The Great Sand Dunes

Introduction:

It’s been two weeks since my journey into the heart of the Colorado high desert, and I finally have the chance to put my trail notes into the public record. I started a new job the day after arrival and spent last weekend at an art show in Bellingham. My buddy Martin had tossed around the idea of a backpacking trip to the Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado. I figured it was something I wouldn’t get to do since I’d been applying to jobs like crazy and would likely need to keep interviewing or start immediately. But the universe provided, I was given an offer at one job and I set the start date a week and a half later; so I took this trip. Bought tickets, packed up and got out of town! As soon as I landed I was offered the job I really wanted, luckily they were flexible with the start date.

I took a travel journal with me to keep track of the days, events and feelings in a way that would last longer. I’ll do my best to transcribe my notes in a proper story format to convey things in the best way possible.

Here’s an approximate reference map in case you want some perspective. I know how short this looks, I thought we did at least 25. Ah well, sand is tough… Next time I’ll travel by sandworm! Enjoy the show!

Thursday May 24th:

I woke up at 7 with Mackenzie and took the bus downtown with her. She went to work, I boarded the light rail and headed for the airport. It was a little odd trekking through downtown Seattle with a giant ass backpack and smaller carry-on backpack in my hands. I might have appeared homeless if it weren’t for the pretty lady escorting me to the train. It was a tough goodbye considering Mackenzie and I spend every single day together, but she would be okay. I packed into the light-rail and headed south. I did the routine at the airport, spent time looking at the bookstore. I found a cool Scientific American with a great article about energetic supernovae that produce anti-matter which then annihilates, thus enhancing the brightness. There was also an article on the Human Connectome project, a very exciting experiment to digitally replicate a human brain all the way to the molecular level! Passing into Denver I swear the plane dropped 100 feet when it hit a different pressure front on the other side of the Rocky Mountains; but the plane landed soon thereafter and I met Martin at the airport.

Martin rented a Chevy HHR since he doesn’t drive in Boulder. (Best bike city in the country!) We headed straight for a Denver suburb Army Surplus store. We needed supplies, we ended up getting a few 2.5 gallon plastic water jugs, some more effective camp cookware, some lightweight but warm underarmor, and very important-tactical head scarves (shemaghs!) Then we headed to Boulder, we ate gyros and went to REI. I bought some dehydrated meals and a compression bag for my clothes. Then we visited the Boulder Army surplus store, I bought some used combat goggles and a large (48 oz) Nalgene. Every single one of these purchases paid off out there, none of it was useless! Luckily I already had with me a great water filter, sleeping bag, tent, foam pad, and a whole host of small personal and medical items.

We arrived at Martin’s place, we dumped everything out and organized the essentials. We did a final trip to Safeway and the liquor store for last minute consumables. We packed stuff well enough and went out around 10 for a late dinner. Martin showed me “The Sink,” which is the bar that Obama visited a few months ago. I loaded down with nachos and bacon wrapped jalapenos. If there is one thing I regret the whole trip, it was those damned jalapenos! They were delicious and bomb as hell, but they also exploded something inside of my digestive track. Ouch! Anyway, we vibed on the live band there playing jazz/funk/fusion/Santana/Stevie Wonder, and several drinks later we wandered home to crash for the night. I wouldn’t say I slept very well, but damn it I didn’t care. I was in another city having fun, I could sleep it off once I got home!

Friday May 25th:

Wind racketed the tent, my clothes, our packs, it occasionally blew sand into our faces. I sat on the leeward side of the tent under the leeward side of a tall dune. We were nestled in a small green valley between a large dune to the South and a smaller dune field to the north. I sat in the fading light with a flashlight strapped to my head by my goggles and recorded the day’s events to the journal.

Explosive bowel movements racketed Martin’s cramped studio apartment, breaking the silence of the early Boulder dawn. The jalapeno bomb had detonated, Martin was rudely awoken and the day started. Mistake #2, Chorizo for breakfast. Delicious, but fiber of any sort would have been better. Aw well, live bold my friends. We packed the car and left station by 8 am. The trip southward was routinely plagued by pit stops thanks to my poor meal choices. The fact that I had to drop a hot deuce in the wilderness before the hike even started is all the more testament to why the Sink had been a poor choice. As they say, “When you’re driving in a Chevy and you’re feeling something heavy…”

We stopped for lunch in the town of Waldenburg at what must have been the saddest diner in the southwest. The food was bland horrible cafeteria-grade garbage. All of the people eating there were severely overweight, ugly and very unhappy. We ate as quick as we could and got out of there, yuck. As we headed west across the Sangre de Cristo mountains we were passed multiple times by a hispanic biker gang, I think they were called the Los Banditos. We came up with an alternative acronym for what the HHR stands for in the Chevy HHR. I won’t repeat that here, but the poor engine had trouble passing trucks or climbing mountains. Fortunately it got at least 30 mpg and gas was only around $3.50 down there.

We arrived in the park at around 2 pm, seeing the dunes rise out of the distance was an awesome sight to behold. Entrance was cheap, $3 per head. We went straight to the ranger station and registered our trip. They told us it was bad conditions considering the wind, but that Sand Creek was flowing; so we registered for a stay at the Sand Creek camp spot.

We wanted to do a trial run, so we parked at the lot where the day visitors stop and tried a hike up high dune without our packs. It took about 45 minutes to get up, there were tons of people. One dude was even trying to sand board down some hills. It looked like fun! I was stupid and didn’t think to bring my camera bag to shelter the camera. I had no idea just how bad it would be. The winds were at least 50 mph in places, blasting sand that burns out any exposed skin. The head scarves and goggles were a great idea.

It took 20 min to get down and back to the car. We had been walking barefoot most of the way. This was Mistake #3, in that short stretch of time I got the worst blisters on my feet I’ve ever had. The skin was missing on my big toe and the toe next to it. In need of a few last minute supplies, we drove to the nearby camp store. I patched up my foot, and used a knife to pull my camera battery and cleaned it as best I could. So my camera was battered a bit, fortunately the shutter still was fine; the only inconvenience was that I would need to manually focus everything. That was an okay compromise, I would have been pissed beyond measure if I couldn’t take pictures the entire time. There was a diner built into the camp store. I enjoyed a steak and salad, Martin got a chili burger, and then we were on our way, around 6 o’clock to start our adventure. We intentionally wanted a late start since we wanted to avoid the heat of the day.

We parked at the amphitheater lot and started west into the sands. We saw some dorky kid hiding on the ground in a ditch. There was a man and another kid in the distance look for something, it looked like maybe he’d run away. I stood pointing the little dude out and told the kid “don’t hide from your dad, he’s going to help you go to college one day.” The kid didn’t say anything but he stood up and that was good enough for me.

We crossed Medano Creek and followed it north for a little while. It was tough getting used to a 60 lb pack walking on sand, but we thought we’d need the water so we huffed it all the same. It’s an encumbrance that you learn to endure, I was just thrilled to be out, I’d had trail lust for months. I’d bought backpacking gear, had an unused pack, a new tent, sleeping bag, water filter. I needed that trip, with only ten days off a year in the American working world, it’s impossible to truly experience nature. Having everything you need to live strapped to your back is so liberating that it doesn’t matter how heavy it gets.

We found what seemed like a good spot to start our ascent into the dunes, but after shlupping (new word we used for hauling your ass around) up a dune face we had to make a traverse laterally across a steep dune face where the sand was really deep and soft. I felt okay crawling like a spider monkey, but Martin’s pack or his height must have been throwing him off, he was having a hard time with it. It was probably the hardest 50 feet of the entire trip, it felt like something out of a scifi movie; but… we reached the top of the dune crest.

We were rewarded with one of the most gorgeous sunsets I’ve ever seen. The sand in the air had colored the sun an impossible shade of pink and orange. The whole alien dunescape sprawled out before us in the glow of that otherworldly color. We sat catching our breath (altitude around 8500 feet) having that rewarding sight, in such a unique part of the world. It felt like we were sitting on Mars, the world was a convergence of all the paths that lie ahead and a forgetful pause from all the troubles in the past. I can understand how Frank Herbert must have felt when he orchestrated the inner thoughts of Paul Atriedes in the Dune series. There’s something about the open vastness of the sand that robs the soul of any linear recollection of time.

We drank some water and strapped back up, we needed to find a good camp spot and set up before we lost too much light. Under a full moon I could see night hiking in the dunes as an easy thing to do. There’s nothing out there to trip on. But visibility and lighting needs to be good enough to plan out a route with minimal grade ascent. It’s hard enough to plan ahead like that in the day time, let alone with a waxing quarter moon that sets two-three hours after sundown. We found a valley that appeared somewhat sheltered from the wind. We scouted around to try and find the least windy spot. I don’t think such a place exists!

Setting up the tent was a pain in the ass because of the wind. We used our packs to weigh it down while snapping it to the poles. We settled in, had a small snack of trail mix and hydrated up somewhat. I sat down and did the journal thing. We should have just slept in the open, the wind shook the tent so hard it was impossible to sleep. I must have had 3 hours tops of sleep that night. It was exhausting to keep waking up to gusts of wind. The wind would even pick up sand inside the tent and blow it into your face. I just sat there, listening to Martin snore, trying not to be bothered by the wind. And believe it or not sand is not very comfortable to sleep on, or at least the sand we were on. There were lumps that just would not budge. But I got as much rest as I could, we’d need it the next day.

Satuday May 26th:

We woke up in a race against the wind. Tired as hell from the wind-blasted night, the wind had picked up with the sunrise and we needed to get out of there. We slogged our gear together as quickly as we could and scarfed down a breakfast of Clif bars and trail mix. (It was way to windy to use the camp stove). By around 7 we strapped on our packs and started the day. SPF 100 sunscreen, underarmor shirt and tights, shemaghs and goggles. This would be my uniform most of the trip. Minimal chafing, optimal sand/sun protection, it was the way to go. At around 7 am we made our leave.

We had some argument over which way to go. I was under the impression that hiking northwest across the dunes and converging with the trail would be the best route to go. We had the water, you could see the mountains clear as day about 5 miles to the north as a great beacon to walk towards. Martin however wanted to cut back northeast and follow the creek. Since he scouted in the pre-dawn hours while I tried to get some last minute sleep, I decided we’d take his course. We ended up climbing in a circle to get to the top of a high peak.

Climbing through the dunes in the early morning was a very surreal feeling. Walking across the sand seemed to take both an eternity and mere seconds. You set your focus on a spot and your brain chills out until you reach it. Sand can take on hundreds of different characteristics, but essentially what you want is hard compressed sand at a shallow grade. It seemed like flat sand in windy spots was generally more compact than on slopes. The leeward (wind free) sides of dunes is of course deep heavy and soft. It’s great for going down but horrible for going up. You sort of try to get a sixth sense for how hard the sand is going to be in places. Sometimes you can even spot wet spots. You don’t always go for the straight line, you try to follow arcs where you think the sand will be the most solid and go along those routes. And the big rule of thumb is don’t lose elevation when you don’t need to.

We made our way to the top of this dune, Martin had argued about going east but I thought our plan had been to go northwest. It was on a 50+mph ridge with sand blowing in our faces. It was hard to hear each other talk and we were shouting in argument over where we were going. It looked and felt like that scene in Lord of the Rings where Isildor and Elrond are in Mount Doom shouting over throwing the ring into the lava. In the midst of our plight, the tent bag pull cord loosened up and the footprint went flying out into oblivion. Considering the 200+ foot drop below into a narrow valley we declared it gone. Martin said “To Hell with this” and thus our course was set back towards the creek.

That decision may not have been the best in the long run, but in the short term, getting out of the wind and to a source of cold refreshing water.. Well that was a nice treat. We descended the dunes over what appeared to be a lawn at a 45 degree angle. Our plummet took us straight to the healthy Medano Creek, we found a nice spot to settle in and take a breather. We had a second breakfast of beef jerkey and trail mix and hydrated up. I busted out my Katadyn filter and used it in the wild for the first time. Worth it. The water was cool, tasted great, refreshing beyond words. Our parched and tattered lips got balmed up, we drank as much water as we could handle, and after a brief rest we were on our way. It was only ~9 am so we still had plenty of shlupping to do that day. Martin was optimistic “We’ll make it to Sand Creek by noon or one.” HAHAHA how insanely wrong he would be!

We followed the creek north on random trails. We encountered a few people along the way, and eventually we found ourselves on the 4WD trail marching towards the true trailhead of the “Sand Ramp Trail.” this ultimately was about 3 miles or so from the car spot but probably 4-6 miles overall due to our excursion into the dunes. We were at the trailhead by around 11 am. We saw that there would only be a 500 foot elevation gain between where we were and where it would go downhill. What we didn’t know was that that was an overall elevation gain and that the trail teetered up and down like a saw tooth as it cut across dunes, mountains and valleys. If you were to stack all of the climbing components of the trail it was probably double or triple that amount just in terms of how much climbing we’d be doing. And in the sand with 60 lb packs, we had no idea how tiring that day would get.

It seemed like we had been on the trail 40 minutes when we hit the first camp ground, Little Medano Creek Campsite. The glyph on the map looked as though it were hardly any distance at all from the trailhead. That’s when we knew.. It was going to be a loooong day. To be fair though, none of the campsites really appeared to match the map very well. It’s an old 2004 National Geographic map without much resolution on the stretch we were on. We did the only thing we could do, push on. The stretch between Little Medano and “Aspen” was one of the toughest in the trip. The sawtooth path along the ridges was starting to wear on us. Every time we were forced down hill with a steeper hill in the distance felt like another defeat. The fabled Aspen was no where to be seen. We really wanted a sheltered spot to sit and have lunch, even up in the grassy foothills the sand was soft, loose, and blew in the heavy winds. The combination of little sleep the night before, the dehydrating sun+wind, the heavy packs, and the soft sand made for a pretty difficult push. For a period it felt like we were averaging half a mile per hour. Constantly we had to stop, drink water, give our backs a break, catch our breath.

As we approached Aspen the elevation got close to 9100 feet. I don’t really know how much the elevation was getting to me and how much was just the conditions. We never really reached Aspen, by about 2 PM we just needed some rest; mostly just sleep. We got a little shade under a tree along a ridgeline. We stopped for a trail lunch, pulled our shemaghs over our faces and dozed for about half an hour. I used the litter box and then we put the packs back on. We saw some Aspen trees to the North where the trail cut into a high mountain pass. We also saw our first hikers on the trail due west on what appeared to be the trail on the other side of the Aspen ravine. We did the smart thing and cut across. The hours faded by, we slowly climbed, huffed, and pushed on. At around 4 we reached the top of a ridge that looked down into a deep valley. There were lots of trees below, and after careful examination we spotted the creek. This was “Cold Creek,” and it let us know exactly where we stood on the map. We dropped at least 500 feet in a matter of minutes. We reached the flowing water and looked back up the steep soft sand we had come down. We both agreed, “we’re not going back that way!”

We rested at Cold Creek, I busted out the water filter and we had more cold refreshment. It was really nice to have shelter from the wind. There were tons of meadows in the surrounding areas, full of deer droppings, bear crap, and a few skeletal remains. We found the trail marker after getting turned around a bit, and were due Southwest towards camp. We crossed over the creek again and found Cold Creek Campground. We debated just staying there since it was 5-6 or so and we had no idea how much further Sand Creek was. We decided to man up and finish the damn hike. We were worried that “Sand Creek” wouldn’t have shelter from the wind, but curiosity and attitude pushed us on. We followed Cold Creek until it ran try, then we kept following the dry creek bed looking for the split south. The sun was getting low, my back was really bugging me, but we knew we were close. After what seemed like forever we hit the split, and we found a 4WD road. Apparently people just drive out to Sand Creek sometimes… Losers.

The deceptive and unreliable map made it look like Cold Creek campground was near the split and that Sand Creek was miles south of the split, but in reality the trail was the other way around. It seemed like less than a quarter mile between the split and the camp site; and it was the most welcoming place we could imagine! The first thing we spotted was a large brown plastic box. As we got close we saw a lid on top, it was the solar composting toilet! Then we closed in on the site itself with all of its goodies! Fire ring! Bear locker! Flat smooth tent space! A fast flowing and beautiful source of water! Even a huge buck rack for hanging clothes from! We sat and did nothing for fifteen minutes. The wind was almost none-existent! We snacked a little bit and then quickly put together the tent and gathered wood. We fired up the camp stove and made spam+instant rice tacos. Maybe another mistake gastronomically but it tasted amazing so I didn’t care. We finished up with astronaut ice cream and then sat back to enjoy the fire. I cleaned up and changed the wrapping on my gnarly blisters.

It had been a 12 hour day, a really tough slog. but I sincerely enjoyed it. That campsite was a really rewarding place to stay and I look forward to going back there again one day! Martin and I talked science fiction, video games, information freedom, space colonization, personal lives, the trials and tribulations of the world. It’s good to have a friend like him with the same education and philosophical interests. I miraculously had service so I made a phone call to Mackenzie, I missed her and hope one day to bring her out there too. Martin called his dad to let him know all was good. Night simmered in, but the sand was so thick in the air that the stars weren’t that visible anyway. I slept better that night but still not perfect, an ache in the heart, too much rice in the gut, Martin’s snores; but much better than the windy dunes. Some how the sand fell back to the ground over night so the stars finally came out in the early morning, it was a beautiful site to behold, but I quickly fell back asleep.

Sunday May 27th:

After dozing until about 8 the tent was warm enough I got up. We had planned to just enjoy the morning and hike later. The original plans to summit the nearby mountains were dashed by the reality of how long it takes to get anywhere, so we figured we’d take our time heading back instead. I wish things could have been less boring from this point on for the stake of writing this; I could just make up some story about sand worms and interplanetary struggle. Whatever.. we cooked breakfast, hot breakfast. I had some dehydrated eggs+peppers+ham from REI… MMM couldn’t have asked for anything tastier! Martin had some oatmeal since he didn’t want eggs, but he was still hungry so he made his minestrone soup. With 8 servings. He regretted that one later alright.

For the rest of the morning we just lazed about, hung out; we scrawled a checker board onto a flat rock and I kicked Martin’s ass. He had Einstein’s book on relativity, I looked it over and read a select few pages. We talked, ate, napped, hydrated, recovered from the day before… at one o’clock we finally started packing up. It was really easy to just do nothing that day considering the night before. Finding such an oasis out there was a hard place to want to leave. We emptied half of our 2.5 gallon water containers, and had eaten plenty of the food. We took our time packing, and were probably ready to go by around 2-3 pm. With a sip of fresh cold water and a last minute trip to the throne room, we were one our way!

We decided a day earlier we wouldn’t go back up the way we came. Instead we carved out a path along the northern edge of the dunes that on the border between the pure sand and the grassy sand hills. The hills to the north had lots of up and downs, but along the dune line we had a pretty shallow overall grade. The path we were on would have a shorter circumference and thus would be a shorter trip. Better than that, we head a tailwind pushing us along. I regretfully wore shorts that day so my legs got sand blasted, but oh well, better than the face. There were some cool desert flowers and lightning struck trees. I even found a small skull of a coyote, fox or racoon. It was too fragile to carry home though. At one point I commented that a set of dunes in the distance looked like a laying woman. Martin pointed out the anatomy and I commented “We’ve been out here too long!” We got a good chuckle.

After about three or four hours of treking, maybe about 5 miles east; we found a big rock fortress to sit behind and have a quick bite. We used our extended fists to measure about two hours of daylight remaining. So we didn’t want to rest too long. We continued east for another hour or so, and noticed a thick treeline in the distance. The sun was getting very low so we knew we wanted to find some shelter from the wind and buckle down for the night. We knew we probably could have found the eastern road by sundown but that would have been a 3-5 hour night hike to the car. Screw that! We made it near to the treeline and spotted a small creek! I don’t know if it was the Little Medano or an unnamed runoff, it was the smallest stream we’d seen, but it was still cold water we could filter and drink. We crossed the stream and came into a wide meadow. The grass was patchy, and it was surrounded by hills or trees on all sides. It was impossible to tell if we were in the “Wilderness” proper so we were a little hesitant to camp, but we stayed far enough away from the treeline and we didn’t have any fire other than the stove.

I setup the tent while Martin flung a rope over a tall aspen branch to hang our food bag. (Common practice in bear country.) The sun was down and in the twighlight glow we cooked up some dinner. Martin boiled water, I made myself a noodle soup pack. There wasn’t any bullion though! So I took some lemon basil turkey jerkey I had and boiled that with the noodles to give it a stock, and it worked great! I gave Martin the last quarter of the soup and he threw in some rice. We put all the food in the bag and hoisted it up the tree. We stood in the open field and watched the stars start to come out. We had a riveting discussion about how LED flashlights could be white if the diodes were monochromatic. We hiked up to a nearby hillside to watch the dunes in the moonlight, not nearly enough visibility as a full moon. I’m sure that would have been a riot. I should have taken some night photography out there, it probably wouldn’t have worked though considering the poor state of my camera. If I go back though I’ll come better prepared and get some good long exposure night shots!

We settled into the tent after a while to get some rest. I finally didn’t have indigestion so I slept like a baby that night. I woke up once to water the bushes and the milky way was great again! Again, the pictures! At one point in the early morning I thought I heard a distant howl, but it didn’t worry me that much.

Monday May 28th:

I woke up early, around 6 or 7. I moved around, stretched out, got the food down. I let Martin sleep in. I took the water pump down to the creek and started pumping. It took an eternity to fill up the 48 oz bottle. I opened up the filter and found it was absolutely coated in silt. This stream was clear but much slower and with a muckier bottom than the rest. The water tasted great though, I gulped some down and took the rest up to cook with. I started up the stove as Martin was just getting out of bed. I boiled up some water and had some more eggs while Martin did the oatmeal thing. I asked him if he wanted more minestrone and he had some vulgar things to say back!

While we were sitting on the ground eating, I see movement to the southeast. There’s a lone young buck striding over the hill and into our valley. He doesn’t notice we’re there for quite some time since we’re sort of behind this large bush. When he does notice he watches us for a minute or so. I wave at him. He doesn’t seem to care, and keeps walking west minding his own business. Martin shoots an imaginary gun and we make jokes about hauling him back and how impressive his tiny little antlers are. He goes down into the creek (which has deer turds everywhere already) and that was that.

The cold morning got hot very quickly. Its amazing how much more extreme the temperature was when the air wasn’t heavy with wind swept sand. It didn’t take long to pack up camp and refill our water bottles. Cleaning the filter made for a much easier time pumping. At around 8 -9 we left. We continued west along the skirts of the dunes and very quickly ran into Medano creek proper. We had a nice leisurely hike along the creek in the partially shaded undergrowth. Occasionally we could spot hikers on the trail way to the north. The poor suckers didn’t even know they had a choice. There were tons of deer trails and side trails there already so we didn’t even have to feel bad about the impact on the ecosystem. Eventually we hit another campground of sorts. There was another solar composting toilet which I put to use. We even saw a herd of deer, again they weren’t too skiddish of our presence but a little more weary than the lone ranger at breakfast.

We ran into a couple along the creek and after that we saw people in the far distance. Not long after that we hit the 4WD road itself! We hoofed it along the road south and ran into a parking lot. It’s funny how just a few days alone can make a few cars and people seem like a bustling hub of humanity. An or two later we were closing in on the amphitheater parking space. You know you’re close when you see overweight and elderly folks waddling around. A troup of people on mountain bikes went by, it looked like they must have been having a hard time peddling in that thick sand! Finally we reached the car! It was a very welcome relief, I had run out of moleskin and needed some better medical supplies for my feet!

We rested for a bit, threw away our trash and I changed into some fresh clothes I left in the car. I took of my shemagh and that’s when I knew the adventure was at an end. I took off my socks and we started the car. We stopped at the camp store, I bought medical wrap and tape for my feet. We patched up and left the dunes behind us. It had been a great time there and I know I’ll be back again.

We stopped at a Mexican buffet in Alamosa and gorged ourselves sick, then waddled out and started the long drive home. We crossed over the Rio Grand before ascending into the Rockies, San Gabriel National Forest, with tons of beautiful sights along the way. Vast open fields with horses and gigantic snowy wooded peaks in the distance. I wish I could have taken pictures but the shutter on my camera had finally been compromised by the sand and it was over exposing everything. Our HHR made it back with no refueling whatsoever! We stopped at Martin’s dad’s in Denver to do laundry and freshen up before heading back to Martin’s place in Boulder at around 11 pm. I hauled my gear in and fell asleep  on the spot.

Tuesday May 29th:

Just a day in Boulder hanging out with Martin, I won’t cover too much as it was pretty mundane. I rented a bike and we pedaled all over town. There were so many trails, I was truly blown away! There were hoards of pudgy adorable prairie dogs all over the place and a tunnel that looked like an international airport for birds. UCB was a gorgeous campus too, they had three different telescopes there! We ate a big Thai lunch and then I slept most of the afternoon. (Hey I was tired!) I returned my bike and we went out for drinks. Martin and I beat each other at darts and then we headed to the Mountain Sun Brewery. If you go to one bar in Boulder (and you like beer), go there! They give you home brewed samplers for a given style: IPA, dark, amber; and you pick the one you like. Martin’s classmates met us and we traded stories. It was a fun night, maybe a bit too fun for Martin. His last whiskey shot made him pretty sick. Aw well, better than what happened to me when he came up here!

Wednesday May 30th,

Tried to get un-hungover with some fancy tacos. I had to reorganize my stuff so that I wasn’t taking anything “dangerous” in my carry on. Martin put one gallon of gas into the HHR and we headed to the airport. Dropped off car, shuttled to the ticketing spot, checked in bags, and hung out at the book store for a bit. Then Martin and I high fived and parted ways.

I had just gotten through security and was heading for the tram when this little kid (found out later he was 13) asked me how to get “out.” I thought maybe he needed an escort or something but half way up the stairs I realized he was trying to get to his terminal and he didn’t have an escort. We just missed the train and had to wait for the next one. Apparently his mom had dropped him off, didn’t want to pay the extra $30 for the escort, and was already an hour away from the airport and didn’t want to turn around. Since he was at the same terminal as me it wouldn’t be hard to try and get him to his flight.

We got of the train and booked it fast enough to get him there but not to draw unwanted attention. We ran to the wrong side of the terminal, so I looked at his ticket to make sure we found the right gate. Then we ran all the way across to the other side. I was carrying his big luggage suitcase for him to save time. When we arrived at the gate the flight on display was different. We thought we’d lost the race… But NOPE! This girl overheard our worries and asked if were looking for the San Diego flight, and that it had been postponed to 5pm and moved to another gate. I explained I was just helping this kid find his flight and since she was on the same one she agreed to help him out. It turned out to be at the same gate as my flight so we all walked over there together.

Before I boarded, I gave the kid a Clif bar and made sure he had money for food, then said goodbye. Thinking back I should have given him my Scientific American from my other flight and told him how rewarding science can be. The kid had a rough family situation it seemed. Divorced parents, going to live with his aunt and sister in San Diego for the summer; I felt like I had done a good deed helping him out, but just wish I had some quality life advice for him. Hopefully my example in helping him out said something.

The flight home was okay, the layover in SLC wasn’t too long but the airport was ugly and the Wendy’s salad I bought was horrible. I flew into Seattle at 55 degrees, raining, and took the light rail and bus all the way home. Even it was only a week, it still took a while to adjust back to being home, it felt different for a little bit. I had to decide which job I was going to take. The decision had torn me up inside and bothered me throughout the whole journey, but I feel like I made the right choice for the right reasons. Mackenzie was happy I was home, it had been a rough time for her all by herself. Being in my own bed felt great! I slept well and woke up to a whole phase of my life. My dreams were sand and stars.

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