...Exploring the Plains

One wonderful thing I learned this summer is that I have family all over the country. Well, let me clarify that and say that I have family all over the country... south of the Mason-Dixon line.

One place I did not previously know that I have family is in Colorado. Not only do I have a cousin who lives in Cheyenne Wells, Colorado, but I have another Cousin who lives right smack-dab in the middle of Boulder. Needless to say I spent some quality time with Adam and his family. I did take a picture with his little girls before I left the city, so you all will get to see at least one piece of graphical proof.

Below are myself and my brother, Ian, with Erin (on his shoulders) and Anna (on my shoulders). Aren't they just adorable? And they are so smart!

After leaving Boulder on that Sunday afternoon, we made our way down into Cheyenne Wells, Colorado. Our family there includes my cousin, Truett, and his mother, Shanda, and Step-Father, Danny. I wasn't sure what to expect out of Cheyenne Wells, all that I had heard was that it was a bump-in-the-road in southern Colorado (claimed my mother). Well, that was about right.

Cheyenne Wells has a high school (Truett says there are about 15 kids per class) a hotel (The Trail In Motel, owned by Shanda and Danny) and several bars. That's about it. The town is surrounded by farm land, so the motel gets a surprising amount of traffic... as it usually puts up the summer laborers.

We were extremely glad to see Truett and Shanda, as it has been about ten years since either Ian or I had seen them. Danny, we had never met before, and he turned out to be a lovely addition to the family. He's a cowboy through and through, and you can tell that Truett looks up to him and he's a good dad to the kid.

Truett... that boy is HUGE. He's a football player now - he spent much of the summer at an LSU high school football camp, and apparently got noticed by one of the coaches. Here's to hoping that when he's applying to colleges he gets recruited, or at least red-shirted for the team!

Their hospitality was wonderful... not only did they put us up in one of their hotel rooms (it was so quaint and cute!) But they fed us dinner and breakfast and tolerated us riling up their little Yorkshire dog. She attacks pillows (as trained by Truett, of course) and protects Shanda as if she were the dog's own pup.

Overall, as small as Cheyenne Wells is, it was a pleasant visit. If you're ever driving through that area of the country, I'm going to point you towards Cheyenne Wells. Just go to the Trail In Motel and tell them Amy Plunk sent you. I'm sure you'll at least get a discount :-)

Tomorrow, we shall discuss... Texas!
Until then, I love you all!
Plunk!

Progress across this country of ours.

A) Boulder, CO
B) Cheyenne Wells, CO

Total mileage so far: 195

...Road Tripping

As some of you know or may have guessed... I've been a little internet-free for the past three weeks or so. Thus I have a lot of updating to do.

Before you all get super excited about the pictures I am going to post, I'm just going to let you down easy. There. are. no. pictures.

What?! How can there be no pictures. You, Miss Plunk, are a picture taking machine. Yes, yes I know I am. However. I made a pact with myself this trip to not take a single photo. Why? Why did I do this? Because this was my trip. It wasn't any of yours. If I had spent the trip with a camera in my hand then, knowing me, I wouldn't have been thinking "oh how wonderful this view is," I would have instead thought "oh, how can I get a good picture of this view to show others."

I did not want to be compromising my limited time with the sights I would be experiencing, and thus, I did not view them from behind a lens, but with my own two eyes.

However, now that the trip is complete, there is nothing wrong with going back over the wonders in my mind. I have yet to decide if this will take up one post or several, so bear with me as I memory-dump on you.

Let us begin slightly before the road-trip started... with my brother's arrival to Boulder on Wednesday, August 4th.

Do you know my brother? He's a good kid. Chances are, if you know a 17 year old boy, you've essentially met Ian. He is tall, he is handsome, and he is smart. For the most part. The kid can do some stupid things, but don't hold that against him, will you? We all do stupid things.

After circling Denver Airport for an hour (what airport doesn't have a cell phone waiting lot?!) I was finally able to embarrass my little bro in front of hundreds of strangers by giving him a big hug and a kiss... in public. I am obviously a terrible sister. But I made it up to the little one by taking him to the best pizza joint in Boulder, Beau Jo's. I'll make another post on that later... but just know that we had the Luau Pizza... garlic sauce, pineapple, spicy chicken, and lots and lots of cheese. Myyyyy favorite.

The next three days were a whir of me working on my final paper and presentation, him sleeping until approximately two, and us going out to all of the best restaurants in the city.

Ian was forced to spend all day Thursday learning. I asked him to come see my final presentation, which is all well and good, but to do so he had to sit through 15 other presentations of student research projects from the summer. I don't know about him, but I found most of the projects very interesting. The topics ranged from large scale (astronomical) spectroscopy to atomic clock research to computational physics.

Of course, I did my presentation on the Liquid Crystal research which I had been working on all summer, and according to my peer reviews, I did quite well. I am, however, glad to be done. While the research was interesting from the outside looking in, I just couldn't get into it. Next summer I hope to return to CU Boulder, and if all goes well will be working in an optics lab or a nano-tubes lab or something of the sort.

But to return to the subject at hand: my time in Boulder with my brother. He got along swimmingly with my friends... but who wouldn't love the little charmer? So we spent nights getting food at Shirpa's (it's run by Shirpas! From the Himalayas!), and then dessert at Glacier's Ice Cream. We walked around Pearl Street and saw the street performers... and we stayed up way too late on peoples' roofs or in the middle of the soccer field, looking at the stars and asking existential questions. It was a wonderful way to say goodbye to Boulder.

After staying on a friend's couch Saturday night, we set out on the road Sunday morning with our noses pointed south.

This post has already reached epic proportions, so I will conclude it here, and continue to write so that I will give you all a post a day about all of the different places I visited.

Looking forward to talking to you all again,
Amy Plunk!