traffic clears out and enjoy a night swim.”
“That’s a great plan, Kaitlyn! It’ll mean putting off breakfast, but we’ll be okay.” But then an idea came to me. “Actually, what if we grab breakfast in Grantsville? I’d like to check the papers to see if there’s anything about the JRE scandal yet.”
“Perfect, Davie!”
We spent most of the rest of the daylight stomping around the biking trails, even doing some hiking to get up to one of the peaks. At one point, we stripped down in a fairly well screened niche in the sandstone and healed up, just watching the natural scenery, ourselves in just as natural a state.
Kaitlyn started teaching me the trick of sensing life using tendrils rather than spreading out in a circle along ground level, so we were now both able to keep an eye on the trail coming up here. Eventually, we sensed an intrusion and got dressed before they came into view, hiking back down to our bikes and waving “Hi” to those coming up.
“It’s a great view; you’ll love it,” Kaitlyn offered as we passed them.
We were up another trail, sitting on another promontory when a lovely sunset began, all oranges and pinks. We’d watched all the other visitors drive away, so we’d stripped back off again, no longer worried about being seen.
As the sky at last cooled to a pale dusky violet, Kaitlyn said, “I’ve got an idea.”
“Uh-oh,” I replied.
She punched me in the arm. “Let’s make this our camping spot, leave the bikes and clothes here, and hike down to the lake just like this!”
“In the dark?” I asked.
“How else did you plan on doing a night swim, smarty?”
“With flashlights to start with,” I replied.
“Naaah. We’ve got nature sense, Davie. We don’t need flashlights.”
And she was right, I realized. “You never cease to amaze me, Kaitlyn. I’m wondering if I should give up that teaching position now. Are you still my shishya? Am I still your guru?”
Kaitlyn said, “It does seem like we are trading ideas now more than it being so much a one-way feed as just after we first met.” We sat for a minute longer, then she said, “Let’s be each other’s gurus now.”
“Works for me, my guru,” I said, and I stood, bare to nature, Kaitlyn the same, and we hiked down to the lake shore, our Gaia senses telling us exactly where to walk to avoid stumbling or injuring ourselves. We were almost completely silent.
The Great Salt Lake is much saltier than the world’s oceans; you don’t so much swim in it as float. It was a wonderful feeling. Being about fifteen degrees cooler than body temperature, the lake water felt cool, but that’s still pretty warm for a natural body of water. It felt amazing after the heat of the day.
We slipped into a Gaia bond together and swum around in the lake for maybe an hour, mutually experiencing it to the full. Kaitlyn learned that day what it felt like to have a wanger flapping around in the turbulence as I swam, and I learned what it felt like to have buoyant baby bags under the same condition, putting the wobbles considerably higher up and lower in frequency.
By silent mutual agreement, we swam for shore once we’d sated ourselves on the feeling. We walked bare up the rough desert beach, pulled up dry sand from well up the shore and gave ourselves a cleaning and drying sand shower, knocking off the water and salt.
Still in the Gaia bond, we hiked back up to our spot off the mountain biking trail where we made love one last time that day, long and slow, spread out into the surrounding area, experiencing nature and each other to the fullest.
We fell asleep spooning, naked, Kaitlin in my arms.
And that’s how we woke up again the next day, the sound of a vehicle motor running along the road below us, just out of sight. Grrr. It was time to dress and go.