Not In Colorado Anymore…

When you travel, there are lots of little ways that tell you that you are far from home. It doesn’t even take a house falling on your head to give you a heads up, but sometimes, that helps.

I am traveling solo for a roller derby clinic and thrilling in the ability to just explore. It’s novel.

Wait, I don’t have to ask a certain pre-schooler if she has to go potty before we leave the hotel? WHAAAT?

Today, I plan to walk my feet off. I intentionally arrived early so that I could just visit a new place. Yep. Utah is a new place, y’all.

After leaving Georgia, I think I started taking for granted the fact that other states actually sell alcohol on Sundays. And anywhere outside of Boulder, lighting a cigarette on the street is normal.

Here in Salt Lake City, the way I’m going to have to at least temporarily reset my expectations is in how I cross the street.

One way streets are no big deal, I can handle those. But Salt Lake seems to actually have a functioning and accessible light rail system running through it’s heart. As such, even the road implores you to check for traffic.

My light rail conductor even slowed down the train to open her window and holler at some folks walking along the median between the two sets of tracks to get out of there. She reminded them that apparently it IS rocket science to safely cross the street. And then we passed this billboard. No joke.

Art imitates life? Or the other way around?

I feel like the 1920s image of hopping on and off trolley cars is not a nostalgia that they hold truck with here.

Another local thing I’ve noticed is the way you ask whether you’ll dine in or eat out at a restaurant. As in, “Will that be to go, or stay in?”

Maybe it was a one-time thing and not a Utah thing, but I like to think of it as a local color observation.

Let’s go explore some more, hmm?

Mountains on the east…not on the west…got it.

 

~*La!

The Bee’s Bruised Knees

Elle and I are a lot more alike than either of us will probably ever readily admit. In the pursuit of being your own person, sometimes the driving factor is to show who you are not.

And yet, I see Ellie’ s banged up shins next to my own bruised legs and can’t help but think, “Yep. That’s my girl.”

We are not particularly careless, but we are not overly cautious either. I’m a mechanic and like a gardener, getting dirty is pretty much part of the job description. By Sunday, my hands are usually not too gray — unless I work on our cars over the weekend — in which case, forget it. However, my legs tend to bear the brunt of my work. On our smaller buses, the Type As (the rest of the world knows them as Short Buses), I remount the tires by resting them on my thighs and then lifting. Don’t judge. It works. So that’s the twin bruises on my thighs.

Then there’s the abrasion on the outside left leg paired with a two-day-old bruise on the inside. Inside is where I banged my shin after a test drive and outside is where I gouged it BEFORE the test drive on some sheet metal.

It’s cool. My tetanus shots are up to date.

Elle on the other appendage, is a complete mystery. I ask her, but I don’t think she always notices when she gets injured. Mr. Pirate and I have encouraged her from the get-go to dust herself off and pick herself back up again. She cries, but almost always follows it up with, “I’m OK.”

Maybe she’s been watching a bit too much “Paw Patrol” and has accepted the accident-prone Dalmatian, Marshall, as her personal hero?

He really is OK. He’s just still growing into his paws.

Regardless of the why, I think I’d rather she learn to be resilient and aware enough of her own body so that she knows when to sit it out and howl, and when to bounce back with a grin and a wave.

So for all of the Moms like mine who had semi annual visits to the hospital, thanks for letting us learn our limits. We’re out there raising up the next batch of cheerfully bruised kiddos, and I think we’re all better for it.

~*La!