wait, what?
I think it just hit me that I have less than two days left in NCCC.
I can't believe it's almost over. Even though I have been so ready to leave for months, this has become so much a part of my life that I've still been putzing around, keeping weird hours, and not feeling that separation at all. There is so much I need to do tomorrow!!
Transition week has been a few hours of outprocessing and meetings sprinkled in a mindless slog of room inspections and packing. That's all I really have to say about that. Going to Utah with Dani was though, as she said, the perfect ribbon to tie off this whole year. I think it was my first legit roadtrip, with our own little rental car and all, and it was a success. It has been a shame to have spent our year serving the Southwest region and have had little opportunity to properly enjoy the natural beauty here, aside from seeing the Rockies beyond the dining hall windows.
I will say this: thank god for being young, and being able to pack a week's worth of sightseeing into 1.5 days. We started driving Friday night and arrived in Moab, Utah around midnight. On the way, we were totally distracted by all the stars we could seethrough the windows, so we pulled into a sketchy truck resting area andgot out to look at them. I can say this with little exaggeration---there were more stars than night. The Milky Way arched from one horizonto the other, like a glittering white band. I have never seen it asmore than a cloudy smudge before. We ended up sleeping in our car at a La Quinta parking lot to wait for the park to open in the morning. At 6am, we sat up, cleaned ourselves off at a gas station restroom and made our way to Arches National Park. We spent the entire day hiking and seeing most of the arches before blearily laying out at our campsite watching the stars.
It was amazing. My favorite part was when we stopped to rest by the Tapestry Arches. We could see them across a deep dried river bed and I suddenly knew that I had to try to get to the other side. So while Dani rested, I began crawling across, going off the main path, and finally made it up there. The whole day I had been moving far slower than Dani and getting tired of trailing behind. It was liberating to go at my own pace and do this awesome thing.
I am excited for the shock of leaving here. I know there's no way to anticipate it exactly and I am looking forward to that sudden realization, and whatever clarity may result from that blessed distance.