Have you ever been a tourist?
Have you ever been a tourist in a small town?
How about a tourist in a small town walking very slowly?
These people – these people in the crosswalk, they could be you:
You people drive me insane, with your slow walking and your taking up the sidewalks and your labored, unpredictable weaving and bobbing. And that’s just the lot of you that aren’t drunk.
You do this, and the walk to the store that usually takes me 3 minutes ends up taking me 15. Just to walk three blocks.
Oh, I hear you. You say things like, “Hey, stop right here. Take a picture of me in front of this staircase.” And you stop JUST as I’m sliding up behind you to pass. So instead of making a clean sweep around the outside of your hilarious “Pike’s Peak: Getting This High Would Be Illegal In Most States” t-shirts, and I touch your boob.
And you think it’s funny. Lady, I’ve touched three boobs just this week. It ain’t funny.
You stand in the middle of the sidewalk – right smack dab in the middle – and you talk to each other. And then, when I go to pass on the inside, you poke up your arm to point at something, and you jab your finger in my nose.
You let your kids run willy-nilly all over the sidewalk, as they scream and throw pieces of funnel cake at each other. That funnel cake doesn’t just magically disappear, people. It has to go somewhere. And that somewhere is usually the bottom of my shoe .
I get so frustrated. And it’s all because I NEED TO GET TO THE STORE TO BUY CASHEWS BECAUSE I’M REALLY CRAVING THEM.
I need to get there. NOW. Fast.
I’m in a hurry and you guys are SO slow. So slow and so stoppy and oblivious to the other people around you.
You make me say things like, “This town is so annoying. Why do I live here?”
Until one day, when the clouds are roiling after a mid-summer storm and I’m in my usual hurry to get back home with a handful of fruit and a camera that’s about to get wet. My head is down and I’m watching your feet.
I’m watching them, because sooner or later, they’re going to stop.
And sooner or later, they do.
And one of you points and says, “Oh my gosh, Dad. Look at the sky! Look at the trees! Look at the mountains! This must be the most beautiful place in the world. I’m going to live here when I grow up. It’s going to be killer. Everyone here is so happy.”
You made me look.
And you were right.
Everyone here IS so happy. When they slow down. When they take the time to look at their town as if they were tourists falling in love with it for the first time.
So thank you for slowing me down. My pretend need to get to and from the store in a hurry isn’t as important as the joy you’re feeling.
Keep walking slowly. Keep taking your pictures. Keep pointing at things and exclaiming, so I can look at it with new eyes, too.
Just please keep your finger out of my nose.
Did You Know?
You can apply this whole story to your life, too. No matter where you live.
I’ll betcha a dollar you get irritated sometimes when people in front of you drive slowly. I’ll betcha you huff and puff a little under your breath.
I’ll also bet that you forget to look around and see the beauty in the small things you’re passing.
Years ago, I had a friend who fell in love with a guy. She was out visiting him one spring, and he was showing her his drive to work. The scenery was beautiful, and she commented on it repeatedly.
Finally, he said, “Before you showed them to me, I never noticed the trees.”
Notice the trees. Especially when someone in front of you is slow. Or stopped.
But keep an eye out for the boobs. Those puppies come out of nowhere. Trust me.
Help Crunchy Betty With a Little Eggshell Issue
Man, if I were in a town like that, I would walk slow and dilly-dally too! Especially since I live in dirty, polluted, hot, sweaty, gritty Atlanta. When I’m walking down a city street here I just want to get out of the concrete canyons as soon as possible. But, some of the residential areas are nice. No small Colorado town, though.
Thanks for the reminder to slow down and appreciate the beauty around us. I have been blessed to live in the Shenandoah Valley the last 6 years. It is glorious here! I asked God to help me never take for granted being able to see the mountains and green hills around me every day, the farms and trees and incredible beauty of this place. We are now moving back to Texas, to Houston this time, to flat land and I am trying to drink every bit of what I see here now. I pray that I once I have moved, I will be able to truly appreciate what I see there, too, and not grumble, that I will be content. I believe I will be, because I will be where God wants me to be.
BTW, you live in one of my favorite places. Our family has spent a lot of time in Colorado Springs/Manitou Springs. I also love you photo. Mammatus clouds are so neat and with the mountains makes for an incredible picture. That’s one thing you do see a lot of in TX, but not here, so there’s one thing to look forward to. Not only that, we are expecting our first grandchild, so moving back to where our kids are is the best thing of all.
Being a tourist just isn’t a complete and fulfilling experience without a little accidental boob-graze from a local. 😛 way to make their trip a memorable one. haha
OMG, this is the funniest thing I have read in a looong time and yet, so so true!
Like so many on here, I have spent many years living in tourist towns (in Florida) ending with 10 years in Orlando. Mouse town. Many years working in the theme park industry and sadly becoming jaded with all the beauty that surrounded me daily.
When we moved to the prairie outside of the Springs last year,everyone we met was so nice, but talked SO much! Didn’t they know we had places to go, appointments to keep – heck, we were BUSY!! And slowly but surely, we loosened up. We realized there CAN be a different pace to life, a different perspective on the world and those changes are up to us. Now WE are the ones that walk slow and talk long 😉 And it’s like a breath of fresh air.
Love your blog – keep it up forever! (and get paid!! I vote for ads lol)
Yay! HI HI HI! Your link is in my post for tomorrow. It was soooooooo (ooooooooooo) nice to meet you! I can’t wait to chat again, yo.
i don’t think i could love your blog more. …or your pinterest for that matter. it’s always amazing. i’m adding you to “my favorite ladies” on 1517. hope that’s ok 🙂
Ah, this is too funny! Yep, gotta watch those boobs. LOL!
Tourist town here, the beach, north san diego county. Most people, (guys anyway) don’t mind being slowed down to watch the scenery. It can be annoying waiting to get by while someone gawks in a chick in a thong.
When people don’t want to give up half the sidewalk, I’ve been known to say, which side would you like? The left or the right? I try to make a painful situation into something to laugh at. Let’s dance by each other, should we?
Oh Manitou Springs… I’ve been that tourist before and loved it – but I understand where you are coming from. It is nice to be slowed down now and again.
That’s awesome 🙂
The biggest thing I noticed when I started riding a bike was how much you take in the environment around you. You notice the slight downhills, where you used to think it was flat. You notice the temperature changes as you get lower or nearer to the creek, or into a little wind corridor. You notice the surface beneath you. You feel which way the wind blows. You know the seasons because you smell the same flowers along different parts of your travels. It’s like all of a sudden you have turned on these senses that were off, and you didn’t even know they were off. You find all these things in your suburb that you never knew where there, because normally you’d get in your car and drive straight past them.
If I could change anything in this world, it would be to make people more aware.
You make me miss bike riding. Ah, I want one of those olden day bikes now with the basket and the baguette in it.
Lovely. You made ME more aware. Thank you.
Lovely post. We have a few tourists around here, I’ll have to remember this when one of them is annoying me. Unless it’s on the freeway, nothing good to look at there. 🙂
It’s so true, your freeways. There isn’t a lot to look at there, is there? The smog. Somehow, somewhere I bet you can figure out a way to appreciate the smog.
Okay.
That’s stretching it.
As long as I can remember, I’ve always loved to see the small subtle things around me that everyone else misses. It’s just in my nature I guess.
I used to have to commute past The Happiest Place On Earth, so I can completely relate to your angst! But living in touristy towns in touristy counties in a touristy state… it kinda just gets a person used to tourists, I guess. I’ve also been treated poorly as a tourist myself a while back, and that made me really aware of how important it is to be nice to visitors.
I don’t doubt that you’ve loved to see the small subtle things, girlie. You, of all people in the world, seem like you’ve got this innate, beautiful ability to see the good in just about anything. It’s so endearing.
I don’t live in a touristy town, but I loved this post anyway. So funny and so true! And for the commenter that lives in Branson… I have family that lives in Hollister and we go to Branson every year for a family trip. We know all the back roads so we get to go around all the tourists. 🙂 I feel your pain. 🙂 Crunchy Betty… I LOVE YOU! I just learned about you through your guest post on Nirvana Mama. You’ve got a new reader! 🙂
Well, actually I live in Hollister, too, but nobody knows where that is usually, and I work in Branson. Who is your family? Just in case the world really is that small. XD
Too funny. My cousins are Kayla and Kyle Prince. @Crunchy Betty… sorry for taking over your comments!
Ha! I love you guys and your connecting here. Don’t EVER be sorry for that. Ever in a million jillion touristy years.
I hope y’all know each other by proxy. That would be the best Crunchy Betty story ever.
XD I WENT TO HIGH SCHOOL WITH THEM!!! I just saw Kyle the other day, actually. Presley’s, where he does security, is where I got my first job and where my dad still works. Ahaha, this is the best thing ever.
Yes, I think this too. I only moved to Minneapolis a few years ago. I had no idea where anything was and I had to drive slowly to find stuff. I still do sometimes. When I catch myself getting angry at people I think of all the people that must have been angry at me!
This is SO weird. Everyone who’s commenting on this post either lives somewhere I used to live, or reminds me intensely of Kansas.
I lived in Minneapolis about 10 or 11 years ago. Jeezopee it’s beautiful there. Even the winter.
You know what reminds me of Minneapolis, though? Driving. Driving and listening to Coldplay’s Yellow on the radio. That was all the stations ever played.
(PS – That stick figure drawing offer is still good, if you want it. Hee!)
Yep, I hear ya.
I live in Branson, Mo. Highly tourist-y, especially for the elderly. Also, it’s a pretty hilly area. So it’s a nightmare when one is pushing it to get to work on time and finds oneself driving behind a car from a flatter state where the roads have no curves. Not to mention the slowing down to get a good look at the scenery and all the big theaters and go kart tracks and old-fashioned something-or-others, and all the thousands of pretty lights.
But these hills are gorgeous, and we have lakes and creeks and just a lot of beauty. So I will still love it.
Oooh. Branson. I’ve been a tourist there SEVERAL times. And I’m pretty sure (given that I was between the ages of 7 and 18) that I was one of “those” tourists.
You’re so lucky to have all that lush green around there. SO lucky. The humidity, though … well, that’s what air conditioners are for. Heh.
I usually really hate where I live. It’s a small, middle-of-nowhere, closed-minded people kind of place. The kind of place where you can’t get away with reading Harry Potter without someone accusing you of devil worshiping. The kind of place, where the first question upon meeting someone isn’t “What’s your name?” but “What church do you go to?” The kind of place where NASCAR and college football rule, and chicken farms are the way of life.
I hate it. Sometimes, I wish that I had the ability to just run away.
But then, I look up while I’m walking the dog in the middle of the night… and I know I’ll never see such bright and beautiful stars anywhere else in the world.
And that makes all the rest worth it.
Seriously. It sounds EXACTLY like the town I grew up in. My thing, in that small town, was taking walks at the crack of dawn out amongst the wheat and sunflower fields.
It’s so true. Wherever YOU go, there YOU are. So make the most of wherever you are.
LOVE your comment, by the way. It’s so very poetic. You should blog it.
I don’t think I could ever manage to get myself up at the crack of dawn for anything, ha ha. BUT, my back porch has seen some very beautiful sunsets in years past. Oh, and in the spring and early summer, the storms leave the most wonderful petrichor you’ve ever smelled in your life. I wish I could bottle it, and spray it around my room.
Ha ha, I do have a blog on my site, but I don’t update it too often, but perhaps I’ll throw something in sometime this weekend.
I love this!
We lived in a tourist town for 7 years. I remember the getting annoyed. We called tourists “foreigners” under our breath.
This week we vacationed in another tourist town. My son said he wanted to live there some day, it was so awesome. I pointed out that he used to live in a town just like it. . .he asked “when?”.
Perspective. It’s a good thing.
Your comment made me think of how we used to live in Kansas, and my mom would say how boring and not-pretty it was. But I was so in love with it. Sunrises over wheat fields are one of the most beautiful things a person could ask to experience.
Ah. Beauty is in the eye …
I love this so much! We spend our summer in a beach town and it is crawling with tourists. Especially this fourth of July week. But, it’s still beautiful and fun and awe inspiring. I’m glad you slowed down to notice. This is a lesson I’m forever trying to teach my kids. Slow down, breathe, enjoy things and people and places. Great post!
Did I tell you that I’ve taken my kids out of school, enrolled them in online school and am taking the show on the road next year? Not sure where our travels will take us, but we’re shooting for full blown adventure. I’ll be sure to protect my boobs from the locals!
Oh. No. Way. When I read this, I totally got goosebumps. I am SOOOOO happy for you and proud of you! You and your kids are going to rock the “real world” learning world.
Plus, your adventures will make the best blog ever. You’re still planning on blogging through it, right?