Son of a...

A sunny picnic in Yellowstone National Park. This picture is not relevant until the second half of the post.**

 I just realized, as I was organizing photos from our most recent road trip (the 3rd, and last, of the summer), that I have yet to blog about our 2nd road trip- mentioned here- when we traipsed back up to South Dakota for some Memorial Day weekend fun. Damn. The Texas road trip- spread out over 5 parts, I don't think any of you find Texas or me *that* interesting, haha- took up so much time that I was just road trip re-capped out. And then, of course, I realized that after the Galapagos re-caps wore me out, I was over it and didn't start the Peru re-caps until a few months after, but... damn, now that's been a month ago. I have so many posts in the can- my garden is all growin' and stuff, and it's a joke how big those tomato plants are since they avoided dying, I did some around the house craftiness, and there is a whole grip of news on the school/work/internship/life front. Per my last post filled with excuses, it's just been crazy town busy central around here. Today is the first day since the day before our trip, way back on July 7th, that I have gone grocery shopping, for example. I'm also just now caught up on laundry/cleaning and random rat killin' (errands/to-do/it's a down South slang kinda thing) that it wasn't until this evening that I finally felt like I was truly home after the trip.

I'm about to reassess every area of my life- kind of like an activity/time de-cluttering project- in preparation for going back to school come August. Technically, I go to school this Sunday, to live on campus for 5 days, take a super intensive first course, and go through all my necessary orientation to start my masters program. So, yeah there's also that- it seems like I'm finally feeling a bit settled, and then it's off to southern Colorado for 5 days. I suppose the only reason I'm feeling stressed is because of the totally optional responsibility I have placed on my self of keeping up with my blog, but still, I feel behind because I'm, well, behind. About twice a year I'll go back and read through old posts and think "I am so glad I wrote that down. I totally forgot that happened until I re-read it just now". So I'm grateful to have a random online record of my life, if only so I can look back on it and feel a little reflected shine of nostalgia via my computer screen. I'm also grateful that I froze half of the raw brownies I made, because, while typing this rambling bit of navel gazing nonsense, I polished off a little guy smeared in all natural peanut butter and I was incredibly happy for how delicious it was.**Relevance activated!

I have a really good book waiting for me, so I'm not going to keep it waiting any longer. The windows are open, the hot spell is broken, and the fan is purring some old fashioned white noise into our bedroom. G'nite, kittens. See you on the flip side, whenever/wherever that might be appearing in the midst of this busy time.

Absentee Excuses

I been hangin' around (somewhere in Capitol Hill in Seattle)

 I had the best of intentions to avert such a long silence on my blog, but things got hectic, and here's why. My last post was on Thursday, July 7th. I then spent all of that day and the next cooking, cleaning, laundering clothes, packing, and organizing because on Friday, July 8th, we hit the road for a 3,000 mile/12 day road trip. I thought I'd have more time than I did, but I didn't, so my plans to blog a lot on Friday afternoon before we left were tossed right out the window. But I'm back! Here's where we went:

Summer Road Trip 2011

A night and a morning in Thermopolis, WY to check out Hot Springs State Park

2 days in Yellowstone:
Madison Campground reservation first night

Mammoth Hot Springs Cabin Reservation second night

Yellowstone to Seattle, WA- with a long visit to Helena, Montana- to visit friends for 3 days and check out their new place

Amtrak to Vancouver to visit our Canadian friends for 2 days

Back to Seattle for one last night out on the town

Portland, OR for one day/night

 

Portland to Salt Lake City (with a long stop in Hood River Oregon for lunch, and a stop in Boise, Idaho for dinner)to stay the night and visit my cousin before she leaves Utah for Texas

Home to Colorado

 

While we were gone, our friends stayed in our place for a few days to apartment hunt for their upcoming move, which is one reason I wanted it to be clean. We got home on Wednesday at 1 a.m., Bobby went straight to work a few hours later, and I got to work cleaning/unpacking/doing laundry. Thursday afternoon, our friends Brooke and Chris stopped by on their way home from a family vacation in Wyoming, and they were here until yesterday morning- a second reason I wanted the place to be neat and tidy. Bobby and I napped like professionals yesterday, an unexpected gift since the aforementioned moving friends had originally asked for our help in moving them in Saturday afternoon. The plan was to say goodbye to Brooke  and Chris and head straight over to Tyler and Amanda's. Turns out they got in a day early and unpacked everything. So we napped away the afternoon, met up with Jenny for some frozen yogurt, and crashed out relatively early. I wish I could say I continued catching up on sleep fest 2011 with a deliciously lazy sleeping in session, but nope, I woke up at 7:45 this morning without an alarm, just as I did yesterday.

 

But don't worry, it's 10:12 and I'm typing this in my underwear with an unwashed face and unbrushed teeth. Bobby just woke up and I'm going to convince him to go to Snooze for brunch. In random updates, my plants are still not dead, and they grew 6 inches while I was gone. Oh, and I barfed 30 minutes into a 3-D midnight showing of Harry Potter 7 in Canada (sorry, neighbors to the North!) so we're having a  re-do this afternoon with our friends Matt and Paige. I think first I need to put on some pants though.

Movin' On

ETA: The captions turned out to be absurdly small, but there are some hyper links within them if you care to mosey around in my internet past. I'm also far too lazy and tired (see closing statement) to change anything about this post other than tacking on this very long and italicized disclaimer. Good night!

Before stepping into the future with smart phones I cleaned out the random, super old pictures on my phone that dated back to 2009. Here are a few in no particular order, chosen for no particular reason.

2010- Pig rocking chair picture taken for my good friend, Jess. She loooooves pigs.

2011- Bathroom art at New Belgium Brewery

2010- A classy wall decoration- yours for a steal at the local thrift store!

Early 2010- It snowed A LOT in Texas that winter

2009- I get all my nutritional advice from gas pump placards at convenience stores. Solid.

2009- Kate works at a nursery, and I told her about how my father used to do this with his construction boots. Officially creeped me out just as much at the age of 26 as it did at the age of 6.

2009- Binkus, cat of wonders.

Christmas 2010- You know you're in a sketch store when they have anti-theft tags on the baskets.

2010- A random bar in Brownwood, right before we moved up to Colorado

2010- Also right before we moved up to Colorado- this child is now 14 months old. He was a few days old here.

2009- Front porch of Jess' apartment in Hollywood, where I lived while writing my thesis.

2009- Halloween shopping. This sums up why I love Jess so much. We ended up going with these costumes.

2009- Last night in Hollywood before returning home to Texas to walk for graduate school.

2010- Bobby and I pet sat the creepiest cat in the universe. This picture says it all.

2009- My contribution to a Christmas potluck.

2010- My favorite gauntlets and a sparkle doughnut.

 I have a sore throat, so now it's bed time. Oh, sweet delicious bed time.

Texas Girls Part IV- Let's Dance

After the all night and all afternoon birthday celebration of Spring Bash, we went straight out the next night (on about 5 hours of sleep) to meet up with friends and dance all night at The Church.

About to get our dance on.

I'm about as far as one can get from a goth, a club kid, a raver, a scenester, etc. That being said, the Church is my all time favorite place to dance (with the Catacombs in Boulder coming in a very close second, for many of the same reasons). Yes, lots of people go there in full on gorgeous goth costumes, or steampunk outfits, or over the top creative and insane clothes that would make Party Monster proud.

Bunnies are particularly adept at speed chess (at least the ones found at The Church)

 On the other hand, if, like me, you often show up in jeans, a tank top, and some  Converse, it doesn't.matter.at.all. It is a come as you are kind of place. Some people might call it a freak show. I call it a lot of people who wear what they want and dance however they want until 4 a.m. every Sunday and Thursday night. I dance for hours straight at this place, until I am drenched in sweat, laughing and goofing off with my friends, usually in a little room that plays random 80's hits and pop goth-y music like the Cure. The age range is anywhere from 17 years old to 60+, although most people are around 18 to 30.

Arielle, taking good care of said Bunny's carrot.

Sure, I might sometimes see couples on leashes, or a girl with duct tape and nothing else over her breasts, or a man on stilts, but I can guarantee those people will give me a smile, and we'll all dance happily together on the dance floor. That is far more than I can say about typical top 40 college clubs, where I've often had to resort to physically shoving men off of me who want to "dance", aka grope me along to the beat of some crappy Lil' Wayne song. The Church is happily free of that particular version of frat boy, and for that I love it even more.

Memorial Day Weekend Camping Fest

Bobby only has to work a half day today, and he gets Monday off for Memorial Day, so we decided this was the perfect time to head back to South Dakota to see the Badlands. When we went to South Dakota last summer we were expecting to have a good weekend filled with Mt. Rushmore, Crazy Horse, and the Badlands. Much to our surprise, South Dakota ended up being way cooler than we ever expected, and we barely had enough time to fit in said historical monuments, Custer state park for seeing wild buffalo, Wind Cave Nat'l Park for awesome camping and a creepy cave tour, and the Mammoth Site on the way back (a totally rad working archeological site that is the world's largest center for researching mammoths). We realized we would have to return the following summer and devote an entire weekend to South Dakota once more, just to soak it all up.

As a result, this afternoon we're heading out to make camp in Jewel Cave Nat'l Monument, so that tomorrow morning we can tour Jewel Cave (apparently it's the second longest cave in the world, that's crazy). Then we head out to Badlands Nat'l Park to spend the day hiking around and then camping in the grassland. Sunday morning is more Badlands hiking, then a drive through the park to get to Nebraska, where Sunday night will be spent in Chadron State Park. Monday morning we'll see what Chadron has in the way of  trails, and then we'll hit up Nebraska's cheesy Carhenge tourist trap on the way home. Although I don't think anything could top the epic cheesiness of our experience with Moqui Cave on the way to the Grand Canyon.

I hope you all enjoy your Memorial Day weekend! I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we don't get rained out. Although camping in the rain is when you really test just how much you like camping, right?

Texas Girls Part II- In Which We Roadtrip from Colorado to Texas.

After hanging out together in Colorado for a few days and showing Arielle around, it was time to head to Texas. I had not been back to Texas since I moved up here almost exactly a year prior, and Arielle had been gone a little over a year. Our respective families lived in Texas, and we have a huge group of shared friends there as well (see my About page for some pics of said friends). All in all, we were super excited to head back South. We just had to do 15 hours of driving plus any breaks/food stops/gas station fill ups to get there.

We left at 8 a.m. on Thursday. I'm just going to cut right to the chase and tell you we didn't pull into Brooke and Chris's house until 5:15 a.m. on Friday morning. With the time change it took us right at 20 hours, so we only added 5 extra hours for two meals, a detour to Cadillac Ranch, bathroom/gas station stops, and some road construction. However, 20 hours traveling in a car with no sleep will make you crazy. In a good way, like being 14 and staying up until 3 a.m. at a sleepover and having way too many sodas and Little Debbies, but crazy nonetheless. I love the term "punch drunk" for capturing this facet of human experience perfectly. You know what else captures human experiences perfectly? Pictures. So here are a lot of them.

 Oh look, we're so happy and excited at 8 a.m.! Time to hit the road with youthful exuberance and an iced coffee covered in half a cup of whipped cream. Let's go, Texas!

 About two hours into our trip we were in the dredges of southern Colorado, with nary a Denver, Boulder, or Fort Collins-like town to be seen. For that matter, the mountains were gone, too. Southern Colorado looks like generic mid-west America, in case you were wondering.

Still, the weather was beautiful and the skies were blue, so when we were stopped due to road construction for almost half an hour we decided to get out and enjoy the breeze.

 Do yourself a favor, and find these sodas. They're by Dry Soda, Co., and they're incredible. I know you might be thinking lemon grass soda sounds disgusting, but trust me, it wasn't. We found an entire assortment of them at this frou frou grocery store in downtown Denver and picked up a 4 pack to share on the road as a tasty diversion from the hours of driving.

A not so tasty diversion was lunch. By this time we had been driving for 5 hours, and any Colorado coolness contained in such towns as Boulder, Denver, or Fort Collins was far behind us. Arielle decided to go full on road trip martyr and subject herself to the trashiest local diner she could find. She ordered some hunk of meat that came with two sides and a salad bar which consisted of salads based in pasta, potatoes, and mayo, rounded out with pudding and jello salad and an array of thick, chunky dressings.

 We puzzled over this arrangement. It may be hard to tell from the picture, but someone had snapped random digital photos of a few of the meals served at the restaurant. These were printed off (date stamped), framed, and hung haphazardly next to the salad bar. The top left  picture has what looks like a glass of wine next to it.

 My favorite thing about trashy diners? A dizzying variety of cellophane wrapped pies. Mmmmm. (I'm not being sarcastic, that lemon pie thing was calling.my.name.)

 We headed down the street to Sonic to get some drinks, and entertained ourselves with imagining what our "Road Trip Workouts- Sonic Edition" DVD series would look like.

Sonic yoga would naturally be in there as well. 

 Clearly, only 5 hours in, we were already pretty punchy. We were also just happy to be out of the car.

 Sonic in hand, it was time for me to swallow my pride and realize I was going to have to eat at Pizza Hut. We played  hide and seek in the parking lot while we waited for my food.

 The best part about this lunch stop was a park we stumbled upon while driving out of town, "food" in hand.

 Lactaid was a constant traveling companion

 Arielle, with her spread.

 Me, making sure nothing had been tampered with. Seriously, that Pizza Hut was sketch as hell.

 Swinging off lunch.

 Back to the grind. We drove another few hours through wide open spaces, talking and laughing and making up ridiculous jokes and stories and planning out our lives.

American Gas Station Gothic- Squeegee Rendition

 This gas station was the essence of southern Colorado. That sign on the pump says "Local Checks Only". There was no pay at the pump option, and when I went inside to give her my debit card she had to hold it for about 10 minutes while she dialed up the transaction on an old school system. She was counting out change on the counter and putting it in a piggy bank. The sign on the bathroom said "PAYING CUSTOMERS ONLY, NO EXCEPTIONS". It was cute, in a quaint way.

 We finally hit Oklahoma, but with that came some confusion. Here, Arielle stands in between the signs for Colorado and Oklahoma, pondering this nameless stretch of American land. Where are we?! What does it mean?!

 I think it means "Cortney's car doesn't have air conditioning and now that we're heading further south it's getting hotter so I'm going to take off my track pants now."

 This picture reminds me of Snoopy in his aviator gear, every.single.time.

 Oh, it's time to get back in the car, huh? Are you suuuure?

 We finally hit Texas, and I had a moment of jubilation, followed by the realization that the state of my birth is enormous and we still had at least 8 hours of driving left to do.

 People are pretty friendly in Texas, because as I was checking my oil at the state line...

 a nice trucker pulled over to make sure we were okay. I assured him that I just have an older car, and as such I have to be nice to it on long road trips and check the oil periodically, no worries. He tipped his hat and was on his way. Thanks, random trucker!

 Since it's pretty much the only attraction between the state line and Dallas, and since Arielle had never seen it, we detoured for Cadillac Ranch. We made it juuuuuust as the sun was setting.

 So tired.

 I think I was asleep standing up here.

Those bleary eyes say it all.

 We hit up Red Robin, and decided to indulge in a sit down eating experience instead of Jimmy John's in the car on the road. We are obliterated here, and we are trying to avoid thinking about the fact that we still have 6 hours left to drive. I wanted to cry, but I ate my emotions instead.

 This is at 3 a.m. We pushed hard after Red Robin, but then things got sketchy. I was miserably tired, and to keep awake we kept acting crazier and crazier. This is the first gas station where we were pretty sure the cashier called the cops on us, thinking we were drunk as we stumbled down the aisles, laughing and then kind of fake but kind of not crying from exhaustion as we mocked ourselves and purchased yet another caffeinated beverage.

 An hour or so later, this is the second gas station where we're pretty sure the cops were called on us to check us out. The same thing happened- we go inside, the cashier looks at us like we're crazy, and then a cop car nonchalantly pulls into the parking lot and straight up pretends to get gas as he checks us out.

 We had an hour left to go in this picture. I'm trying to steel myself for it, haha.

Tapatio Doritos got us home, of that I am sure. We crunched nonstop on them with the windows down. I'm way too paranoid and anal about safety to drive if I'm actually dozing off, I was just miserable and so tired of driving and being in the car. When we pulled into Brooke and Chris's house Friday morning I could have kissed the ground I was so happy. We'd made it to Texas, finally. And you made it to the end of this enormous, picture filled post.