Out in Colorado

Maybe now that I'm on vacation I'll have a chance to write a little more. Truth be told, I don't know if I'm even ready for this vacation. The last couple of weeks have been killer work weeks, partially because the week before and week after a vacation are always uber-busy trying to cram all the stuff you need to do while you'll be out into the time before and after your jaunt away. So really, vacation isn't all that much of a vacation. It's more of a shifting of when your free time is. I'm sure it'll be a fun time, though.

It's a family vacation. My mom, dad, two brothers, and myself are staying in Colorado Springs for the week to see the sites in the area. We hit up the Colorado Springs zoo today, which was pretty fun. It's a well put together zoo and has a very diverse set of animals to visit. I do feel somewhat melancholy when I'm at a zoo, simply because I don't like the concept of locked up animals, especially those that should be out in very large open spaces (wolves, elephants, giraffes, etc.). Although it is nice to get to see animals that I usually otherwise wouldn't.

One animal that I really have a hard time visiting in any zoo is the Silverback Gorilla. I don't know what it is, but whenever I look at a Silverback, especially when our eyes meet, I feel like there's something more going on in that animal's head than any other animal in a zoo. It's like you can sense there's something more than simply instinct present. A self awareness maybe? Potentially a realization of their captivity or the reality of their situation? I don't know, but whatever it is, I feel almost as if they are partial people and keeping them confined is somehow immoral.

Now today is the first day of vacation, but it almost feels like I've been here for a couple days already, most likely because I had a 6:45 am flight from Minneapolis to Denver after a night of not really getting any sleep. So today has been a long day. The flight itself was also a tad bit stressful, mainly because it was the most turbulent flight I've been on. There was a chunk of the flight, probaly about a solid 10-15 minutes where we were being thrown all over. Cups, magazines, and anything that was loose was pretty much getting tossed every which way. It was a little nerve wracking, especially when there's a sharp move of the plane in a certain direction or a loud slam as the wind or dense cloud hits. Thankfully the rest of the trip was only normal turbulence.

It's getting to be late (10:30 pm home time, 9:30 here) so I'm running mostly on pure caffeine and delirium. Sleeping tonight is going to be a heck of a re-energizing experience that I'm quite looking forward to.