I was told I should check out the Garden of the Gods. I didn’t bother to look up what this was before showing up. I stopped at the visitor center first. It was packed to full capacity with pushing, shoving, unhappy people. The postcards were 69 cents a piece, despite the fact all other postcards everywhere in the country were only 35 cents a piece. I rolled my eyes. I looked out the overview and decided to go make a go of it after staring at a map. Thunder was still following me and big angry black clouds swarmed the skies. Sure enough, as soon as I parked in the main parking lot to do the main trail, it started pouring like no one’s business. I don’t mean it was just lightly raining either, it was coming down so hard and so fast that rivers formed on the sidewalks and formed riptides. The drains set up to catch the rain were being quickly bypassed by 90% of the water. I decided to just drive around the park. It was a tiny park but pretty.
The rain had washed away most of the obnoxious people and uncontrolled children. I got out of the car when it let up for just a bit. I took few photos of the balancing rock and drove onwards until I found another little place aside the road I wanted to check out. I crawled behind one of the vibrant red rock formations, ahead of another loud screaming family. Parents here seem to utterly detest their children, yelling at them in angry voices whenever the slightest opportunity allowed, things like, “ICE CREAM?! ICE CREAM!? We’re not going for any fucking ice cream!” Every other car had a Jesus fish on it. I wondered why these miserable people were even here in the first place.
Eventually I made it back to the main trail, stepping out for only a few moments to take a few quick photos. I was surrounded on all sides by lightning and wasn’t daft enough to think that the rain wasn’t going to start pouring again soon. Some boy scouts were ahead of us on the path, spitting and cursing, and behaving as most of the scouts I had come across in my life. Wee little assholes, the whole lot of them. Scout’s honor?
The park was indeed beautiful, the paths were nice and easy. It was merely the massive influx of horrible people that pretty much ruined it for me. I went back to the visitor center anyway for a magnet. While I was in there it started pouring again. I made a mad dash for the Jeep but only managed to get a quick cold shower and a free wash of my clothes. I was soaked to the bone. I was laughing.
If you are enjoying Catching Marbles please consider adding a dollar or two to my limited gas money fund so I can continue going on adventures and sharing them with you! Thank you!
