Heart on Fire in the Devil's Playground

 

I can't promise a full wall of text about this topic, but I will share some thoughts and some pretty pictures with you.

I had a few hours to kill one night in the Springs. I didn't want to go.shopping, and I wanted to do something mountainy.

I've been to Pikes Peak before when I was little. Like, maybe 5 years old. Why not go again? I just got new tires on my car, my battery is brand spanking new, and I am an excellent driver. 

Also, that was a very bad decision on my part. 

I did not make it to the summit, and I am not sorry about it. I made it to the Devil's Playground, which is mile 16 of the 19 mile journey. The elevation of that point is not easily Google-able, as I spent about five seconds trying to figure it out, but let's just say that it's between 12,000 and 13,000 feet.

It occurred to me driving up this damn mountain that although my tires are brand new, they are from a store that rhymes with smallmart. And when sheer death is a few inches away on the right side of me, I thought that maybe entrusting my life to smallmart maybe wasn't the best decision I've ever made. 

I do stupid things on vacation all the time. Parasailing, a private plane tour over New Orleans, swimming in an underground cave in Mexico. 

I can officially add attempting Pikes Peak to that list. 

And I'm never doing it again.

Never never never.

Also, I would be the worst person in the world to travel with. I can't tell you what I can tolerate and what I can't tolerate, danger-wise, until I'm there in person and I can feel the vibe of the place.

And it turns out that my tipping point is a place called Devil's Playground.

Not today, Satan.  

Not today. 

And not ever again. 

I took that screen shot of the sing that I was listening to when I officially made the decision to chicken out. I was listening to Eric Church's Heart on Fire, BECAUSE MY HEART WAS LITERALLY ON FIRE.

The only other thing I will add is that it was 100 degrees in town that day. When I turned around, it was 54 degrees. 

Rolling down my windows and getting that sweet mountain air is about the only good thing that came from that trip. 

I went to a craft store awards, because dammit, I deserved it. 

How I feel

Every song by every other artist I listen to sucks.

Four more days, people. FOUR MORE DAYS.

"You fix the plague?"

Broken English in Mexico is really funny to hear and read.

After we were done with the tour of the caves, we had to fill out a form and rate the experience from 1 to 5.

One of the things we were supposed to rate was the "friendliness of the photograph."

I'm assuming they meant photographer instead of photograph, but I thought it was funny.

That's one friendly photograph!

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During another conversation, the concierge in my building, my roommate and I were all talking about what my company does.

We explained farming to him, and he understood that. He tried to ask us if we can identify plants and crops that have diseases, only he didn't know the English word for disease.

Instead, he used the word plague.

"You fix the plague?"

I sometimes have the maturity of a 15-year-old. I giggled a lot about that one.

For the record, fixing the plague is not a skill that's listed on my resume.

Giggle.

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Another broken English moment was when we were watching a movie before we went on the tour of the caves.

In the video, a woman said we would get a light lunch after our tour. She hoped we would have a "pleasurable gastronomical experience."

I looked at my Canadian friends. Giggling ensued.

Food

I've been a bad blogger lately. I have tons of things to say about my recent trip, but not enough time to actually get them all written down.

This post is going to be about the food in Cancun.

Now, let me just tell you something. I don't like fish. I hate the smell of it, and 99 percent of the time when I eat it in Kansas, it tastes like snot.

It's kind of stupid to go on a beach vacation and order chicken and beef, so I stepped outside my comfort zone and ate things I wouldn't normally eat.

It was delicious!

Mahi Mahi was my favorite. So much flavor! Grouper was acceptable, but not my favorite. I had lamb a few times, which might be the best thing I've ever tasted.

Lamb. It was delicious.

We also had lobster, shark, and probably some other things that I can't think of right now. I tried plantains for breakfast one morning. Yummy!

One of my friends also introduced me to breakfast crepes. Minus the lamb, I'm pretty sure it was the best thing I've ever tasted.

You can't go wrong with peanut butter and chocolate in the morning. I put learning how to make crepes on my list of things to do in life.

:)

A co-worker's adorable dessert one night.

And I didn't even mention the fruit. Let's just say that I'll never eat canned pineapple again. When I ordered room service, I always ordered a fruit plate to go with it.

Delicious!

Room service food. Pretty much the best thing ever.

Margarita pizza, also room service. 

For desserts at night, I just said "no milk" and let them surprise me with something. (Meh, lactose intolerant.) All of the restaurants brought out incredibly beautiful desserts for me. I usually don't even bother looking at the dessert menu, because I know I can't eat most of what's on it.

But they actually made me a milk-less plate. And it was beautiful.

Non-dairy dessert. Yum.

Learning about Canada in Mexico

(This was written earlier this week. I'm just now getting around to posting it.)

At this time last week, I got into a van at the resort I was staying at in Mexico, preparing to go on a tour of underground caves.

There were three perfectly friendly people waiting for me in the van. They said hello, asked me what my name was, and then asked me if I spoke French.

I thought that was weird. I'm from Kansas, and have spent all but two months of my life in this state.

No, I do not speak French, I told them.

They said they knew about tornadoes, the yellow brick road and Dorothy. I told them that's pretty much all you need to know about Kansas, well, that and cows.

They told me the next group of people we were picking up were Canadians who spoke French. The wife told the husband to say hello to them when they got into the van. The husband agreed to do so.

They also warned me, the lone American in the van, that French-speaking Canadians are not pleasant people.

My friendly Canadians told me the French-speaking Canadians would not talk in English around us, would not acknowledge us and would generally be miserable human beings to be around.

This was news to me. I thought all Canadians were friendly? Apparently I don't know as much about Canada as I thought. (You mean I don't know everything there is to know about life? Gah.)

The French speaking Canadians got into the van. The friendly Canadian guy told them hi. They looked at him and didn't even acknowledge his presence.

Haha!

At the caves, we had to separate into groups and sign some paperwork. The French speaking Canadians did not speak a word of English. They requested their tour be in French and paid no attention to the English speaking people.

I was sitting there, in the middle of the jungle in another country, listening to these jerks probably talking about us in French, when one of the French-speaking women turned around right in front of me.

She had a tattoo on her shoulder. Guess what language the tattoo was in?

It was in English.

As a lover of words and language, I love the irony in this.

I want to say the quote tattooed on her shoulder was a Bible verse, which makes this situation even more ironic and hilarious.

I'm going to get words from God tattooed on my body, but I'm not going to talk to you.

People are fun to observe sometimes.

Sidenote: Most of the paperwork we had to fill out involved one person in the household completing the forms, meaning that husbands generally filled out the forms and the wives didn't have to.

My Canadian friends offered to put me on their paperwork so I didn't have to fill it out (essentially inviting me to become a member of their family for a day). Aww. I declined, but thought that was kind of cool of them to offer. I love English speaking Canadians!

They also said I could be in their family photos in the caves, but I also politely declined that offer. Also, that was a really nice gesture on their part.

I love some parts of Canada. Other parts, not so much.

Me in the caves. It really was a beautiful thing to see, minus the water part.

Things I worry about.

I read "Gone Girl" in about 12 hours.

On my trip to South Carolina, I finished "Bossypants" and had a few hours to read another book had I brought one.

I like to read books cover to cover. I'm not a person who can read for an hour here or there. I have to do it all in one or two sittings.

I have a vacation coming up where I'll be doing mostly nothing. It will be amazing. But...there's always a but.

How many books will I need on this vacation? I'm actually a little stressed out about it. Five books? Six books? Two books?

Then there's the problem of what books to take. I don't want anything heavy (that poor Dan Brown book on my bookshelf is never going to get read because of this). I have some Mitch Album books to take, but those are really easy, quick reads.

The list of books that are contenders at this point:

- The Fault in Our Stars

- The other Gillian Flynn books

- The Opposite of Loneliness by Marina Keegan, the young Yale student who died in a car crash.

- Like I said, there's a couple of Mitch Album books I have that I don't think I've read yet.

Other vacation notes:

• I ordered some shorts online a few weeks ago. They were hugely embarrassing on me and I had to send them back. That left me with exactly zero pairs of shorts to wear on the beach. Yes, I should have thought of this sooner, but I had my mind on other things over the summer.
• In a twist of fate, I went to the mall this week and looked at the clearance rack. Shorts were $8. Score! I bought three pairs. I also have a beach bag (thanks, Ikea!) and a small purse to take.
• I briefly read through an email earlier this week and laughed. It seems as though I'll be flying out of the Atlanta airport. Ha, ha. If you don't remember, me and that airport go way back. (There are often subtle ways in which I know God is paying attention to my life. This is one of those ways.) This time my anxiety will be centered around flying to another country. Oh, anxiety, you funny thing.
• This time around I might relax and have a drink on the plane. I was too scared to last time.
• Speaking of shorts, my legs are embarrassingly white. Sorry, people who have to see them. Luckily, I'll burn in the first 20 seconds on the beach, so I won't have to apologize too much while I'm there. 

My life!

I had the bright idea to take vacation time last week and not go on a vacation.

True story: I've never actually gone on a vacation while taking vacation time off of work. Ah, bummer.

Anyway, it turns out that my vacation was pretty terrible. I didn't sleep in, I didn't read as much as I should have, and I really didn't do anything for myself.

Instead, I worried about multiple extra projects I have going on. Why did I volunteer to do all of these things at the same time? I have no idea, but I'm pretty sure I shouldn't have. I worked two hours using a new program and didn't press the save button.

Sigh. That's the kind of week it was.

I read maybe 10 pages of the book I'm reading, and that's it. I don't even think I went to Hobby Lobby once.

The horror!

The only positive thing that happened is that I improved my quesadilla recipe. Now, in addition to chicken, mozzarella, feta, and spinach, I add the juice of half a lime.

Delicious!

I don't regret taking that vacation now.

Yummy.