It's the Final Countdown

17 days left here in the Fort. 

Had an interesting weekend.  My birthday was Thursday, which was a lot of fun.  Jacob bought me this beautiful locket with our pictures from a camping trip we took last summer inside of it.

 Friday we left for the Sand Dunes, which proved to be yet another wonderful traveling experience with Jacob. 

 

We got into the Dunes at about four or so where we came to find that the park campsites were full, so we backed up a few miles and camped outside of the park.  It was a decent camping ground, minus the lack of toilet paper in the bathrooms and the obese bastards that pulled in at two a.m. with their lights blazing into our tent to set up camp.  They were so loud with their tent raising, their three diesel trucks still on and the awful club music pumping from the stereo, that I yelled a few obscenities out the tent door at them waking Jacob up to enjoy our new neighbors.  FINALLY they finished setting up their kingdom of three tents and a tarp covered diner and we were all able to fall asleep.... until about 5:30 when they awoke to cook the worlds largest breakfast for the world's largest people.   Oh, and did I mention that they pulled everything down and were out to their next destination by eleven a.m. that morning?  I swear to my mother that if they had been from Missouri I would have slashed their tires.... (or a body part that also starts with t and ends in hroat). 

Anyway, slowly edging away from my violent nature... 

we ate a delicious breakfast and hit the dunes where we long legged folks climbed to the highest dune in record time and back down where we then found ourselves bored with the overly tourist populated dunes and headed out to find something else to do near by.  Which we did.... NAKED HOT SPRINGS! This is just one of the four natural pools that you can bask in while enjoying the natural scenery around you.  they are called the Orient Hot Springs...incredibly well hidden, it took us what seemed like hours to track them down for there are no signs to help you find your way there.  Finally we called a number that led us to another number and realized we were in fact on the right track driving down this dirt road into the foot hills....

 

http://www.olt.org/

We basked for about four hours with some interesting folks, also in the buff.  The most interesting were these two kids with their father who enjoyed swimming around the shallow springs with their goggles on.... that was a bit uncomfortable I must admit... but those kids will never wonder what a naked body looks like... they've even seen it from under water.  It was just an overall amazing place with very nice people (naked people) where you could use the showers, the sinks to do dishes or take what water you need.  Also, it is one of the largest bat hibernation locations in the world where in the summer months at dusk, about half a million bats come flying out of an old coal mine on the side of the hill... sadly, we were about one week too early for the phenomenon.  

 So, at about six or so we began driving back to our camp site to cook up some delicious grub and hit the sack, we turn onto highway 150 from highway 17 and the mother-fucking-this-truck-is-so-reliable-never-lets-me-down-ruby-red-ford-ranger breaks down on the side of the road.  AHHHHHHHHHHhhhh.  So I do what I do best in these situations..... call dad.  He tells me to call AAA, who tell me that my father has to be present for them to do anything (useless assholes)... so we call some tow companies... none of which pick up.  Smoke another cigarette, call another tow company and thank-god... they will be here in about 45 minutes and will drive us into alamosa with them.  yay. 

So we get into alamosa, drop the truck off at a garage and try to communicate to the Philippine mechanic not to work on the car until I call them.  we leave some of our camping gear in their garage, put the rest on our back and head out to find a hotel room.  One Days Inn, only one smoking room left, that will be eighty dollars later, we are sitting  in the room smoking cigarettes and killing a bottle of wine.  We then decide to track down some dinner since we left our cooler of 50 bucks worth of food in the garage.... however, nothing is open and we opt for some gas station delicacies.  oh bless you hot pockets, microwavable pizzas and mozzerella sitcks-not-intended-for-the-microwave-should-have-read-the-back wonderfullness.  Came back to the room, jumped on the bed, watched some cable and fell asleep.  Checked out at eleven a.m. and went to wait for my sent-from-heaven parents to come pick our asses up in Alamosa. which they did at about one o'clock.  Went back to our camp where a nice gentleman had collected all of our things for us and took off back to the fort never to look back on that big sand box of wind and sharp little rocks.  

 

Got home at about six, ate dinner and passed out.  

Five a.m., wake up to water spitting into our bedroom window so I got up to close the window and behind me I hear a little kitty meow.  

OH MY GOD OSCAR CAME HOME!!!!!

The damn cat had been gone for a week and both Jacob and I had lost hope he was going to find his way back home.  But birthday wishes do come true;) 

So, now there are seventeen more days to kill here in Fort Collins before the big move across the world.  Thankfully there has been enough going onto keep me distracted from the vomit like feeling of overwhelming contrasting emotions I have been trying to process day to day (more like second to second).   

Well, here is the blog I promised.  I will try to use this as an entertaining way of keeping in touch with you all on your time.  I cannot promise to always be entertaining.  I also cannot promise to censor anything.  I am sorry if you are in any way offended by the things I say, my opinions or my sailor like vocabulary (remember I am teaching English out here, an my momma didn't raise me right... just kidding mom).  But truly, I am writing this blog for me.  It is due to this wonderful world of the internets that you all can check in and read it... but I am going to write it as if no one was ever going to see it... so please keep that in mind.  I will try my best to be honest and not just give you the good, the great, and the beautiful.  But i will be bragging the fuck out of the fact that I am in China and you ain't... so neener neener neener...