Another week of my summer vacation has gone by and I am actually excited about going back to school to see my friends next week. It has been really hot here this week and Grandpas back seems to be getting worse. It has made him and everyone else at the ranch a little grumpy. Dad has decided to cancel our annual trip to the mountains because of Grandpas health, but Grandpa is insisting we all leave tomorrow with or without him because as he says to my Dad, "you already paid for the cabin". So, we might leave later today or early in the morning tomorrow, but we might not go at all.
Meanwhile, (a word that cousin Bruce suggests I use to switch to another story), earlier last week, Dad, my friend Tom and I went to Los Angeles to attend a meeting of people who work in the government that talk about how much water people will have in big cities. There was people there from Las Vegas, Phoenix, Arizona, and other places. Dad is always talking about how there isn't much water where we live and that someday soon people will have to pay a lot of money for it. There were people outside of the building with signs that said "the people own the water" and other stuff like that and some were shouting things. I did learn a lot about the Colorado river when we went to the grand canyon on our way home from Missouri last month and learned even more in Los Angeles about it. My school toke a field trip last year to the Hoover Dam and now I understand how it helps save water for people so that they can live where there isn't much water and as Dad says, without it "folks in Phoenix wouldn't be able to keep their grass green". After a couple hours of those government people talking, Dad told Tom and I to go walking around inside the building because we were getting kind of bored, especially Tom who looked like he was going to start crying. We walked down the stairs and then talked with a security guard who didn't seem interested in the colorado river because I asked him about it and he just looked annoyed that we were talking to him. Then we started talking about movies and he seemed a little more friendly. His favorite movie is a movie called "Falling Down" about a guy who can't stand living in Los Angeles anymore and goes crazy. He said that he sometimes feels like that guy. I said to him maybe he should move to the country where there isn't so many people and he laughed. He said that he would get bored in the country because there is not much to do and both Tom and I looked at him funny and said there is a lot to do. The security guard named Dave didn't seem too sure about that and said "I wouldn't know what to do with all that fresh air. It would probably make me sick." Tom turned to me and whispered "Lets go back to the boring meeting, this guys weird." I said ok then shook Daves hand and wished him good luck. After the meeting, we went out for burgers and milkshakes and it seemed like finally Tom lost that look of pain on his face. When we got back to the ranch later that night, Grandpa and Mom were arguing about one of the horses and Dad had to calm them down. Grandpa took two red pills and I started to tell him about our day in Los Angeles and about the government people and the security guard named Dave and how hot it was there and about our burgers and milkshakes when I looked over and realized that Grandpa was sleeping. Mom looked over at us and said quietly "finally".