A summary from Cheyenne WY

I haven't updated in months, and after this post I will be working in Glacier again, so this blog is perpetually on Snooze. Finally on the epic road trip with The Mom, aka Badger.
When we pulled on to the interstate to leave my hometown in VA, I flung my middle finger high up out the window and hit the gas hard.



So much driving.. Back roads in Kansas and Nebraska, checking out Oregon Trail sites of interest like Alcove Spring, California Hill...
Train trip from Denver to Sacramento where Dad surprised me by showing up; we three rented a car and went to Truckee and Yosemite - two nights and then back to Denver for us, back to TX for Dad.
Drove here to Cheyenne last night and we have decided to take Mother's Day off and relax, stay here tonight too.

Been on the road since May 2 and haven't spent the night in the same place twice since, so we are WHUPPED.

Coming soon: A trip to the Guernsey Ruts and to Register Cliff; a night in Buffalo WY, a trip to the Battle of the Little Bighorn, Miles City next, then I will drop off Badger in Missoula on Friday and will head up to see Matt before going to check in at East Glacier next Saturday.

WHEE!

I made it!
I didn't die back east!
I will stay west of the Mississippi for the rest of my days, I hope!

<3

Little darlin, it's been a long cold lonely winter!

...and with another several weeks to go of winter proper, The Beatles have resurrected my juju.

As any introspective existential gal should, I've been up to my eyeballs in considering what I could be learning from these months of stagnation in my hometown.

Monthly I've dipped beneath the frozen surface of the wintry world and dropped a few dozen feet into the pit of lolling despair, and last night it happened again. I have old friends here but whenever I move away, they never stay in touch. Out of sight, out of mind, I guess - so really there's nothing on the surface that I can get out of being here that will be lasting.

So I slip beneath the surface. Get down in there. Shimmy into it. Wiggle into the sand. Let the tide come over. Feel it cracking above me as I try to move.

I was just about to leave my cell phone charging and on silent downstairs last night, but right before I went to bed I decided to take it with me. After an hour's sob-fest with my mother, I was reminded that she can be perfectly stoic and can take my sullenness in graceful stride. She helped, which was unexpected. We are so much alike - I didn't even want to let her in on how sad I've been being stuck here and broke all the time, because I didn't want to bring her down after all she's done to help me.

Anyway.

My cell phone rang around 4AM - Whiskers Welch! Montana Matt! Calling from Portland with a buzz and a case of missing-the-Beth!

We talked for about an hour and reminisced about last summer and both of us counting down to almost the minutes we have to wait until our return to the St Mary Valley.

Rediscovering my love for The Beatles on the way to town today, it's been decided that Here Comes The Sun will be my anthem for the moment I crest over and into the valley from Duck Lake Rd upon returning in May. The mountains will return to view and I will probably sob and sob and kiss the ground, maybe even roll around on it before I go to check in with GPI for this coming season.

Hwy 89 at Going-to-the-Sun Road will be my address once again. Here Comes The Sun is an appropriate return song for this gal.

Eleven weeks and 5 days till I leave.
Thirteen weeks and 6 days till I check in.
Fourteen weeks tomorrow will be my first shift.

...and in 33 weeks, I'll still be there.


Whew.

I can doooooo thiiiiiiis.

everything sucked yesterday

I have learned a lot, dear bloggery!
Like, that I can still feel feelings! And that I can fall in love and that my fabulous and ferocious heart is still intact enough to be busted up! And that I was right in my superstitious decision to swear off the Pisces boys some years ago! I won't screw up that promise anymore, lord knows, and I don't give a single F regarding how adolescent that might sound.

He was about to get hired with me and we were making plans to go out west in four months. Travel, music, creativity, all the time this hipstery space giraffe watching over us. People we met in the beginning, they just assumed we were together. He says one night, "I'm falling in love with you," and I freak out and spaz for weeks because he lives with girl-of-three-years. Says it's flat-lining, he's not inspired anymore. Says I enrich his life.

Then, eh, he goes [essentially] 'Nevermind'.

There are more cheap shots I could take than all the rail whiskeys at the bar right now.

I am mad as hell. The worst part about it is that it wasn't my idea. It was his idea! It was a sticky situation from the beginning. And, yes, I have learned. Looking back it's funny that I didn't figure it out from the get-go. How could I expect him to be an honest person when everything about what he felt about me was indicative of dishonesty within his life?

It's this fucking small town, man. There's nowhere to escape, all our people are at all the same places all the time. I can't vanish.

I didn't gorge on ice cream and watch sex and the city marathons.

I woke at 4:40am, rose at 5:45, wrote till past sunup, and took a sick day.

If there's anything this gal can do, it's bounce back with a buoyant brilliance. Seeking shelter at a cafe in Harrisonburg where no one knows who I am.