estes, colorado

continuing where i left off...we dropped jordi and carson at the grand junction amtrak station and my dad and i drove across colorado. we met a bicyclist from Oklahoma, who averages 100 miles a day and was on the 30th day of his trip (100 miles a day is pretty freaking incredible, apparently. i can vouch that he looked quite fit and i was digging his accent. he and grapes of wrath have made me want to wwoof in oklahoma.) he asked us, "are y'all bark rubbers?" apparently aspen trees are velvety in the morning, and theres a group of people really into feeling them. we also met a retired couple who have been on the road around america for the last 30 years. "when i get rid of her i'll use her earrings as fish tackle. we're having a ball! i left her in the mountains and she still found her way back." her being his wife, who was sitting next to him making snide comments while he went on and on and on. we crossed the continental divide, i really want a motorcycle and a guy to drive it so i can ride on the back, and we saw a liquor store called liquid ambitions.

food of the trip so far: pepperjack cheese. i buy it wherever i go.
song of the trip so far: bob dylan buckets of rain

so now i'm at estes national park in colorado, the 4th national park i've been to in the last week. i'm staying at THE BIGGEST YMCA IN THE NATION. there are all sorts of mysterious people here. i've been orienting with the group i'm going to south america with and the group that's going to asia. and then who happens to walk into the room but RACHEL GREENE, who i went to high school with and we played on the same soccer team for 3 years. i had no idea she was doing this program, and the odds out of 28 people, half of them from canada, it was shocking. the lodge we're staying in looks exactly like the shining. brad, the organizer of the trip, looks exactly like spang with the voice of tim gunn. rachel can also confirm this. there's an irish guy coming with us, and i'm loving his slang: "handy" and "savage". i went into town today to buy a pedometer, so that i can keep track of how many steps i take. bolivia is no more, but instead we'll be treking through the white mountains, going through a canyon twice as deep as the grand canyon (booya!), and flying over those crazy huge engravings that are a mystery like stone henge. and i'm surrounded by canadians, which is quite the picker upper. brad gave us a frightening long long long long speech about health, saying things like "diarrhea will be like talking about the weather. a rainy day with partial solid." and advice like "riding in the bus is better than on top of the bus." he also told the people going to india to follow cows when crossing the street. i've printed out a picture of charles darwin (aka chuck) and glued him to the front of my journal to get me excited about the galapagos. he looks like a gnome. pictures to come!
loove bianca