Continental Breakfast - The Plains
I went down early for breakfast, as I had the whole trip long, amazed at the unusually bland Continental Spread. White texas toast, butter, plain egg patties, grilled sausage and a sparse bowl of 'fruit salad', not a lick of hot sauce to be seen. The saving grace was the container next to the Cheerios filled with dried Fruit Loops, obviously intended for kids and not adults like myself. As is the case in only this vanilla town and maybe the twilight zone, the regular cheerios were the clear crowd favourite.
I sat down with my cup of medium roast coffee and listened for longer than I should have to the conversation happening just a table away. I couldn't help myself. My ears perked up at the bashing of my very own generation. I suddenly found myself wishing I had the black cherry and spiced chai Jam in Alberta with me for my incredibly dry toast, my tongue felt like it was sticking to the bread and it was uncomfortable. "Kids these day's just don't have the proper work ethic'. I tried to smack around my over worked ears, figuring I heard them wrong. "They feel like their above using their hands to get the job done." I looked down at the cracked skin surrounding my cuticles before digging into my fruit salad. It was sour to the taste. "I hired my own children for the summer, they didn't lift a finger the whole time". If I weren't pre-coffee I would have asked them, like the smart-ass I am, if they ever considered the parenting to be the problem. Instead I sat, listening, patiently but on embers.
"Don't get me started on immigration..." I suddenly found that the dry texas toast was not sitting well with me and I had to excuse myself just in time to hear them some how seamlessly segue to the hot button topic of gender.
As we drove away from those one dimensional monsters, my gut empty and yet churning, my eyes lit with fire, I scanned the vastness of the prairies, a place so never ending it redefines the term. I looked at all that was in front of me, the possibilities, as endless as the horizon. How could anyone think small with a view like this? I felt like I was using parts of my vision that I had never known existed before, in order to see it all. My eyes had never felt more opened.
That was until the sun set. I watched as that bright bulb of light dropped off the edge of the earth, mimicking the gulp in my throat down to my gut. I suddenly found myself wishing for a piece of texas toast, plain, to settle the knots.
