Strange Happenings

DENVER/ESTES PARK/FT. COLLINS, CO - I don't know how I forgot about this. There have been several strange happenings on this trip and I certainly hope there will be more. But yesterday, something really weird happened.

In Estes Park, as I mentioned before, my brother and I stopped on the side of the road to take some pictures of elk that were cruising through town. I stayed on my side of the car, snapping pictures on both sides of the street. After a minute, I realized I didn't have my sunglasses on and that I didn't have them on in the car. After a stream of obscenities accidentally slipped out, I told my brother that I forgot my sunglasses up on the side of the mountain. He asked me to clarify where exactly and I explained it was two stops back or about six miles back up the mountain. I remembered taking them off, folding them, and setting them in the gravel while taking a few pictures of the sun shining through the snowstorm. My brother stayed in the car at this stop.

Anyway, I complained for a minute then resigned myself to buying a new pair of sunglasses today. It would probably cost about the same as the gas necessary to push up the incline again. I took a few more pictures and was getting ready to get back in the car. My brother suddenly asked, "Are these your sunglasses?" He reached down and picked up a pair of sunglasses laying a few feet away from the car in the grass on his side of the car. They were mine.

I don't know how the hell they got there. I know I forgot them on the side of the mountain. I'm terrible with short-term memory (it's easy for me to forget a pair of sunglasses, for example) but I'm great at mentally tracing back after I screw up. Kind of a curse.

I forgot those up there and I never set foot on my brother's side of the car. I don't know. Weird.

I just shook my head, put my sunglasses back on, got in the car, and drove on.