Silver Lake - Big Cottonwood Canyon

I guess before I tell you about Silver Lake (in Big Cottonwood Canyon and NOT American Fork Canyon like the last Silver Lake I blogged about), not that there is much to tell, I need to tell you the story about how I met the guy I went to Silver Lake with.

Social Media is an interesting thing. It has opened up a world where you can interact and meet people  that you would have never come across otherwise. I think it's great.... but I am an extrovert that loves meeting new people all of the time. Probably why I think couch surfing is so great. Anyway, I was on my iPhone. I was browsing new apps. I came across a dating app, which being single, I am always curious about. I'm not sure anything could beat Tinder, but when it's free, I don't mind giving it a try. So I downloaded this new app to meet people called Clover. I thought it would be like Tinder and pull people from my area. It does do that, but it also makes it so anyone can... not just people in your area. This concluded a bunch of guys that were super far away talking to me. The app wasn't that exciting and didn't really do much for me and I didn't spend much time on it. I didn't delete it though. Every once in a while my phone notifies me to check Clover because there are a bunch of guys that liked my profile. So I go check. Like Tinder, you go through who liked you and if you both like each other then you are a match and you can talk... although they have changed it so anyone that finds me can talk to me and I don't like that. So I go through and like the guys I think are cute and then we match and then I never talk to them unless they talk to me because I don't care. So I matched with Jake. He started talking with me.

Although Jake is a bit younger than I am, he looks mature for his age, so I replied to him. We ended up enjoying conversation so he added me on Facebook so we could chat more from IM there. This was back at the begining of July. I never put much stalk in online dating. You are continually looking and so if you don't meet soon after you start talking, you usually forget about them and never end up meeting. When I found out that Jake was deployed with the Air Force in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, I figured he was just bored and wanting a pen pal and I would not talk to him long or ever meet him. Which was fine. However... Jake kept talking to me. So I kept talking back. We enjoyed conversation. Next we was England. We started chatting a little bit every day. I find out he is going to be stationed in Utah next. Even knowing that I still didn't think we would meet because he was going to be living on base in Ogden and that is kind of far away. Plus it was still going to be a while until he moved to Utah. After England he went home to Illinois for a little bit. We stopped talking for a while and I figured it was done. No big deal. Well, he moved to Utah a couple of weeks ago and started messaging me again telling me he was here. After talking on and off (mostly on) for 2 1/2 months, he was in Utah.

He text me earlier this week telling me that he wanted to meet me and he would drive down. So I said sure and invited him on a hike because I knew he wanted to explore beautiful Utah. He started following me on Instagram a while back and wanted me to show him all the best places in Utah. So what better place to meet? I guess he had even shown his mom my Instagram photo's to show her what Utah was like so she would want to move there. His mom loves my photo's and is now following me on Instagram.Weird? Maybe a little.  It wasn't weird meeting Jake at all. Maybe because we talked for so long beforehand, but we were instant friends and got along well. He claims he is super shy, but he wasn't with me. It was so fun to meet him and hang out for the day in the mountains exploring. I'm sure this will not be the last time we hang out. Who knew downloading a random app called Clover would bring me a cool new friend/ adventure buddy?

Now that you know Jake, Silver Lake isn't really a hike. We actually did another hike, which I will blog about later, but after that hike we got something to eat and then came to Silver Lake because there is a boardwalk around the entire lake and you can just walk around it. It's beautiful and easy. Such a great day. He fell in love with Utah instantly. Not hard to do... especially when you are moving here at this time of year.