Whirlwind Weekend

I'm Home. And it feels so damn good.  This weekend has been a completely insane whirlwind.   I started my drive on Friday morning.  I couldn't really leave early because I had to wait for the people to come make sure I cleaned my room.  It felt so weird to look at that empty room I spent my entire summer in and leave it.  I shut the door forever and walked out.  I'm still sort of having a hard time with the fact that this summer has truly come to an end, and I'm back at home in my bed. I got on the road about 9:00 am with my sunflower seeds, a 12 pack of coke in my cooler, and a full (very expensive) tank of gas.  This time, I took a different route.  I met my family in a tiny town on I-70 in Colorado for a wedding so it made a lot more sense to drive through Kansas instead of through Nebraska.   In case you were wondering, there is nothing in Kansas.  I was excited to get a new view...but seriously nothing.  I actually ended up making it all the way through to the very last city in Kansas before I stopped.  It was over 900 miles, but I was fine.  That is, until it started to rain so bad that I couldn't see the road.  I was driving into the storm for hours.  I could see the clouds and the lightening for so long, but I figured by the time I got to it, I would be where I was going or it would have died down.  Wrong.  I had to pull over and give myself a pep talk.  It was that bad.  I waited until someone passed me so that I could follow their tail lights.  At this point I was probably driving so slow! Talking to myself the whole way, I kept driving, attempting to keep my goal of hitting Colorado before I stopped.  Unfortunately, the headlights I was following got off the road, so I drove one more exit and got off too.  It was so terrible! I couldn't take one more second of it.  I found myself a room in little town called Goodland, Kansas and I took a bath, slept in, and headed for my next stop. Of course the next morning it was all blue skies.  That mid-west does not even joke about their rain storms. Anyway! I got to the hotel we were staying at in Stratton, CO a little early so I hung out for a while, continued to listen to my book and ate some sunflower seeds.  Later, I would have to go get my sisters at the Air Port, but their plane wasn't supposed to touch down in Denver until about 6.  So I waited for a while then drove another 140 miles to the Air Port.  I don't know if ya'll have ever been to DIA but the place is HUGE!   I had to park so far away, it's not even funny.  I had to take a shuttle to a different parking lot where I had to walk 8 minutes to the terminal.  And there, I waited.  I walked around, sipped a Jamba Juice, flipped through Cosmo (speaking of magazines, do they do anything but advertise?!?) and chatted with strangers.  Their plane got delayed and I was in DIA for four hours.  Parking cost me $12. But in the end, I picked up my sisters and it was pretty alright.  Too bad we had another 140 miles drive ahead of us.  The next day we had a few adventures in that itty-bitty town, went to the wedding, played music for what felt like a century (but the wedding was so beautiful and we were so happy to be there.) and finally headed for home the next morning.  This Dairy Treat was literally the only place to eat besides the Gas Station.  I haven't ever been to such a small town...and the one our friend got married in was even smaller!  I was wearing a shirt my sister got me from the Oregon Aquarium that says Harry "Otter".  I can't explain the backwards hat.  I just like it when I'm driving... By the time we got into Park City (a small ski-resort town just east of Salt Lake) we had another gig to play.  Tired, hungry, and just plain worn out, we soldiered through it and ended up back home in time to say hello to the baby before she went to bed.   I am so happy to be home and I am also so ready for my next adventure...In three days.  Thanks for following along with my little adventure! I hope you all had a great weekend.  I know mine was pretty dang crazy!