Midwest-ward Bound

A wet, moody mountain morning

Birch forest

Sunday was a lazy last day in Durango. We woke up to an overcast sky spitting rain, so we nixed our original plan to float the Animas one more time. We headed from our campsite outside Silverton to the Durango Diner, where all the food is greasy, ENORMOUS, and cooked right in front of you. The boys spent the day playing pool and watching the new Harry Potter movie while I hung out at a local coffee shop and did some writing and photo editing.  We had dinner at Durango Brewing Company and then went back to Jared's house where I got to meet some more of the housemates. It was sad to leave Jared the next morning, but I feel better knowing he's met a bunch of really awesome people and is in such a beautiful place.

Jared chows down some green chili breakfast burrito

Pike's Peak is in here somewhere

I was even more sad to leave the mountains behind. Before we left the Rockies completely, though, we made one more stop. Outside Colorado Springs, there's an area where the Great Unconformity is exposed. Shan had gotten a tip on the location from a geologist friend. My brother has been talking our ears off about the Great Unconformity lately, which is known as the GUn to geo-nerds. I tried to find a nice link with a simple and interesting explanation of what exactly the GUn is, but failed. I did, however, discover that the Great Unconformity has a facebook page: Like the "GUn" on Facebook! It was extremely amusing to witness Shan's reaction to these rocks, which was similar to that of a small child on Christmas morning. Even more amusing was the fact that Shan's rock hammer had been misplaced on another road trip two weeks before. He attempted to collect samples by chopping off pieces of rock with other pieces of rock, all the while chastising himself for being a rock hammer-less geologist. We stayed at the GUn site for a couple of hours, then commenced our retreat to the breadbasket. It was raining in the mountains as we drove out, headed for the endless flatness of the Great Plains. We stopped for one last view. As we looked back across a field lined with sunflowers, the sun was streaming through the parting storm clouds over the Rockies. It was perfect.

Shan Geo-nerding it up

Last view of the Rockies

We drove late into the night Sunday and slept at a rest stop in Kansas, leaving about 8 hours of driving for the next day. Although we took a rural highway instead of the interstate, the scenery still seemed bland after driving around Colorado. Also, I mentioned in one of my last posts that I had started reading Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs again, after having started it several times and never finishing. While I'm on the subject of things that are bland...I got almost halfway through Missouri, and halfway through the book again before I realized why I had never finished. The first couple of essays are vaguely interesting, but as the book goes on I start realizing that I really don't care about any of the stuff he's writing about, like professional sports, Pamela Anderson, and the Left Behind series. And I care even less about what Chuck Klosterman thinks about any of the stuff I don't care about. Basically, it's boring. I'm all about giving things a chance (obviously, since I've given this book at least four chances) but I officially give up on this one.

While the end of a trip is often sad, I had a bright star waiting for me in Terre Haute, Indiana. I got to spend some time with my niece, Emma Jean. She turned one month old this past Sunday. Being one of the younger kids in my family, I've not spent much time around babies, so it's really awesome to watch how quickly they change. She'd learned so much in the ten days since I'd last seen her. She can focus on our faces now, and she's started smiling and (more frequently) sticking out her tongue. My sister and I talked about how strange it is that we all went through this stage, but none of us remember it. We all start out as these little creatures that don't do much except eat, pee, poop, and cry. The people around us teach us what it means to be human, how to smile, laugh, and talk. We grow up to be these creatures that are so complex we barely understand ourselves. It's hard to imagine trying to teach someone else how to be good at being a human when I feel like I've only just started figuring that out for myself. Maybe that's the point, though. Maybe through the experience of teaching this tiny creature, you more fully realize what it is to be a human yourself. 

Getting burped by mommy while daddy kisses the tootsies

Shelley and Emma

She looks at me now!