Rushed and Rocked

Blog Entry: June 5, 2010 - Saturday @ 3:40PM from Kansas City, Missouri on East 70

Coming at ya from the highway, headed back East from a fantastic adventure in the wild wild West. I’ve got the tattoo, platinum blond hair, Bavarian landjager sausage, and extra flesh about the hips to testify to that! I’m fresh from a fitful road nap which always involves a comic dance of open mouth, minute traces of trickling saliva, and a jerking neck. Aside from his iTune jams, my sleep antics provide a rare but welcome form of entertainment for my husband. Previous travels have yielded the annoying pictures to prove it. Un-n-fortunately, they are not on my person at present. A thousand highly insincere apologies to my dear readers!

The ONLY disappointment of this entire trip is the forgotten rocks I was to glean from Aunt Marie’s and Laurie’s back yards. Gorgeous stones of color and content not to be had in the ancient gray layers of Tennessee. I was lured to Wyoming by promises of free rein in the selection process! Still kicking myself for that. I’m actually dumbfounded to realize the distraction of ink and bleach kept me from my nature-loving ways. A very rare occurrence. Huh. ‘Firsts’ all around.

During our quick hike skirting the base of Mt. Rushmore, it was a toss-up as to who salivated more over the sparkling specimens dazzling our covetous eyes: me or Aunt Marie. I had visions of backing up our Yukon and laying a base of National Park quartz, mica schist, and granite beneath our bevy of bags and sacks of snacks. That was immediately followed-up with the vision of a posse of park rangers looking down the sights of their government-issue citations and banning me from the natural wonders of America for life. In that light, those chunks of mountain appear more attractive in their natural setting. I’ll just return for a legal visit.

(Full disclosure: a diminutive sliver, smaller than my palm, with the threatening potential to cause harm to a non-attentive path walker, managed to find its way into the cavernous storage area of our oversize SUV. Yes, I am a rule-breaker and deserve to be punished. But please, go easy on me. Somewhere, the fragile ankle or sore lower back of a weary tourist has been saved for another day of gawking, photo snapping, and overpriced ice cream cones . . . all in an effort to preserve the history and economy of our visually wondrous country. In THAT light, yours truly is somewhat of an American hero. Immortalize me in dark chocolate, please.)