Summer is ending!

OK, don't mean to freak out too early, but summer, seriously, is almost over. How I miss the days of my own youth, when school started right after Labor Day. The twins have two full weeks left, that's all. Picture Day is August 12th and the first day of classes is August 14th. The LAST first day of classes. They will be seniors! This is so freaking me out. Anyway, we started thinking, OMG, we haven't taken a trip, and so I planned a quick trip around the state of Colorado, including various college tours, to be taken next week or the week after. But the problem is, we really wanted to go to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, and it's been closed due to a fire (part of it is reopening next week, but it's probably still really smoky). So I kind of lost interest in the whole thing. And the kids didn't seem interested at all. 

In the meantime, I thought we should get busy and start taking college tours, so I signed us up for a free guided tour of Colorado State University on Thursday. Teen A didn't want to go, since he's not planning to go to college, and Teen B didn't want to go either, since he is planning to go to college but he's nervous about it, but in the end I convinced both of them to come along. 

We drove to Fort Collins by a scenic back route, getting there in about an hour and 20 minutes (Teen A drove the rebuilt Prius), and first went to Lucile's for a quick lunch before our 2 pm tour. We sat outside under an umbrella -- it was very hot -- and although the service was quick, it wasn't the best experience. When the waitress came to take our drink orders, Rocket Boy insisted on ordering food too, which upset Teen B because he hadn't looked at the food menu yet. (He always takes a long time to decide, which tends to annoy his father.) I ordered for him, eggs benedict, and he ate some of it, but he was angry. I had the rice pudding porridge with raspberry sauce, so delicious, but I could only eat half, and I didn't think we should take the rest to go, because it would just sit in a hot car all afternoon. Teen A only ate about 2/3 of his gigantic breakfast burrito, but that didn't seem like a good thing to leave in the car either, and Teen B didn't finish his food, ditto. So all that annoyed Rocket Boy, who hates to waste food.

When we got back to the car, we had a parking ticket -- but that was actually funny, and lightened the mood a little. The ticket was for something called "Obedience to Angle" and it was just a warning, no charge. Apparently Teen A, who had backed into the parking place, hadn't gotten the angle exactly right. It seemed like a VERY fussy ticket, like maybe the parking enforcement officer was in a bad mood because of the heat. We made jokes about it the rest of the day.

Teen A drove us to campus, only a couple blocks away, and we found a parking place right in front of the Administration building. We were half an hour early, so we went and signed in, and waited. There were exhibits to look at, and of course, people watching. Small group after small group filed in, each consisting of one or two slightly worried-looking adults and one grumpy teenager. I think there were about 100 people total -- I had been afraid we would be the only ones. It still blows my mind how many places people were from: Louisiana, Minnesota, North Dakota, Illinois, California. Maybe half were from Colorado. I didn't think anyone except Colorado residents went to CSU -- well, maybe a few people from Wyoming, New Mexico, places like that -- but apparently people come there from all over. 

We watched some videos and listened to a presentation, and then they broke us up into four groups to tour the campus with current students as our guides. They warned us that it would be a 2.5 mile walk, with two flights of stairs to climb, but in fact it was 1.7 miles (I used my app) and only one flight of stairs (we did go down the stairs later, so maybe they were counting that). 

I was blown away by the CSU campus -- so huge, so lovely! Acres of green grass, everything so far apart from everything else, bike racks everywhere because everyone gets around by bike. An enormous recreation center, enormous student union. I kept thinking -- where is the money coming from to pay for all this! CSU is not that expensive, only $13,000/year for in-state. It was all so new looking, or at least so well maintained. I immediately wanted to sign myself up as a student. "Don't you want to go here?" I kept asking Teen A and Teen B. Teen B has never really learned how to ride a bicycle, after his dreadful accident when he was seven, so the idea of a bicycling campus doesn't appeal to him. And of course, Teen A doesn't want to go to college, he wants to get an electrician apprenticeship. So I was all on my own, rhapsodizing about the wonders of CSU. But it was fine.

The CSU mascot is a ram, called Cam the Ram, and there were ram statues all over campus. But of course a ram is just a male sheep, so whenever I saw one I said (to Teen B), "Sheep." "Ram," he would correct me, crossly.

We got into another tussle on the way home -- I had promised Teen B Starbucks, but since Rocket Boy hates Starbucks, he tried to get us to go to a restaurant called Avogadro's Number instead. We drove by it, on the wrong side of the street, and I just knew it wasn't going to make Teen B happy. So I got upset. We ended up at a Starbucks in the south part of town, almost to Loveland, and everyone calmed down there. Then we drove home, arriving about 6 pm.

The day continued, however. Rocket Boy went to a movie at the library, and Teen B, to everyone's surprise, left without telling anyone and went to a concert at Fiddler's Green Amphitheater, south of Denver. With a girl, who shall remain nameless since he won't tell us who she was. The concert was part of the AJR "Somewhere in the Sky" tour. I had never heard of AJR, at least I don't think I had, although I am familiar with at least one of their songs, "Bang." We didn't know Teen B was at this tour until I texted him around 9 pm asking if he wanted a ride home and he said sure, and that he was at Fiddler's Green. I told him he could come home the same way he got there, and he arrived around 12:45 am.

The joy of teenagers.

Teen A wants to go to a concert in Denver in October, someone I've REALLY never heard of called Lil Tecca. He's a rapper. I said I'd use his Social Security money to buy him a ticket. 

I went to my first real concert when I was a senior. I saw David Bowie at the Oakland Coliseum with my boyfriend, my little sister, and her boyfriend. So, you know, I know it's time for the kids to be doing this. I have the usual worries about dangers: drugs, theft, things that might go wrong. You have to let them go anyway. They are ALMOST 18, and once that milestone is reached, I can't tell them not to do things anymore. I can refuse to pay, but then they'll get access to their Social Security money, so they can pay for everything themselves.

*** 

We didn't do much else this week. I saw the oral surgeon for a follow-up on Monday and she said I was healing perfectly and she would see me in November. So now I have to get used to this hole in my mouth. The tooth right above the hole, with the new crown, has gotten very cold-sensitive and probably needs a root canal, so that whole half of my mouth is basically driving me crazy. I chew on the other side, brush my teeth VERY carefully, and try not to think about it.

Everyone stopped taking painkillers this week, even me, and we all went back to using straws, occasionally.

Yesterday Rocket Boy and I decided to take a trip to the cabin, our first all year. We tried to get the twins to come too, but I guess one family trip per week is their limit. So we went alone. The whole way there and the whole way back, Rocket Boy kept talking about the twins, how he missed the fun he used to have with them when they were little, how he wished they'd come with us, how he wished they wouldn't play video games all the time.

At some point, we'll have to get used to the twins living their lives and us just being together, but I think it's going to take some time.

It was a beautiful day to be in the mountains. We stopped at the Cutthroat Cafe in Bailey for our usual lunch, and then continued on to South Park. It turned out that we were in Fairplay for Burro Days, but we just drove on through, didn't stop to find out what would be going on, and headed to Alma. There we stopped at Al-Mart and I bought some ginger beer and ginger ale, because I was feeling nauseated. And then on to the cabin.

The aspen were so leafy and full that you honestly could not see any sign of the cabin. I always like that.

There were lots of wildflowers on the stony ground. I thought, as I always do, how we really need to get a Colorado wildflower book to keep at the cabin. Instead, I took pictures of several flowers and planned to look them up when I got home. But I don't even have a Colorado wildflower book at home, just general wildflower books. Need to address this! I mean, the Internet helps, but books are good too.

We saw: Mountain Harebells (in the photo), Indian Paintbrush, something that might have been a Northern Gentian or some other variety of Gentian, the usual Alpine Daisies, and various yellow flowers including Yellow Stonecrop. Also, unfortunately, I think I saw some Leafy Spurge, which is an invasive noxious weed. If we go back when it's still visible, I should try digging it up. Stupid Leafy Spurge, even at the cabin.

All the remnants of the huge old beaver dam had vanished, but Rocket Boy showed me the entrance to the new dam, and we heard a beaver splash into the water. We also spotted two other beaver dams along the river, so things look healthy in that respect. I always feel as though I should take care of our land up there, but I don't know what that would involve, so mostly we do nothing. Let the beavers take care of it themselves. 

What we didn't see were birds! I used my Merlin app and after a long time it decided it heard a Red-winged Blackbird down by the beaver ponds, but I didn't see one. "Why are there no birds?" I asked Rocket Boy, who of course didn't know. There are not usually many birds, but it seemed bizarrely quiet. Finally RB spotted what he referred to as a Blue Jay, but it was in fact a Steller's Jay, all by itself. We watched it for a quite a while.

We left while it was still daylight, saw a moose in a swampy area near Kenosha Pass, and got home about 8:30 pm. Then we scooped up the twins and went to BJ's for dinner, because they stay open late. The twins seemed perfectly happy to have missed the trip. Oh well. We might go back in a few weeks, probably without them again.

This coming week it is supposed to start out very hot (it is currently 97 degrees and we are huddling in the house) and then get thunderstormy, around about Wednesday. On Tuesday morning we are going to take a tour of CU, at Teen B's request (Teen A doesn't want to come, which is fine). I also want to schedule us for a tour of Metro State, in Denver, possibly on Friday afternoon. I'll see. My plan to tour all the Colorado colleges is being scrapped, but I think that's fine. I think Teen B will stay close to home for college, wherever he goes.

Teen A has a haircut scheduled for Friday, which is also the first day of August. We have one week after that to schedule a last-minute vacation trip somewhere. Will we do it? Stay tuned.