A Vanishing Art

Brittney readied herself by the restaurant door and I clutched my Coca-Cola as another flash of lighting lit up the grey sky right above us sending a deafening “CRACK!” into my sensitive ears. She started the count down, "One, two, THREE! GO!", we both sprinted for the car through the heavy rain, the likes of which I hadn’t been in since the Islands. I scrambled to open the car door but it was too late, I was turned quickly into a sticky, sweaty mess. When we pulled into Starbucks a few blocks down I dried off with napkins from the condiment counter. We had spent the day touring around Chattanooga to viewpoints and different sights

We got back from Florida Monday night at 11:30 and we decided that we were all too tired to hang out anymore and all of us hit the sack. We had a great time but not without a little drama spattered here and there. It seems that with men, or at least this man, tact is not one of my strong points and I realized that on this trip. I think that I might of messed up couple of good friendships… “Stop feeling sorry for yourself!” is what is coming to mind right now but I’m still writing. Funny thing is that I can’t get away from hostility…I pulled over today on the highway to help a couple get there car started again with some jumper cables, but when the guy went to grab for the keys they weren’t there. He blew up at his girlfriend, who in turn, began to sob uncontrollably yelling at the boyfriend to give her her phone back, but for some reason unknown to me he had thrown it across the road into the bushes. I stood there jumper cables dangling from one hand and stunned look on my face watching this couple tear each other apart with screams of “You F***ing idiot, how could you lose the keys in 3 minutes!”. Makes you want to stop and help someone, doesn’t it? Oddly enough today I also met two teenage kids honestly running from the law who were sitting in front of a mall asking for money. One assaulted a police officer and was strangely proud of it and the other was a registered runaway. It was a real positive friendly day on the road…yup…uh huh.

I got in to Denver from Tennessee at 8:05 am. I was sweaty, tired, and sore. I met the coolest people at Southern. Two of which were Matt Turk and Reed Kraus who called me at 11:30 pm to go night climbing with them. I told them I was totally down as long as I got back at 3:00 am to make it to my Nashville Airport Shuttle leaving from Chattanooga at 3:30 am. Let just say that we climbed hard and the beautiful Full Moon that was out really influenced us to try new things on the rock.

I spent the afternoon in Denver touring the Capitol building and taking pictures. The art museum cost money and since a dinner at Taco Bell is more important to me than Rembrandt ever will be, I decided to forego the expense of looking at hanging masterpieces. For old times sake today I looked up a local magic shop and drove to it. Upon arrival I noticed that the shop was incredibly disorganized and looked more like front for drug sales especially when the young pizza eating employee asked me if I was looking for any “Special Trick” today. I walked out. I don’t think they had taken an organizing inventory in a couple of years. Oddly enough they were selling T-shirts that stated “Magic is a Vanishing Art.” What the heck ever happened to David Copperfield anyway?