Schools out!

Staying with the theme of the title of this posting, our recess bell recently rang and we just arrived at our playground in Summit County, Colorado.  Through the first part of this year, we’ve made it a point to stay close to home to save a little coin for an adventure coming up in August, but a summer without an 8,000ft elevation gain, is just not copacetic. 

Spending ten hours in a car traveling, as only the pioneers could never have dreamed, there is plenty of time for reflection and observation.  I have two observations that I seem to not be able to keep to myself.  The first one has to do with the weather.  While teaching (in what seems like “back in the day”), for years I taught weather to my fifth graders and I took classes on weather for educators.  I like weather!  Understanding it, being out in it, making observations about it…it is a good life skill to have a general understanding of.  So, as we headed west on I-70 across Kansas, the wind was steady and strong, out of the south.  The kind of wind you have to work at to keep your car on the road.  It was relentless.  Hours went by.  I woke up from a nap while Beth was fighting the wind and realized the wind was now out of the north.  The connection that was gellin’ for me, was from realizing we had driven through a low area of pressure (the big “L” on the weather maps you see).  The winds flow in a counterclockwise direction around low pressure.  These low pressure areas are very large.   So, if you can imagine a merry-go-round, it is spinning counterclockwise, and you want to walk across the middle of it…when you first get on it, it is coming at you from the left.  You carefully walk across it to the other side and before you get off, it is coming from your right.  That is what we drove through, a large area of wind, spinning in a counterclockwise direction.  We drove into it with it blowing from the left (south) and by the time we were on the other side of Kansas, it was blowing from the right (north).  Now, before you close your eyes completely, due to the high geek factor of the last paragraph, at least take a moment to acknowledge the fact that weather phenomena are awesome.  Maybe a little bit?

My second observation comes from a feeling of dumbfoundedment (new word alert!) that washed over me as we ate lunch in western Kansas.  The farther west you travel from Kansas City to Denver, the less options you have for eating on the road.  We ignored that fact (probably due to the weathergasm I was having) and ended up at a McDonalds.  We get our food and choose a high-top table over the regular hard plastic, molded benched booths (because Mickey D’s are cool like that) and situate ourselves to partake of our happy meals.  Not realizing across the isle, was a young-ish mom with three little ones.  I noticed her head was buried in her text messages as her two “older” ones (both under 5, I’d guess) slid under the table and pop up on the other side, while mom, holding the youngest, was still scrolling through mesmerizing stuff.  Finally, at one point, the oldest, a boy, seemed to slide off of his bench seat, in what looked to be a horizontal position, while still holding his fries.  Having witnessed this and wincing myself a bit as he hit the floor, a second or two goes by, as he assesses his condition, the location of his fries, and the lack of concern from his momma.  He realizes he’s fine, mom does not mind his absence from her peripheral vision (even though the sound of him hitting the tile floor got my attention), and he locates his fries, mostly intact, with only a few scattered about on the floor.  He continues his sprawling horizontal position on the floor, corrals the scattered fries, and eats them as if they tasted even better now, thanks to some special sauce.  This is where I may have thrown up in my mouth a little.  After thoroughly mopping the floor with himself, he slithers back up into mom’s view, as if this behavior was the norm.  I pried my eyes away long enough to finish my Filet-O-Fish sandwich, but not before the little boy’s sister started tearing up and down the isle, at which point the mom took notice and they left.  I guess she was done checking her messages.

We are acclimating to our new elevation and organizing our social calendar as we begin our housesit.  We’ve seen deer, elk, fox, osprey, cats, dogs, idiots, and others.  So far, so good!

My Zen from the Road: