The Coffee Shop in the Wilderness

Driving from Bryce Canyon National Park to Capitol Reef National Park along Utah’s scenic state highway 12, I encounter a coffee shop. Encountering coffee shops is nothing new to me. I’ve been encountering them since my early twenties, back when I discovered the now obvious finding that coffee shops bring me both delight and productivity.

For whatever reason, I thrive when chaos abounds around me. There’s nothing worse for my creativity than a silent room. Essentially all of my blogs and books and podcasts are produced in the thriving chaos of a coffee shop.

This thousandth encountered coffee shop, however, is different from the 999 before it — for at least twenty miles in either direction, I am surrounded by nothing but Utah’s trademark orange and red rocks. The business sign surprises me as I round yet another barren bend in a slew of barren bends — one that, I swear, reads “coffee house.”

I do a literal double take from the driver’s seat, craning my head back, wondering if my coffee shop-obsessed mind really saw what it saw or if my subconscious manifested a mirage in this wilderness. I don’t doubt my brain to do such a thing.

Turning back on highway 12, I find the mirage to be real — Kiva Koffeehouse, with a K. I pull in. I have a date with Capitol Reef before the sun sets that evening, but I am now determined to follow this new wormhole. I walk up to Kiva, a single building existing atop a rocky cliff amid other rocky cliffs in every direction, a magical little place cut into the stone.

An oasis of coffee for wanderers in the middle of Utah.

I order an iced mocha and sit with my journal for an hour. I can’t stop smiling. Kiva may be my new favorite coffee shop in all my wanderings around America; sorry, Woods Coffee in Bellingham, Washington, with your many sailboats sailing beyond your porthole windows.

I’m reminded in this moment why traveling can be so magical if you give your traveling some room to breathe. I’m a mostly structured person. I like knowing where I’m going, when I’m getting there, where I’m sleeping, and what the general plan is for the day.

General, though, is the key word. Because if you leave even a little wiggle room for your journey, you’ll undoubtedly discover something you’d have never known to look for.

I mean, a coffee shop atop a cliff in the middle of Utah’s wilderness? Of course.

Aren’t wormholes wonderful?