Charlie Brown's favorite exclamation

Good grief.

I'm in Colorado with the family for the next six days. It was a long drive up. Seventeen hours, I think. It's beautiful, though. I'll try to get some pictures posts, but no promises, as I do not have my own camera with me (this negligence caused by yours truly not packing until the night before). It's close to 10,000 feet altitude here, and I feel it, like a wimpy girl who lives at sea level most of the year. Quite honestly, I could sit in the living room of this little house re-reading the Mitford books for hours and be content with just resting. Part of me is sad there's internet, but another part of me rejoices I don't want to be on much. There's a little mountain with patches of snow out the big windows, and it's so foreign from Houston suburbia's culdesacs and suburbans it makes me happy.

I had the oddest sensation driving up yesterday, through a valley with gently rolling grass surrounded by pine-crested hills. I had a vision for a moment I was twenty, and I was rambling through the hills in a pair of old jeans rolled at the cuffs and old tennis shoes, next to a man I loved, with a black Lab dashing out and back and around us. The sky was cloudy, and one of us had a red Chevy Avalanche pickup, or had borrowed it, and we were just being together, and it was so simple and so lovely I'm hoping it wasn't idle imagination and will come to pass someday.

And then I think, Oh my, I'm going to Oxford in nine days. England. Out of the country without my family, which is a glorious thought with a sense of freedom like I'm a bird free from the nest. And then I realize again (the thought repeats) I am going with a group of people, none of whom I know from Adam. They're all from Baylor and should be excellent travel companions. The bold side of me, roaring with adventure and confidence plans to play along like I've been at Baylor my entire collegiate career. But the timid side of me, the one I've tried so hard and succeeded decently in muffling over the past year is frightened to death.

Oddly, with all this trouncing about in my mind, I'm not anxious. Perhaps that elusive process of growing-up truly has visited me in some small way.

EDIT: prayers for a quick resolution much appreciated - Baylor has apparently cancelled my housing request, something I did NOT want them to do, and now they're saying they're out of rooms on-campus...