We're "rOcK StArzZ!!".........

Nope - that's not water.............

Not sand.................

It's weird.

It's "rock".

Or, maybe not...........

I'm quite certain it has some fancy-schmancy geological name that I probably should have read about somewhere at sometime...like in high school or something..but I've slept since then, so I don't remember....

Anyway....the rock formations were awesome. Everywhere we turned some rock somewhere was smoldering or spewing or dripping or steaming or oozing....

Gee, when I write it out it doesn't sound all that great, huh?

But it was cool to see!

We stopped to look at some old cabins, long ago abandoned.

As I peeked into one window, I spotted a really smooth rock. (On the ground.... sounded for a minute like I saw it in the window, which would have been silly..) It was like a river rock, all smooth and perfectly round. Cool to the touch and pretty.

I picked it up and showed it to Randy who was in the truck. He smiled.

The "how nice"kind of smile.... Then when he saw that I was going to put it into my pocket, his eyes got all round and his head started shaking in the "no!" thing I often see while window shopping....

I shook the rock at him, smiling in the "Oh yeah!" way I do (..when window shopping..) oh, and I was smiling - no the rock...

Anyway, he shook his head more violently than before, so I thought "Well, he certainly doesn't want this little 'ol rock in his big 'ol truck, fer sure..."

Hrumph.. Grumpy Gus...I put it down. So he could see. Made a big deal about it.

I walked around the back of the cabin and saw a smaller version of the rock, which I quickly put into my jeans pocket. AhHa! I have a smooth rock to paint artsy-quotes on! WhooHoo...sneaky me!

When I got back in the truck, Randy told me he had read that to take ANYTHING from the park was a FELONY!! ...( and Randy is a "letter-of-the-law" kind of guy, which is really truly wonderful...really...he never goes one mile over the speed limit...which is, ah........... wonderful...and ..yeah...wonderful... )

So, OK, it was cold outside, the rock was cold to pick up and it was cold in my pocket - UNTIL he told me about the felony-thing. Then it started burning a hole in my pocket - burning GUILT that is...

I felt so bad AND guilty that I couldn't bear to tell him I had STOLEN a small rock (actually a pebble in my mind..) So.. I decided to toss it out the window. Good plan!

One small problem...since it was cold out, the window was up. And, we don't have electronic windows.

Yeppers, the crank kind. The kind you really can't hide that you are rolling down...what with your whole body going around in circles....rollin', rollin', rollin'.....

But I got it down, and tossed out the pebble (OK, rock...)

Randy didn't miss a beat.

"Tossed out that rock in your pocket, huh?..."

Yeah, he's a boy scout-citizen-ship-award-kind of guy.

The thing is, he's right.

I felt sooooo much better.

Can I get a girl-scout award? How about a Brownie award? How about a..............brownie!

So have fun. Don't steal rocks....or pebbles...and get ELECTRONIC windows, for Heaven's sake!
me