Sunday drive

Rocket Boy wanted to go somewhere this weekend, so we planned the outing for today, and then we had to decide where to go. We considered Paint Mines Interpretive Park near Colorado Springs, which is a long drive but very fun when you get there. Then there's always the cabin. The twins don't like going there, but the South Park rec center pool is open until 4:30 pm on Sundays.

We've been trying to find an electrician to rewire the rental house, but most of the ones in the area are so booked up they don't even return calls. On Saturday we were given another name, called, and he said he could come by between 6 and 7 pm -- oops, today. So we had to think of an outing closer to home (we usually don't get back from the cabin until 9 or 10 pm).

"How about Idaho Springs?" Rocket Boy suggested. I don't love Idaho Springs. When I think of Idaho Springs I think of...

1. No place to park.
2. That 24-hour diner we used to stop at 20 years ago that is now an auto parts store.
3. That restaurant on the edge of town that we've stopped at many times -- the Wildfire? Wildflower? -- and had many forgettable meals, problems with the twins misbehaving (that's part of my memory of most restaurants), and once when we stopped there at the beginning of a driving trip to California, I realized I'd left my phone charger at home.
4. The ice cream/candy store that is always crowded and expensive.
5. The main street of town crammed full of people walking slowly, sweating, carrying crying children, looking like they came there to have fun, but they aren't having any.
   
6. A decent public restroom, but you can't get to it because there's no place to park.
   

But it's relatively close to Boulder, maybe an hour's drive, and RB suggested a picnic along the way. I hate picnics, or rather, I hate assembling picnics. I'm OK with eating picnics that other people prepare. Rocket Boy volunteered to make hardboiled eggs, which are our picnic go-to, so I said sure, let's do it.

I didn't sleep well Saturday night, beginning with nausea (probably caused by the fish & chips I ordered at Murphy's Tap House -- I really should stop eating fish & chips, but I love it so much). Or maybe it began with all the bad news yesterday. Another grocery store shooting. Ten people killed. A young man, a loner who nobody liked much, with a lot of guns. I didn't dream anything bad, not that I can remember anyway. I had a dream about riding my bike to a book group meeting, along a lush green street I'd never seen before in Boulder. Sillers kept meowing and waking me up. When I finally dragged myself out of bed, around 8:30, I felt like a zombie. 

But all I had to do (after breakfast and feeding the cats) was put on my shoes and come along. I could do that.

As we were backing out of our driveway (much later than planned), Rocket Boy suddenly hit the brake, hard. "Whoa!" he said. "Look what I almost hit." I looked. "Over there," RB said, pointing. It was an animal of some sort. A large -- bird? "Is that a turkey?" I asked. Indeed, it was a wild turkey. We had a deer behind our back fence a few days ago, and bobcats, mountain lions, and bears are not unknown in our neighborhood. But I've never seen a turkey. And it was alone, separated from the rest of its flock. As we watched, people walking and biking by stopped too, pointing, and getting out their phones to take pictures. "Well, if we'd left when I'd planned, we wouldn't have seen it," Rocket Boy said.

We took 93 to US 6 and from there to Central City and the park that's there, above the city. We've never been there when there was more than one other car -- usually none -- but I guess things have changed. There were at least 8 cars there! It was a little girl's birthday party, and the shelter where we usually sit was full of people and balloons and food. In addition, there were a few people fishing in the lake. So, OK. We pulled a picnic table under a bush for some shade -- except that the bush didn't have any leaves yet, so I got a little sunburned -- and got out our picnic. While we ate, the party continued, but eventually broke up. But more people came: a mom and grandma and two kids, a car full of teenagers, and more fishermen. I wonder if this is the new normal for that park? We will have to come back later in the summer and see. I'm curious now.

The teenagers were interesting. There was a white girl with long blond hair, the lower half dyed turquoise, and three Black kids, one about the girl's age (16 or 17) and two younger, maybe in middle school, or one middle schooler and one late elementary schooler. The older teens climbed up the curly slide to the little covered area at the top and told the younger kids to leave them alone, that they would buy them ice cream or whatever they wanted from Carl's Jr if they would Just Leave Them Alone. I figured the younger kids were the older boy's younger brothers. 

Rocket Boy had gone for a walk around the little lake, so the twins and I sat at our picnic table and listened. We were fascinated, wondering what the teenagers were doing at the top of the slide that required solitude. Kissing? Taking drugs? It seemed that their options were limited.

One reason why this was so interesting to us was that there was some drama at the twins' middle school this week. A girl in their class was reported missing on Wednesday and found on Thursday, but the story gets more involved by the day. It turned out she was hiding at the home of a (rather unattractive, if his mug shot is any indication) 51-year-old man that she'd apparently been seeing for a while, after meeting him online. Her mom had taken out some sort of restraining order against the man. Her friends all knew about it and had been helping her with the relationship. 

Rocket Boy keeps saying the girl sounds like a flake, but I think she sounds like a completely normal 14-year-old, and as evidence I offer: all her friends. 

Her mother must be losing her mind.

When I was 14, I was not involved with any older men, but believe you me, if there had been any around, I would have been interested. My friends and I were mostly experimenting with alcohol and drugs that year -- my friends also tried cigarettes, but I drew the line there. The boys in our grade were too immature to do anything dangerous with, but seriously, if I'd had access to any older men, Roe v. Wade (which had been decided just a few years before) would have been very important to me. 

One sweet aspect of the story is that we actually saw the girl the night before she disappeared. That was the night of the pops concert -- band, orchestra, and choir. She was in the choir and had a brief solo. She did very well. Clearly, she wanted to be in that concert, wanted to sing her solo. Once that was over, she was ready to run away with a creepy old man.

Rocket Boy came back from his walk, so we packed up the lunch things and left the teenagers to their misbehavior. We took the "Oh-my-God" road down to Idaho Springs, which I could have lived without, but the scenery was pretty. Once we got to Idaho Springs, we drove to Indian Hot Springs, because Rocket Boy had been promising the kids that we would go swimming. The cost was $21 per person and we only had time to stay maybe 90 minutes. The kids didn't think it looked like much fun, so we decided "another time."

Then we proceeded to downtown Idaho Springs, but of course there was no place to park. They charge for parking now, which I think is a good development -- it must bring in a lot of money, which I'm sure the town can use -- but the parking lots were still 100% full. Finally, Rocket Boy dropped us off near the very nice public bathroom and went off to find a place by himself. Maybe 15 minutes later he was back, and we went off to the ice cream/candy store, which is now just an ice cream store. Oh, I guess they had fudge too. 

While we were in line, Rocket Boy's phone rang. It was the electrician. His wife wanted to do something today and he wondered if he could come over Monday afternoon instead. Of course, Rocket Boy said yes. We all got ice cream and sat down to enjoy it. When we finished, we walked across the street and went to a European pastry shop that I had noticed, where we bought some rolls and such. Then we drove home, getting home around 5pm. 

And since then I've been alternating between writing this blog and reading about the grocery store shooting in Buffalo. It sounds so much like our shooting 14 months ago. The only real difference is that yesterday's shooting was racially motivated, as so many shootings are these days. The Boulder shooting has never really been explained, because the shooter still isn't considered mentally competent to stand trial. They're pumping him full of drugs at the mental hospital in Pueblo, trying to make him "competent." I gave up a long time ago expecting an explanation for what he did, but it probably wasn't racial.

There is another difference between the shootings, though, that I read about later. The grocery store in Buffalo is in a former food desert -- and now that it will be closed for a while, that neighborhood will go back to being a food desert. I always had lots of other places I could shop in Boulder, while we waited 11 months for them to re-do our store.

Rocket Boy made dinner and we finished a little while ago and then went for a walk. The lunar eclipse is halfway along. Maybe tomorrow I'll finally plant my flowers.

Only 9 days of school left, only 9 days of middle school. Then we move on to something completely different.