We drove through the prairies

12.05.2009

One of Ally's roommates woke me up early this morning by turning on the light and getting ready for work. I couldn't sleep after that. It was about 6 a.m. I tried to sleep for a while, and then just bit the bullet, got up and started getting ready to go.

Adam, Ryan and Sylvain were of course, all still sleeping. I made some breakfast and pretty much just tried to get everyone else up to go. I am excited to meet Heather, and I don't want to get there too late!

I drove out from Denver on the 1-70 and about 2 hours into the drive, what do I see? A freaking TUMBLEWEED flies across the road! I had difficulty controlling my bladder, that's how excited I was. I thought I'd see one in the desert, but nope, there it goes, over the green rolling hills of Colorado. Just magical. The tumbleweed.

When we are about an hour outside of Wichita, we call up AJ to let him know we are on our way. There happens to be a frozen custard place where we order a bunch of the creamy goodness, and then get on our way.

We arrive just on time to find Heather and Kelly chilling out with some microbrew at River City Brewing company. They have made friends in the waiter, Dan, and he brings us FREE pizzas and later on, FREE beer even. What a guy. I decide he deserves a TPod t shirt.

Heather is so cute and funny, I'm glad I met her. She gave me her Jesus action figure that caused such a big fuss in the forums a few weeks ago.

Our car is like the United Nations, we have the guy from China, the guy from France, the guy from rural Ontario who likes to shoot guns and... me. So, we've been having a lot of debates on our long drives everywhere. One recurring debates is about gun control. Do you feel uncomfortable with guns? Why? Should they be banned? Is hunting a valid hobby? Etc. etc.

So, we ask Heather and Kelly about it. They are both not so comfortable with concealed weapons, but they seem to be pretty cool with hunters. As we cross the country, we find that this is the general consensus among the people we meet.

Before I know it, it's time for Heather and Kelly to go. We say goodbye to them and then we head out to AJ's place. It's just down the street. It's a really big house where a whole bunch of classical musicians live. Their friends seem to be there any time of day or night, partying and playing music and chatting.

Once again, I pose the gun control debate question. This quickly morphs into a discussion about crackheads. AJ's friend Ben (who is joining the Peace Corps and going to Tanzania soon) says he used to shoot them in the head with a BB gun.

.....

Hold on a second.... WHAT?!

"These people are human BEINGS, Ben, what's your freaking problem?!"

"No they're not, they're the scum of the earth."

"OK fine, you can think that but you're just perpetuating the problem by shooting them!"

"Well they moved out of my neighbourhood after that..."

I am speechless for a minute....

"WHERE DO YOU THINK THEY GO!? THEY JUST GO SOMEWHERE ELSE!"

Ben abruptly gets up and leaves and AJ says he is tired and goes to bed. Yeah, I'm tired too, see you guys in the morning.

Frozen custard