Last days of Colorado...

So I sit here at the computer our 2nd to last night in Las Vegas. I am trying desperately to get motivated to write. I was exhausted after the night we had last night (more to come later) and Ciara and I were trying to figure out what we could do that would be fun tonight. We were both really sleepy. I was downloading music on my bed and closed my eyes for a brief few seconds while listening to the wonderful voice of John Mayer. For a tiny smidge of a second, I was back in my apartment in Orlando, the windows open, wonderfully fall scented candles lit, lights off and John Mayer playing. I was laying on the couch in our solarium and breathing in the sweet humid air. You never realize how much you miss home until you're gone. I would literally kill to be on the beach right now. When I left Clearwater for Orlando four years ago, I missed home so much. Everytime since, I get this elated feeling when I cross back over the Courtney Campbell bridge knowing I'm almost home. The windows are always down and the music always up. Most people that moved from Clearwater have said the same thing. You feel at home once you hit the bridge.

Well that bridge is almost 3,000 miles away now and I can't smell the humid air, the salt in the air, the coast. The air here is dry and harder to run in. It's not that I don't enjoy it here, because I do, and it's not that I'm not looking forward to California, because I couldn't be more excited; it's just that for now, it's not home...

That small, quick, half dream, half wish of my place back in Orlando made me so homesick. Not homesick for home neccessarily, but homesick for my own place again, my things that have a place, my scented candles, my windows, my humid air.

Oh John Mayer, look at how you confuse me...

Either way, I was in a coffee shop mood. I finally found one online that was close-ish and open with the possibility of live music, but I went to get Ciara and she was asleep. Bummer.

Either way, I should fill you in on the rest of Colorado.

Friday we went to Boulder. Boulder is this artsy little joint smoking town where I am convinced everyone was a hippy. It was interesting. I loved to people watch there because it was such a unique brand of people. We stopped at the Apple store first to visit Aaron, a guy I knew from high school theatre who had just relocated to Boulder like a week and a half before. He was working, but we wanted to say hey. After a quick discussion about hanging out after he got off work, Ciara and I decided to explore. We went down Pearl Street where you can do lots of fun things and the hippies run rampant. It was ecclectic and awesome and we had a blast. When Aaron got off work, he met up with us and we went to this place called Boulder Baked. (Yes it qualifies for both meanings... like I said, Hippy capital of the world I'm sure.) We got delicious cookies, and brownie sundaes. They were AWESOME! Then Aaron showed us around his apartment and we left to go meet up with Ciara's aunt, uncle and cousins at Buffalo Wild Wings. Apparantly out west, they call it B-Dub. (BW...) We stayed the night with Ciara's Aunt Jill and played a board game with her cousins. It was a good time. Aunt Jill stayed up to talk with us until four am. She is awesome.

The next day we stayed around the house at Ciara's dad's and maybe did something else. I don't remember. It's been like two weeks.

At one point, on Sunday we went to Pueblo, Colorado. We met up with her family friends there and we all went surfing behind a boat. The water was freezing and we had permanent goosebumps... but it was a lot of fun.

After that we had another tire blow out. It was the same one as before, they had not changed the valve stem though, so it broke. After Joey (Ciara's family friend from here on out will be called her brother) and his friend helped us out we were on our way to Salida, Colorado. It was SUCH a cute town with almost nothing in it. We had fun though, went to this cute little coffee shop and walked near this creek. It's smack in the middle of nowhere, but adorable. After that we went to go get the tire fixed and then we were on our way to Grandma's. We played in the hot tub there that night and baked delicious chocolate chip cookies the next day.

After one night with grandma we headed back to her dad's and packed up most everything. He made a great dinner and we hung out with Joey that night. He came over to watch a movie and we layed a fajillion blankets outside and watched it. We woke up the next morning early and headed out to Vegas.

YAY for Vegas!
BOO for miserable long drive...