Week 1 pt.1

Coming up here is a strange-Pandora’s box experience. I feel a bit like I am smashing open Zeus’s head and watching all these sand-colored babies pop out of a Black Mesa sized crack.
Maybe that’s overwrought.
The two and a half hour drive up here never feels long anymore. I’ve had to have done it hundreds of time by now. Mostly it feels like a tumble-weed filled time machine.
My father drove me.
Not long after we passed Cameron, we hit rain. The rain out there, by the dinosaur tracks, doesn’t sink into the soil. It sits on the surface, the land is a giant puddle. The clay under the surface dirt expands when it comes in contact with water which makes it impossible for water to sink any further.
“They line stock ponds with this clay” my father says a name I can’t remember. “It’s a cheap way to keep water from sinking into the ground.
I feel like my ears are stuffed with this clay.
When I get up tomorrow morning, I will head over to the middle school first. Apparently, if I want to have any interactions with the students, I will need to be fingerprinted and receive a special access card out of Virginia. It will cost 50 dollars. But my HURA equipment funds will probably got towards that.Apparently, though, if I want to go hang out at the school, I should just show up and sign in at their main office.
Small town life, expect small time complications.
When I expressed concern about the unplanned-ness of my visit, my mother told me “Everyone knows you’re coming,”
I feel slightly prodigal. I am making every possible effort to leave my preconceptions in Tsegi.