I Celebrate My Independence By Hurling Myself Down Mountains and Such

So I’m home. Sure felt like a longer trip than it was. And I would have stayed longer if it had been up to me. Spent a few days in Las Vegas. I slipped into a Jacuzzi the first night. These two little girls made me their new best friend against me will. I don’t know why children are so attracted to me. The four year old kept trying to sit on my lap, while the six year old kept playing with my hair and necklace. I kept trying to casually slide away, but they cornered me! Asking me all these questions and telling me every single thing they did, ate, saw, said, and thought in the last week. They were totally adorable. I talked to them and made them laugh. I knew they must have had parents somewhere, but I never saw them. It was pretty uncomfortable.

The view from our fifth floor room of the Cancun was awesome. We faced mostly the South Point, but when I looked left, I could gaze upon an ocean of lights. Really, all those sparkly orange lights looked like the shifting sea. There was even one of those oscillating lights of an airport right on the brink between darkness and sparkles. It looked just like a lighthouse perched on the edge of a dark mass of shoreline.

When we got to Cedar City a couple days later, I was attacked by more small children, though small children I actually knew. Like the Jacuzzi girls, Amalia and Donovan insisted on sitting on my lap or holding my hand or tickling me or playing with my hair. I swear, I’m about this close to pulling a Spears and shearing it all off.

No, I talk about the little uns like I’m ninety and constantly crotchety, but I really love playing with them. They’re tons of fun.

I got my cousin Holly to start reading through The Story. It’s so exciting to talk about it with someone who is so smart and helpful! She seems to genuinely enjoy it so far. I really needed a fresh perspective on it, and motivation to work harder.

I got to blow some stuff up on Friday—which is always interesting with my family. Especially when my uncle who blew his finger off with a cherry bomb when he was a boy is present, carting a few hard core (illegal) fireworks with him.

My cousin who’s my age and I’ve never really liked and is pregnant and it makes me hateful in a terribly jealous sort of way was flaunting her big beautiful belly. Whatever. I don’t want a baby.

Saturday was the start of the real adventures. First, there was climbing through the Mammoth Caves. I got to drag myself, belly sliding on dirt, legs squirming through a few narrow lava chutes. It was so awesome! The first one we went in was really long and big, with high ceilings and real slimy mucusy mud EVERYWHERE. Only my cousin Holly and I ventured through the muck to reach the rocky climb out. At the foot of the last ascent was a pile of ICE water that I, of course, stepped in. Granted, I didn’t have a flashlight. I was relying on the occasional shadow-casting glow of Holly’s light in front of me. I’ve never been in such darkness in my entire life. There was this one point where she rounded a corner and climbed up and over a jut, and I was standing on this slippery rock in the pitch black, surrounded my pools of mud I couldn’t see. It was so awesome!

The second shaft was the best. It had really small openings, and ceilings so low that we had to drag ourselves across the cold ground with our arms. This one wasn’t wet like the first, and it was just Holly and I because no one else could fit. So I got my own flashlight J It was so awesome!

The last one was like the second, except it was shorter and really rocky and there were a bunch of other people in there, too. I bruised my hands pulling myself up over the rocks, and Holly knocked up her shins real bad. We were so amazing when we got out. We were covered in mud.

Then we stopped by the creek and I learned how to fish on a river (and wash out my shoes!). I didn’t catch anything (I only cast five times, and one of the times I got stuck on a rock). But my dad’s last cast caught a little guy, and he let my real it in, and let it loose, playing around with it a bit until it got off. I’m still not sure how I feel about it. The sensation was strange, what with those tugs on the pole, and me caught up with how the fish might be feeling. The spot was beautiful, though. I may proclaim disdain for Utah now and again, but I can’t bad talk those streams and wildflowers and quaking aspens against that mountain backdrop.

After some questionable grubbage on pork sandwiches (ick!), we began our biking down the mountain. Once we got my brakes working right, I was really enjoying the downhill flight, rocky trail and all. Then a damn rock had to go and attempt a homicide. Yes, that’s right, I crashed mountain biking for the first time in my life. And I didn’t even have some of the excuses of previous trips, like last time when I had no shocks and my hands bled most of the way down, or the time before when I had trippy brakes and had to drag my feet on the rocks to stop. No. I had my gloves on, brakes fully functional. I just caught a concealed boulder cutting across the trail. I twisted sideways, three-sixtied on my bike, flung it in the air, landed on my left hip, tucked my head between my arms and rolled. And rolled. And rolled. And rolled. And rolled. Then another rock stopped me.

So, I laid there for a bit, because my left side was ON FIRE. My brother Kyle, who was just behind me, took the bike from off my legs, while my dad told me to just lie there, and my uncle said to relax. My dad rushed over and checked my head, while I told him I was okay, I was okay, I was fine. Then they all laughed, and Holly took a picture on her phone. Wonderful people, huh? I excused myself behind a bush so I could check if I was bleeding in my crotch, because it was stinging so badly. Miraculously, no broken bones, no blood. Bruises ALL OVER my body, nausea for the rest of the day, but I sucked it up and finished the ride. I think I got whiplash or something, too, because my neck STILL hurts.

Pretty exciting, eh? Did you actually read all of that? What do you think of this post? I don’t really like writing about things that happen to me. It’s boring. This is why I don’t write in a diary, either. I usually prefer writing about ideas and feelings and opinions. But I haven’t posted in so long, I just wanted to assure all you faithful readers that I do indeed exist, and I lead a rather dangerous and engaging life. Really. I do.

Ta ta for now. I’m off to exercise my independence in another semi-suicidal way.