The Calm Before The Storm

I had the week off last week so Krishelle, Uncle Will and I decided to head south and just drive until the weather became acceptable. Fully expecting the possibility of having to drive as far as Guatemala, I packed several weeks of clothes and some Cipro and we were off. Naturally, as is always the case with any trip we ever take, no real plans were made before entering the vehicle. And we didn't think we would need any kind of map, especially after deciding to go see the Grand Canyon, as we figured the largest hole on Earth should be pretty easy to find. Wrong.

But our general lack of any sense of direction drew us into a town called Seligman which I believe you can only find if you're not trying to find it. We met all four people that live there (rather, we were given the stink eye by three skeptical residents; the fourth gave us a key to our motel room at 1:00 in the morning at a place that hadn't had any guests since the Gold Rush). The next morning we drove around, back and forth, back and forth, until one woman eventually pointed the way to the Grand Canyon, which we looked at for exactly three minutes and twenty-two seconds before getting back in the car, turning until the little "S" appeared on the dash, and flooring it for the next six hours. Meet Tucson.

In Tucson we attempted to go two full days without moving. Mostly a success (I say "mostly" due to the implausibility of packing and using catheters).

Saturday we thought it would be a good idea to cross the border into Mexico in an attempt to witness the drug wars first hand. After experiencing a disappointing lack of action and one horrific burrito smothered in what seemed to be a mixture of runny mayo, sour cream, and some kind of egg puree that had been sitting out in the sun for way too many fiestas, we made our assent back into the mother land.

Reality hit on Monday morning when the professor I do research with called me and said in a panicked voice, "I need to own every minute you have this week." Apparently she wasn't kidding. 78 emails and three 18 hour work days later (I'm actually not exaggerating), we have seemed to produce a pretty decent presentation. Unfortunately I had a perfect storm of other extremely time consuming activities come to a head in the last three days--all contributing factors to the 18 hour days (thank heavens for 24 hour access to the law building. I think.).

So here we are.

I'm not always sure what all the sacrificing is supposed to achieve. I only know that if I stop working, the unproductivity will feel much less satisfying. Maybe that's just a result of an abnormal amount of energy. Maybe all this energy I seem to dig out of every corner is ironically taking me to an early grave. Or maybe it's just all going toward some bigger cause that on weeks like this I start to have a hard time remembering. Not really sure what I'm trying to articulate tonight. Just hoping that all the distractions don't cause any of us to stop savoring the stranger moments of our sometimes chaotic lives.

~It Just Gets Stranger