Hot Tea

In 2007 I had the amazing opportunity, given to me by the amazing Brit, to go to China. China is one of the most interesting places that I have been to. Brit found this amazing deal with a tour group through the Chico Chamber of Commerce that included all of our meals, hotels, and tours while we were in China. We ate an obscene amount of Chinese food, although I guess anything we eat while in China would be considered Chinese food, but I digress. At dinner every night we were given the choice of water (with no freaking ice), 7up, or tea. I tried drinking water, but after the tiny cup of water we were given, which never got refilled, I went for the tea, which was refilled constantly. I swear, they refilled the tea after every sip it seemed like. Anyway, my whole point to this is to establish that while I was in China I developed a liking for tea. I am not sure if I like tea, or if I have just built up a tolerance and now I drink it to make me feel sophisticated.

Either way, I am now a tea drinker. This has been great during the winter, when it is cold and I need to warm up from the inside out. On days like today, however, it is a nuisance. I try to multi-task, so while I was sipping my ridiculously hot tea, I was moving equipment in and out of the van with one hand, and delicately holding my tea with the other. I don't know what in my little pea brain makes me think that this feat is possible, but every time I try to do something while I have blazing hot tea in my hand the same result occurs; I end up fighting back tears while my hand sizzles from the tea that has spilt on it. Today was no different. While I moved some bananas, my hand tilted and cooked my hand to a nice medium-rare pink. I yelped.

After I nursed my hand back to health, which included pouting, fanning my hand, and jumping up and down, I started to rethink my tea drinking. Luckily I made it through the whole ordeal, which was nice because the rest of the day was quite beautiful. We had a short ride today which landed us in Green River, Utah. Green River happens to be about a 30 minute drive from Arches National Park. Pictures will not do this natural beauty justice, but I posted them anyway. Arches is one of the most majestic sites I have seen.

The only thing I can even compare it to is the Grand Canyon, but it still has it's own unique elegance that really can not be compared. Tomorrow we cross into another state as we leave Utah and head into the Rocky Mountain state of Colorado.