Teatime, Airtime, Bedtime

I have woken up bright and early every day I’ve been in Colorado, between 8am and 9am Florida time, but I feel certain somehow that it will be a great effort upon my return to Florida to rise at the same time. Maybe it’s the difference between waking up on vacation and waking up for work though. One is infinitely more fun to rise early for so I can understand that to some extent. Today I was awake around 6am Colorado time, 8am Florida time, but I had no reason to actually get up and going so I just laid in bed relaxing until 8am when I threw some shoes on and trotted down for breakfast. I live for free breakfasts. They’re the joy of my life, the pride of my mornings, the very best part of a hotel. There’s something so I’m On Vacation about going down to a free breakfast. It’s a bright, welcoming experience that one simply can’t capture anywhere else. The breakfast spread was similar to the one the Hampton I work at offers but they had some differences. The bread they had for the toast was a nice, wide loaf and toasted exceptionally well, and they had some kind of pancake roll-up with fruit inside that I had to try. I also got myself some orange juice and two strawberry yogurts, one for me and one for Jess when she came to pick me up so she’d have some iota of fruit in her body for the day ahead.

It wasn’t busy at breakfast, either because it was only 8am and breakfast runs until 10am and if this hotel is anything like mine everyone rushes down at 9:55am to load up, or because it’s just not a busy day. I saw maybe four people total, maybe five in the seating area as I got my food and headed back upstairs. I briefly checked the tea and coffee station to see if they had any of the Lemon Lift tea Jess likes so much or hot chocolate. They had neither. Pft. Back in the room I got myself situated at the desk area and checked what was on TV for a fun program to watch while I returned some messages and phone calls and did some writing. I was delighted to discover PBS had just started an episode of my absolute favourite children’s program ‘Molly of Denali’! I decided to hold off on the calls and messages and whatnot and just ate my toast while I watched. I felt rather like a child waking up on the weekend to watch their morning cartoons! After that finished I found an HBO channel showing ‘Mel Brook’s Men In Tights’ and threw that on as I continued to eat and enjoy all the fine amenities of my hotel room. In the meantime, Jess and Frank had gone to meet Frank’s friend Caddie for an early morning rock climbing session before Catie had to go to work. They were up and out the door by 8am to pick up Catie at her place. They passed by a house that definitely had a wild party the night before with beer cans and beer boxes all over the yard. Godspeed good partiers. At the gym, The Spot, they had a box of free stickers so Jess snagged on for our waterbottle (giving us two Colorado-themed stickers on it) and they did some bouldering. There was only bouldering at this gym so Jess didn't have to deal with the harness or anything and just scrambled up as she pleased. They had this intesive wall called The Beach that Jess managed to do one of so she was quite pleased with herself!

Around 10am Jess and Frank called me to say they were on their way as Catie had had to get to her lab. Frank asked what the plan was. Jess and I once again told him we had none and he tried to game out an idea for the day in his mind. Jess had suggested the hotel pool but when I went down to check it it was out of order for maintenance so bang went that plan. Frank bounced around a couple ideas but didn’t settle on anything so Jess and I decided we’d figure it out at the hotel and left it at that. I got myself organized to prepare for their arrival, actually got out of my pajamas and made sure my stuff was in order. I didn’t unpack at all really, I usually don’t, so I only needed to pack up my tablet, phones, pajamas, and my book. Jess and Frank ended up dawdling for a while and arrived at the hotel at 11am, which was fine with me as I was happily eating my breakfast and watching my movie. We left the hotel and headed back to Frank’s place, after one quick stop to pick up some groceries and a Starbucks inside the King Supers, where Frank made chicken tikka masala, which was super delicious, Frank really is quite the chef.In 

Food finished we hung about Frank’s place for a hot second, though I used the time mostly to see about repacking and reorganizing our suitcases to see about making sure everything fit for the flight home. As long as we kept our purchases in the brown bag they were currently in and put Jessica’s purse in there before boarding then we would be all set for our two free carry-ons. Frank still hadn’t decided what he wanted to do so Jess checked online to see what was cool in the area. She discovered a tea house, the Boulder Dushanbe Tea House, and said we should go. We had tried to avoid picking things to do ourself as the point of this trip was for Frank (and Dave) to simply show us what they pleased, but as Frank had no ideas Jess made an executive decision. Frank wanted us to take the bus but the walk to the bus stop wasn’t much farther than the walk to the tea house so we just elected to drive it in case we wanted to go anywhere else after. Frank decided to do pay-per street parking but he overshot his mark and we still had to walk a few blocks only to discover free parking at the tea house. Not sure why he didn’t check there to park first, but he had only been once before in winter a year ago so he didn’t seem familiar with the place.

Jess and I had asked Frank if we needed a reservation before we left and he said no, it might be a little busy but it should be fine. Well, we saw a line out the door and realized Frank may have been incorrect on that front. Turns out it was only a 25 minute wait for indoor seating, which we wanted because it looked so pretty inside, so that wasn’t bad. It also turns out there the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, or BMoCA, was right next door and $2 per person so off we went to have a nice half hour at the museum! Inside Jess and I searched for a sticker to purchase for our waterbottle, which now had two stickers and we wanted a third or forth if possible. They had some stickers but nothing that said BMoCA on it so we asked the desk. They said they just had a little ones they give away for free at events and we were like Yes, Please! And they gave it to us for free! How cool! That handled we walked around the museum. Most of the art was created by indigenous artists discussing the earth and our use of it. I love the exhibit with the sound machine making forest noises. Very immersive!

Just as we reached the last exhibit the phone dinged and our reservations as ready so off we popped to the tea house! We got a really nice table right by the window and our server, Ari, was amazing! She let us look at the menus for a bit and brought us water then went over what she would recommend. There were technically three menus for the place, a brief food menu, a short tea cocktail and tea-based drink menu, and a book of teas. Jess had already decided what she thought sounded best, as the resident tea expert of our crew, but Frank and I were undecided and listened to Ari as she talked. She said if she could order any tea it would be the Blue Moon black tea, which funny enough was the one Jess had selected but I guess Jess know’s her teas well enough to know what’s best, and then recommended the Full Moon Spice tea, which Frank decided to order. On the tea cocktail and tea-based drink menu she recommended the Golden Milk, a tea latte with turmeric, which I elected to order. We put in for a small food order of two bao and two samosas, but she had to return to tell us they were out of bao so we just got three samosas! The tea came first and it was a whole experience to drink it! The restaurant brings you the tea pot, or tea pots in our case, and the tea leaves separate in their diffuser to add at your leisure. Once the diffuser is placed you flip a timer they brought and let the tea steep for the perfect amount of time before removing the diffusers to their original plate. From there you pour your own tea and can add milk or honey which is also brought to the table. Jess really enjoyed her Full Moon, while Frank and I agreed the Golden Milk was excellent, if just a touch strong on the cinnamon for my taste. 

For a last minute idea the tea house excursion was one of my favourites of the trip, it was such an aesthetic dream. The whole building is beautiful and was actually fully imported to Boulder from Dushanbe and it was just lovely to sit in there and drink tea! Wish we had something like that in Deland, it was such an experience. After sitting there for some time we headed back to Frank’s place and Frank, once more, tried to decide what to do next as we had almost six hours left before our flight, so four hours before we wanted to be at the airport, which was about an hour away. Frank finally decided to take us the Flagstaff Hill Lookout on our way to the airport. So we finalized our bags, got everything loaded into the car, and began the drive. The drive up Flagstaff was insane, so windy and the views were insane! We saw two deer on the way up also, which was cool! The first lookout spot seemed to be the more popular with plenty of cars but Frank drove us to the second which had, like, 5 cars. From the parking spot it was a short walk to this rocky lookout with an amazing view! You could see everything! Mountains, forest, everything! We tottered around there for some time, creeping closer and closer to the edge as we got more daring. The wind up there wasn’t bad but it did feel very nice and cooling as you stand and bask in the scenery. After a while of climbing around and posing and enjoying ourselves we returned to the car and began the hour drive to the airport.

Frank didn’t have whatever Colorado’s version of an EZ-Pass was but the route you could take with it was less than an hour rather that the hour plus of the regular route, so he took a bit to try and figure out how to purchase that as we drove. He did, eventually, figure it out and we took a shorter route but still arrived at the airport around 5:30pm. From Terminal C we said our good-byes to Frank and headed off to try and navigate this place which has gotten us so lost on arrival. We actually didn’t get lost at all and found our way to C37 in no time so we hit McDonalds and got ourself a little something to fill our stomachs and purchased another sticker for our bottle bringing us up to four total water bottle stickers! We sat in the food court area first to eat, then moved to a window sitting area in C39, as that gate was empty, then moved to a charging station seat in C37 when the people leaving for Boston all took off. We sat there for longer than expected as the flight was meant to take off at 8:20pm but didn’t start loading until then because the flight prior had to refuel or something. No matter to us really, but it put us almost an hour behind our original flight time. Jess and I got seats together when we boarded which was nice and we settled in for our 3 1/2 hour flight. The flight was excellent, very smooth, got our drinks and snacks about halfway through, and we were both well rested and relaxed when we landed in Orlando. 

We had left our car at WallyPark so we needed to get to Terminal A’s bus pickup then text WallyPark that we were there, but as we arrived at the bus pickup a WallyPark bus was already there! Score! Not that texting and waiting is such a hardship, but at 3am it was nice to save even 15 minutes off our estimated time. We arrived at our car and were so delighted to see it and load up and I readjusted to driving my own vehicle. It’s amazing how fast one can get unfamiliar with a thing one does usually twice a day. All set to go we put on our tunes and Jess navigated us home for a 4am arrival at our lovely, wonderful, magnificent, sweet, little house. We unpacked our suitcases, putting dirty laundry aside to be washed the following day, and finally laid down in our own rooms, in our own beds, under our own covers.

This trip was not what I expected but that makes sense as I don’t think I had any expectations. We’ve done so much in the past 8 days and it’s surprised us how much energy we’ve had. Through trains, planes, subways, buses, automobiles, and a whole lotta walking we’ve visited four friends across three states and managed to do so much I sometimes couldn’t write all of it. As I read my first post outloud to Dave and Jessica they both kept adding things to the stories I told, the little details or extra moments that I just couldn’t fit in. I could, I supposed, but I would be writing forever and the three people who read this (Hi mom!) would be reading forever. But I think I got the gist of it and I’m glad I did this again. Looking back at my past posts I’m always glad I kept the logs I did of the places we visited and things we did because it’s so easy to forget. Perhaps you’ll never get all the context or jokes or moments from every post, but as I reread my own writing it all comes back easier. The moments I thought were long forgotten are jogged and I see it all so much clearer than I could if I had just taken pictures. This blog is a labour, but a labour of love and I’m glad to have shared it with you and with the version of me ten years from now who’s reading these very words and smiling.

Boulder in Boulder

I actually slept in quite a bit considering how early I’ve been up the past few days! That tracks though, as a day at faire in the heat and sun is more exhausting than some of the other things I’ve done in Colorado. Jess messaged me around 8:40am Colorado time to say Frank had gone for a run then we were going to sort breakfast. I got that message around 9:30am when I woke up officially and checked my phone. I decided I didn’t really want breakfast as I had plenty of leftover Olive Garden, so I told Jess as much when she came to my room to use the makeup bag which was in my luggage. I microwaved my leftovers, made a cup of coffee in the Keurig and added some of the Hazelnut creamer I had absconded with from the lobby when we first arrived, and sat at the desk to do some writing and eating which we awaited Frank’s return. He also decided he wasn’t interested in breakfast and we got packed up to head out. Jess microwaved her to-go fettuccini alfredo to eat on the car ride and we checked out at the front. Our hands were somewhat full as we headed out as we didn’t take the time to repack our suitcases to fit our new purchases so we had to hold them seperate and we also had coffee and food to hold but we were determined to not make two trips so we made it work!

In the car Frank began the process of forming some kind of plan for the day. He knew for certain we were heading to the Garden of the Gods for a walk around but after that he wasn’t sure. He had a presentation he had to give that he’d been finishing up the night before for his Masters program so he had to be back to his place to give that, but he didn’t have anything official in between those. Jess and I had no preference and also didn’t have any ideas, as we told him all of the planning was in his hands this time, so we let him sift those thoughts out himself as he drove. We found an awesome parking spot at the Garden of the Gods, which is a large public walking, hiking, and climbing park populated by enormous sandstone rock formations. We stopped in the bathroom, filled our water bottles, and followed Frank's lead on the walkways and paths. It was hot out, but not too hot by Jess and my standards. A nice walking heat as far as we were concerned. Frank disagreed, as he loathes the heat, and basked in every shadow and any shade as we walked. We mostly stayed on the path, discussing whether Jess and my usual tolerance for the sun in Florida would be the same or different here in Colorado. Florida is closer to the equator, but Colorado has a higher altitude. We didn’t look up the answer, as there must be one somewhere, just had a little walking saloon as we discussed what we thought and why we believed that. It’s nice to give your mind a little intellectual stretch, even when the answer could easily been Googled.

We walked for about an hour, possibly more but no one was keeping track. We found a little off trail spot where you could do a little casual climbing and Jess and I had a good time trying to find and reach the highest point in the area. Jess made it highest first and felt rather proud of herself. Additionally, Frank showed us some places he was planning on climbing eventually once he accomplished a little more in his bouldering training and eventually we ended up back where we started at the Kissing Camels rock formation. The rocks do, indeed, look like kissing camels! We refilled the water bottles again and loaded up into the car for the almost two hour drive to Boulder where Frank lives. We stopped about halfway through to get gas and Frank wanted a Starbucks and who am I to say no to coffee so we pulled into the King Super’s that had a Starbucks inside and had a look. We found a couple energy drinks we wanted as well, having finished the ones bought prior, so it was a multifunctional stop. Jess and I ordered the Caramel Crunch Frappuccino, the other new drink Starbucks is offering, as we already ordered the Java Chocolate Mint Frappuccino the last time we went, and Frank tried to ask about a sugar free Mocha Latte but the woman at the desk I don’t think heard him correctly and gavesort of a roundabout answer as to whether the chocolate syrup used in the mocha was sugar free so Frank just ordered a regular coffee.

With that we were off again towards Boulder though we made one additional stop at a Mexican food market to pick up some ingredients for lunch, as Frank wanted to make some tacos. I stayed in the car while Frank and Jess went in as I am terrible about getting in and out of Frank’s Jeep and it didn’t seem worth the attempt for a quick shopping trip. We got to Frank’s place around 2pm and I returned a call to my Aunt Eileen as Frank and Jess worked on lunch. I ended up not being hungry at that particular moment and forwent any tacos in favour of just munching on the grapes Frank had offered. We all sat and ate then Jess got changed and she and Frank went for a walk while I remained at his place to do some writing and just generally whatever I wanted. 

Jess regaled me with tales of their walk upon their return as Frank got ready for his Zoom presentation. According to her they got in the car to go to Pearl Street, a hopping street in Boulder. There were all these signs proclaiming ‘No Paws on the Cement’ so naturally they see people all carrying their dogs instead of obeying the obvious No Dogs rule. As they walked Frank had them stop into every shop that sold athletic wear to do some kind of cost comparison between items. He seemed to enjoy it and who’s Jess to stop someone’s fun! Somehow he knew every employee in every store. All of them. One guy just came up to Frank and said “We met before” and mentioned some race they both ran a couple weeks ago. As someone who’s naturally not social I can’t tell if these experiences are normal for extraverts or if this is a Frank Exclusive. Somewhere in those travels Frank checked his phone and saw they had an hour and half left before his presentation and they turned around to walk the other side of the street back. On this other side they poked into some bookstores and stopped in a metaphysical shop where some woman was receiving a tarot reading. Signs around the store asked for customers to be quiet as a reading was in process, which was great because Jess naturally eavesdropped and heard the tarot reader floundering as this woman talked on and on about some money she thinks she deserves to win in some court battle she’s in. No nice way to tell someone “Yeah, this isn’t a therapy session, I just read the cards.”

After that delightful little experience, they stopped in a bar that advertised a Dream Spritzer Barbie Cocktail and for some reason Frank ordered two even though they agreed originally they only wanted one. Jess thinks the bartender was just so enthusiastic about his job that Frank got swept up and just got two. The drink came and it was cute, pink with a strawberry, but tasted like BITTER. A nightmare to drink. Basically actively fighting you for drinking it. The most undrinkable drink Jess had ever experienced in her life. She finished it but only out of spite cause they spent money on it. As they choked it down the bartender happily brought water upon seeing they had ordered the Barbie drink as he seemed to know how terrible this drink was. Following that they wanted a mouth cleanse and headed on over to ‘Trident’, a local coffee shop that Frank loves and ordered mocha’s to bring back to the house with them. They arrived around 4:30pm and Jess decided to make more tacos for her and I as he presented and we sat around having a chit-chat.

Frank came in and out of the room as other classmates presented and had Jess try on some spare rock climbing shoes he had which were just a little loose on Jess but she said she has thick socks so it’ll be fine, to which Frank said “You wear socks with your rock climbing shoes?” like we’re the weirdos in that question. As Jess and I are loosey goosey getting ready Frank informs us that the friends of his we're meeting up with are already at the rock climbing gym. This was the first we heard of meeting up with anyone anywhere and apparently Frank had told them we were going to leave as soon as his presentation was done. In typical Frank fashion, this was not conveyed to us until that second. We finished getting ready quick as we could and headed out, taking my suitcase with us.

We took a 20ish minute drive to the rock climbing/bouldering gym Frank frequents and met up with three of his friends, Michael, Anne, and Eric. Jess got a harness from the front when we signed the waivers for climbing but I elected not to get one or shoes as I figured I would simply sit and watch everyone else climb. I'm not trained in belaying and I'm not a great climber so I figured I'd sit it out. That didn't end up happening. I was sitting on a bench by the cubbys and was planning on sitting there the whole time but I couldn't see the wall Jess, Frank, and his friends had chosen to climb. I saw lots of folks sitting on the bouncy floor the climbing walls were surrounded by so I figured it'd be fine to bring my stuff and set up on the floor where they were climbing. I did for a bit as I watched and photographed Jess's first climb of the evening with Frank bolaying her. She made it quite far for her first rock climb since we went to our local DynoClimb several months ago. After she climbed she asked me if I wanted to take her shoes and harness and give it a try. I figured I should, while I'm here, do at least one climb for the fun of it.

Frank offered to belay me and Jess tied the weird knot into the rope attached to my harness. I initially forgot to switch shoes and my foot promptly slipped off the first stone to remind me why they have special shoes for this in the first place! Having rectified the shoe situation I started to climb the same path Jess had to see how far I could get. Frank had me do a test drop early on so I would be mentally certain the equipment was secure and he knew what he was doing. There's a lot of trust in bolaying but Frank is actually super adept at this climbing thing so trusting him was pretty easy. It was nice to do a little test fall though to see how it worked. I got up about to where Jess had gotten when my neck felt a twinge and I had to stop for a bit and just hang there until it felt better. When it felt remotely normal I started up again. I got almost to the top when I had to call it and have Frank lower me down. I was suddenly aware how high I was and got nervous about going down. I didn't think I would fall, but I was afraid the higher I got the more likely I was to slam myself into the wall going down. No real logical reason for this, that's just what I thought. As I was slowly lowered down I saw that wasn't true but I couldn't know what I didn't know. My neck was still hurting somewhat too so going down felt like a good idea for that reason too.

I was a little bummed I hadn't made it to the top but it was my first attempt at belaying so I did fairly well. I gave Jess back her shoes and harness, figuring I was one-and-done with the whole thing and watched her try a different course. And she made it! All the way to the top she went, taking brief pauses and letting out random shouts because she claims "The shouting helps". She made it to the top so something worked! After that the crew moved to a different wall in the gym and Frank pointed out a wall he thought would be good for me to climb. Turns out it wasn't roped properly for me, who doesn't know what I'm doing, to use but I put the shoes and harness on anyway and found a path I thought looked good. This time I was determined, I was going to move quick and give myself no time to think about things. I know I don't have great arm strength but I have exceptional leg strength and great flexibility so I decided to just keep moving my legs higher and make my hands and arms secondary. And I did it! Made it to the top as fast as I could with Jess hollering at me an old call-and-repeat mantra of Dave's, "Easy day! Price of cake! I got this!" as well as "I wanna win more than I wanna quit!" Both of which are highly motivating and very empowering to shout while performing any kind of physical activity. It really is a mind game up there to just keep moving up.

Frank got hooked up by his friend Eric to climb one of the super hard courses while Anne and Michael asked us to join them doing bouldering over on the other side of the gym. We cheered Frank on until he reached the top but cracked open our energy drink and headed to the boulder wall when he decided to try a couple things on that wall again. At DynoClimb, Jess and I had done ok at bouldering. We really just putzed around for a few hours testing walls and routes and seeing what we could do. Here though, with a crowd of Frank's friends watching, we did much better! I say we because yes, Jess and I did swap the shoes back and forth a number of times as we found routes we wanted to try. Anne offered to get me her spare shoes so we could both go at the same time but I said it was no matter. Jess and I liked to stand and cheer each other on every time we climbed so having two shoes would've been pointless as we never would have climbed at the same time anyway. That was true for all of us really, we all just stood and watched each other climb to offer encouragement and guidance about foot and hand holds if necessary. 

Frank and Eric joined us eventually, though Eric left not long after that. We all did a number of climbs and Jess and I made it to the top of nearly every one we attempted. I did slightly better but given I work out significantly more than Jess it would have been very embarrassing for me if I hadn't been. Anne and Michael left around 8pm but Jess, Frank, and I kept wandering around the bouldering area finding new routes to attempt. At 8:50pm I remembered our flight is at 8:20pm on Tuesday and I needed to check in. I ran over to the cubby we stashed our stuff in and pulled up my emails. We got B 40's as our numbers so not excellent but not bad either! Gives us a chance to see who's sitting around us and whether they're going to be "I don't use headphones" type of folks before commiting to a location. After that we only did a few more attempts before heading out. Jess and Frank debated where they were going to get dinner for their date night and said we should pick up some fast food for me in case I got hungry at the hotel. I decided some McDonald's sounded good and off we went!

At the McDonald's I got myself two double cheeseburgers and two small fries off the Buy On Get One For A Dollar menu and shared the second set of fries with Jess and Frank. The Hampton wasn't far and we were there in under ten minutes to check me in while Frank tried to find a nice restaurant that was still open. I got checked in and we all headed up to the hotel room so Jess could get changed into one of the dresses in my suitcase. We originally got sent to 317 but the door flashed red and green, which usually means the battery for the card reader is dead or dying, and wouldn't open so Jess went back down and got the room changed to 216. That door also flashed red and green but did open for us, so we decided not to worry about it. We got inside and I got myself situated while Jess got changed and Frank called a restaurant to ask how late they're kitchen was open. When Jess was dressed and primped and Frank got confirmation about a restaurant officially open until 11pm they bid me goodbye for the evening and headed off.

It was strange having a whole hotel room to myself without anyone else I knew in any other room. I took a nice long shower, got into my pajamas, and watched a 'Murder, She Wrote' marathon on the Hallmark Channel as I ate my burgers then got ready for bed. I could have stayed at Frank's place with Jess and Frank as he has a spare bedroom and did offer it to me, but his A/C doesn't work and he only has the one fan and if it's a choice between staying at my sister's boyfriend's place with no A/C on an inflatable mattress for free and a nice hotel room with my own bed, bathroom, air control, and free breakfast for $40, it's an easy choice. I just told them to swing by and pick me up in the morning whenever they were off to do something. What something? No idea. This whole trip Jess and I relinquished control of planning to both Dave and Frank and elected to just go with the flow so whatever they wanted to do was what we were doing. Dave seemed to have a more clear picture of what he wanted to do with us than Frank, but so far all the things we’ve done with Frank were fun! I’ll have to just wait and see what tomorrow brings!

Fairy Tales and Faire-y Tears

Faire Day! So exciting! I don’t know why I get so excited to go to renaissance faires, I’ve been to many before and usually they’re all about the same, but the ambience! The atmosphere! The potential for purchases! Mmm the best! Jess and I were, once more, up fairly early. About 7am Colorado time but 9am our time so I went looking through our suitcases to find the pieces of my outfit Jess had forgotten to set aside for the morning, specifically my belt and socks. The belt was in her suitcase but the socks were, for some reason, in mine even though all the socks we packed otherwise were in her suitcase. Weird.

We were up and wandering around all together around 9am Colorado time awaiting Frank’s arrival at 9:30am. I cracked open the Nitro Cold Brew (Dark Chocolate Sweet Cream) we had purchases at Walmart on the Energy Drink Run as my fun morning coffee drink as I sat and read some of my book at the kitchen island. MY outfit was pretty simply to throw on, black skirt, white top, belt, boots, necklace. I didn’t have purple contacts for Yennifer so I just did a layer of purple eyeliner and figured that would do. Jess had a little bit more to do, blue top, black pants, corset, boots, arm bands, and wig. She elected to just wear black sneakers instead of the boot as her feet weren’t doing to hot from all the walking we’d already done, and she saved the arm bands and wig for the faire. Frank pulled up at exactl 9:33am, which we knew because that was also his estimated arrival time! He took Jess and my suitcases and Jess with him, while I rode with Dave to pick up his friend Jesse. We stopped outside her place for a hot second to wait for her while I attempted to give a summary to Dave of ‘The Old Guard’, a movie and comic series I quite like but which I discovered is almost impossible to summarize in 30 seconds (the alloted time Dave gives on to pitch him a book or movie one has said they enjoyed).

Jesse came down and she was such a delight from the moment the door opened! I felt, vauguely, like Dave’s weird kid sister who’d been permitted to join he and The Most Popular Girl In School on their personal trip to the faire. Not in a bad way, very much in a good way! I like being around people who are more fun and interesting than me! It means I don’t feel pressured to be more fun and interesting to try and uphold a conversation or keep things going! We chatted and laughed and had a grand old time as we drove the 40ish minutes past Castle Rock to the Larkspar fair grounds. Jess and Frank were supposed to stop at the outlet mall and get Jess and wig cap but they missed the exit and as it would have been a half hour detour at most, they elected to just skip it and go without. We heard all this on the phone call they gave us as we waited in the car-line for parking, which spanned about a half-hour wait on it’s own. The wait wasn’t bad on our side of things at least, as Jesse, Dave, and I just kept chatting and time passed pretty fast!

We finally arrived at the parking gate, discovering that the other route into the parking lot had actually no line at all and we could have gone around, but no changing things once they’re done! Frank and Jess were only about 12 cars behind us so as soon as we parked they found us and Jess and I finished getting ready. Jess had to get her hair set and put the wig on, and I needed to unbraid my Tentacle Braids and brush them into their nice little waves. As I finished we pulled out the spray-on sunscreen and Dave offered to hit me with it. How nice! So I pulled my bangs up, closed my eyes, and he got RIGHT in my face and somehow managed to get the sunscreen on and in my right eye. Like a lot! I took a minute or so to try and let it cry itself out so as to preserve my makeup but it was still watering even as we left the parking lot to take the long walk to the faire grounds. I figured it would clear up soon enough. I was wrong. So very wrong.

There was a tram to the grounds but it wasn’t SO far a walk that we wanted to wait or deal with it so we kept walking the 5-10 minutes to the front gate. As we walked I helped Jess put on her arm bands and Dave suddenly realized, like many other attendees it seems, that his phone doesn’t have any service and he had to go to the will call area to see about getting his information looked up to get printed tickets. While he did that my eye streamed tears. I looked like a sad Two-Face with one normal side of my face and one side just aggressively sobbing. I continued to try to preserve my make-up by simply dabbing at my eye with the cuff of my shirt but it really wasn’t doing too much. In the midst of that, Jess and I hit the ATM and got an extra $60 in cash just so we had it. The ATM only had a $2.48 service fee which we agreed wasn’t too bad. Then we hit the bathrooms right next to the ATM station, which also sold faire related merchandise, and I attempted to dab a wet paper towel to my eye to see if that helped. It did not. Jesse had been offering me eyedrops for some time and finally I took her up on it and dropped a few in. It soothed my eyes for a minute or so but before long it was back to streaming. I think if I had had a chance to just lie down and not open my eyes for a little while it would have gone away faster, but instead I was in the sun walking around a dusty fairground for the next few hours. 

We finally headed in, Frank, Jess, and I a little before Dave and Jesse as they also elected to hit the ATM station before entering. Once inside we were advised by Jesse to pull the old “EPCOT World Showcase Mexico First” which is a fancy way of saying “When you enter a park, go left not right”. In EPCOT people generally do the World Showcase from Canada to Mexico because it’s just human nature to go right to left, and also because if you’re doing Drinking Around The World the drinks are stronger in Mexico so people don’t wanna start drinking there. The drinks are also, however, bigger and better and Jesse agreed with us that one of the Triple Tier Margaritas in Mexico will last you the entire trip through the Showcase so it’s fiscally better if you’re just looking to drink and don’t care about variety. She just really GOT us, ya know? Jesse told us to go left in this instance, however, because the better shops were, according to her, on the left side of the faire. She’s been many times so we trusted her judgment. I didn’t really see too-too many of the shops, however, as my right eye didn’t want to stay open but also couldn’t stay shut, so it was doing this weird twitchy, squinty thing and still, of course, watering.

Jess and I have been looking for two things at every faire for the past few years: A Renfri broach from The Witcher for Jess’s Renfri cosplay, and a really nice stick incense burner for my tarot table. We did not find either. Foiled once again. We did stop into an incense place right away and they sold these really interesting bottle incense burners but they just weren’t my style. The shop attendant, however, noticed through my sunglasses that my right eye was Going Through It and offered me two paper towels to try and get the sunscreen out. At that point I decided to forgo the makeup and used a mirror in the hat show we hit next to wipe anything I had off, except my lipstick, and see if that helped. Then I folded up one of the paper towels into a little square and put it under my sunglasses, hoping it would keep my eye shut long enough to heal as it was clearly super inflamed. Dave felt bad initially, of course, but seeing the make-shift eyepatch really did it for him. He was so apologetic but it really was an accident, he was trying to be helpful and do my sunscreen for me!

I had told Jesse early on that Jess and my primary goal at any faire is to just wander around and look at shops, but if she had any shows she’d like to see we could do that. She seemed more than happy to just wander also though, so wander we did! We checked out a handful of shops before we found what would be one of many food and drink places and the crew got in line for drinks. Jess handed me the purse and told me to go get some food, whatever looked good. The lines in that area at that time were insane though, but the kettle corn vendor’s line was nonexistent, so kettle corn it was! Got a big King Size bag for $9 and headed back. Turns out the line they’d been in didn’t sell mean though, which was what Jessica wanted, so we found the correct line for mead, whichw as shockingly small, and got one of each of their options then found a nice shady picnic table to sit and drink and eat. I really respect how renaissance faire goers have no qualms about table-sharing. Mostly in America even if one member of a party is sitting at a table, that table is taken. Completely taken. But at faire any open seat is up for grabs, we get real European about sitting close because everyone understands that it’s hot and we all just want somewhere to sit. So we table-shared a nice large picnic table as we got some liquid in our system. Jess and I both agreed we liked the Honeysuckle Mead the best and Jesse shared some of her soda with me because I said I was gonna go buy one, which was very nice of her. I took some of the ice from the cup and wrapped it in one of the paper towels and placed it on my eye, which was now super red and still, somehow, crying, as we stood up to head out again.

We ended up immediately finding a coffee stand so Frank and I got iced coffees. They coffee was ok, definitely just chilled hot coffee and not cold brew, but it was iced and caffine-y and it looked very cute inside my cheap blue water bottle so I was satisfied! At this point my eye had actually started to clear up, ice it seemed had been a very good idea and if I had known earlier the problem was no longer the sunscreen but the inflammation then I would’ve gotten an iced drink way sooner! But it meant my vision was now much better to look around a little loose leaf tea shop. As Jess was perusing I saw they sold a black tea called Wonderland and Jess agreed we had to buy it! So Jess told the guy at the stand she wanted it and she pulled out her cash and he grabbed a bag and then… wandered off. Frank had been telling Dave, I believe, about using tea leaves in alcohol to dampen some of the bitterness and this guy seemed to think that conversation was way more interesting than accepting money for his goods and just went right over to talk about it. Jess ended up getting asked by the other person behind the counter if she needed help where she was like “...Yeah, Wonderland, I’m trying to buy Wonderland” and she finally got her tea but like… Bruh she had cash out, don’t walk away! Who does that!

We meandered quite a bit after that, popped in and out of a bunch of shops. Dave and Frank both did some hot sauce tasting and Jesse joined them at one point for a sampling of some Slusharitos and we caught portions of the Jaques the Whipper show as we made our way to the rock climbing wall. Frank wanted to do the middle wall, which you could do for $10 and if you reached the top, won $25. You got three tries and it seemed like fun! We left Frank to have that fun though and we all just stood by to watch him and cheer him on. We chatted with another spectator as he climbed and she told us that she’d only seen one person reach the top today and that was on the wall to the right of the dead center. So it’s a pretty tough course, which makes sense as the company obviously wants to make profit not pay out. Frank didn’t make it to the top, but he did make it a little over halfway which was pretty good considering it’s a course designed to be just almost impossible! We got some more food a little after that as we discovered another food area with much shorter lines. Frank, with a little wandering, discovered a pulled pork sandwich line that had no one in it so he stepped up, ordered one, and had it in his hand in less than a minute! When we went back to where Jesse and Dave were standing we told them about the no-line line and Dave was like “Pork sandwich! Hell yeah, I get one!” and he too discovered the excellent, prompt service of that station! As the crew waited I went to the bathroom and refilled the water bottle. There was a water refill station right next to the bathrooms but the line was insane and I reasoned that if the water refill is right next to the bathrooms, then the bathroom sinks were almost definitely the same water. So I just filled mine there and headed back to once again do a table-share and eat. Jess got her and I a Da Vinci’ Meat-A-Ball Sub and Frank got a wine and hard cider for us and we sat and ate and listened to some bagpipe group do their thing on a nearby stage. 

Dave and Jesse went off on their own for a bit to find the roasted cinnamon nuts vendor and we wandered to explore shops a bit more before meeting up again not far from where we’d left each other. We looked into a pretty cool mug shop that sold really fun stoppers for mugs, like lids but made out of cork, that came in all kinds of sizes to fit all kinds of cups and mugs and I thought those were super neat but decided I didn’t need one. We also found a whole-bean coffee stand and I made a purchase of some Burundi Fiddlers coffee which sounded like it had good notes! While there some woman came up and really matter-of-fact asked the guy working “Where’s this coffee source?” in reference to the same one I had just purchased. He said, plainly “Burundi”. She went “So, South America?” and he had to be like “No, East Africa.” Now, I didn’t know where Burundi was until he said it either, but I know I don’t know geography well and certainly wasn’t going to pretend to be some kind of coffee expert. I left after he spoke but I was busy chuckling to myself as I left because wow, that was so embarrassing for you ma’am. Take it down a notch next time. After that little ha-ha it wasn’t long from there before we ended up back near the start of the Faire and Dave and Jesse said they were all good and would leave us there. We said our goodbyes, took our obligatory Faire Selfie, and off they went. We didn’t stay much longer though, maybe another half-hour to forty-five minutes as we used the bathroom and saw the shops we’d missed on the way in. We ended up in this cute little fairy shop and I elected to purchase a little sticker for the water bottle and a little Fairy Catching Kit that looked like a flower growing out of a watering can. Was too cute to pass up and I think it’s got good chances of surviving the flight.

We made the long walk back to the car after that purchase and drove the maybe 20 minutes to the Hilton Garden Inn Jess had made reservations at. We got in, took a little nap while Frank went to check out some rock climbing gym in the area, then all got together again around 8:30pm to get Olive garden for dinner. I got a Shrimp Alfredo with a Chicken and Gnocchi Soup, Frank got something that’s like a sample plate of a couple of their pasta dishes and ordered with it a to-go Fettuccini Alfredo for Jessica to have in addition to the Italian Salad she got. The drive over was pretty quick and the woman who gave us our order told us she “Loved our energy” which was pretty sweet! Back at the hotel Frank went to see about getting a little swim in before the pool closed at 10pm and Jess and I watched Beat Bobby Flay as we ate. The food was excellent, as always with Olive Garden, but we didn’t finish most of it. Jess ate her salad and saved the uncooked to-go meal for the following day and I really only had half my pasta and soup. We’re big grazzers and we tend to eat less on vacation for some reason. Just get full faster I guess. Dave’s fridge is probably still full of the food we didn’t finish from the brunch and dinner. Had we more time there we would have finished it over a period of days, but alas, in Dave’s fridge they remained.

Jess returned to her room when she heard Frank returning from the pool and I was left to get ready for bed. I thought I was going to get ready sooner but I ended up casually munching on my food, watching HGTV on the floor until about 1am. I knew Frank would want us up at some kind of human hour to start doing things so I finally got myself off the floor to get ready for bed. I didn’t know what the plan was for tomorrow at all really, aside from a potential hike, but I figured I’d want a good nights rest after the long day at faire.

Haute Haute Haute

 

We were not actually awoken by Dave, though we would have been if not for the time change between our state and his. Jess and I do not, as a rule, like getting up early. 9am-10am is our favourite time to arise as it’s late enough to enjoy sleeping but early enough, in our mind, to have a full day to get things done. So, waking up at 7am would have been a challenge but it wasn’t 7am to us, it was 9am, and we were both awake and getting ourselves ready by the time Dave came knocking telling us to get workout gear on and be ready to go by 7:30am. We were out the door at exactly 7:33am and headed to Colorado’s Haute Yoga studio for a session of actual Hot Yoga. We took off our shoes at the entrance and headed to our respective locker rooms to drop off anything we had and head to the yoga room. The thermostat said the room was 103 degrees and boy did it feel like it! Jess and I live in Florida though so we didn’t think theheat would be too much of an issue for us. We were right and wrong. 

Dave socialized a little with the folks he knew as we all stretched and got ready. Jess and I have never taken a yoga session so we didn’t know what to expect and just kinda did whatever stretches we knew. I had no idea how long the class was or what was going to occur at all, but that’s the magic of travel I guess! At least in our experience with our friends. Guess that might not be a universal experience though. After a few minutes of that the instructor came in and got class started. I was doing alright for the first bit, the breathing stretches, but when we moved onto the standing stretches suddenly my stomach felt violently ill. I sank down briefly to take a rest and see if it would pass but when it didn’t I fully left the room to get ill in the bathroom. Jess followed me to make sure I was fine, but I think she too felt a little sick, though not as bad as me. We think this sudden onset of nausea was a combination of things. Jess and I are good in the heat, we’ve been lifeguards in Florida so we’ve not only been in the heat but we’ve worked in it. But we didn’t eat anything this morning, and we’d been drinking the night before, and both hadn’t gotten much sleep, and we were likely experiencing jetlag, and Colorado is at a much higher altitude than Florida, so best bet is as soon as we started working out in a high temperature with no food in our stomach in all these conditions our body just tapped out.

Not for long though! After a few minutes of calm in the bathroom I made my way out of the bathroom, rejoined Jess in the locker room, and we headed back to class. We’d missed a few poses but we jumped back in and caught up. We did a few more standing poses that didn’t make my stomach feel amazing but I wasn’t as bad as before so I kept with it. It wasn’t long until we moved onto sitting poses and I was fine through those! Jess and I both agreed we don’t do well with holding our arms up or in poses but our legs are quite flexible and all the sitting poses agreed with us nicely! All in all, we survived and felt rather accomplished with ourselves even if we did have to tap out for a few minutes. Everyone was very nice to us also, which always makes me feel better about having not done excellent but as good as I could. Jess and I took a bit in the locker rooms to get ourselves together as we changed from our sweat soaked, and I do mean soaked, workout gear into our change of clothes. Before we left the studio, however, I notices they sold incense and despite having plans to go to the renaissance faire tomorrow I can’t say for certain any vendors will be selling incense, which seems probably silly as one assumes there is always going to be incense vendors at renaissance faires, and yet my past two experiences have given me no cheer on the matter. Two faires, no incense vendors. There were some places that sold a little assortment of incense, but nothing of great interest. So, I checked out Haute Yoga’s selection and was delighted to find a Coffee scent, which seemed interesting, and a ‘Jungle’ themed scent, which also sounded, and smelled, delightful. I purchased the two and we were off on our way!

We stopped at some local store that I can’t recall the name of to get some cat treats for Crixus but it had a little pop-up Starbucks inside and I was so delighted to have a chance to get a fun coffee drink! I had assumed I would just go without any coffee for the duration of my trip because I only like highly flavoured coffee, basically hot chocolate with some coffee for flavour and caffeine, but most people don’t keep a stock of Praline or Banana Cream Pie or Cinnamon Bun coffee on hand. Most folks just have, you know, coffee-coffee. I didn’t want to spend money buying bags or pods of coffee I couldn't possibly finish before leaving so I just figured I’d do without but no! A Starbucks! And they weren’t just serving ‘coffee’. Jess and I decided on the Java Mint Chocolate Frappuccino and it was delightful! I generally don’t like spending money on coffee from shops when I’m back home, as I could make my own, but on this trip I’ve had a delightful time ordering fun coffees at airports and stores as a fun little treaty for the day! 

Coffee and cat treats in hand we returned to Dave’s place where Jess and I freshened up a little better to get ready for brunch at EAT! Jess also got to feed Crixus a little treat cause he’s such a good kitty. We headed out pretty soon after and got a nice, shady outdoor table to have our brunch at. Jess got a breakfast burrito that was ENORMOUS, I got a Huckleberry Monte Cristo, and Dave got a Reuben’s Cousin, all of which was excellent! Jess also got a Peach Bellini because one get’s drinks at brunch! We stayed there and chatted about whatever before heading to the Walmart next door to look for energy drinks and shoes for the inevitable hike we expect Frank to take us on. We brought two sets of shoes each but none are appropriate for a hike so we went looking for some cheap sneaker-type things. We tried on a number of shoes and settled for some $10 Vans knockoffs as they were the cheapest and probably the fastest to break in before a hike. We also found an assortment of cool energy drinks, Sonic and Spyro themed, and loaded up on those for the days ahead.

Then back we went to Dave’s place to relax for a little before heading to the pool. We watched some of a show Dave likes, ‘Make Some Noise’ before he went to take a quick nap. Jessica soon followed and I was left to do some writing and watch ‘Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade’ on my own, which was fine as we all needed a little rest following our heavy-activity morning. Dave came out about halfway through the movie and we decided to get ready for the pool as it was nice and hot with the high afternoon sun! Jess took a little while to get going after laying down for a while but she eventually joined us in the living room. Dave had a bottle of sunscreen we were all going to share but it only lasted long enough for Jess to get some on her and then it was out. Dave decided he didn't care about a little sun but I was nervous about getting burned before the renaissance faire tomorrow so I decided to just sit on the side of the pool in the shade when we arrived. 

So sit I did! It was hopping at the pool with a whole family doing a barbeque thing at the grill, clearly some resident entertaining some family members they don't was screwing up their own house. I respect it. Jess and Dave both went swimming and then we sat in the hot tub for a hot second before hitting the pool again real quick. We weren't out there for long, it was hot and we were all tired from hot yoga so the water was really just to sooth our muscles and cool down a little. We talked about the Wheel of Time and actor changes and Dave's job here in Colorado. Just casual talks for a leisurely pool time. We headed back and I showered so my hair would have a little time to dry a little before I did my Tentacle Braids (multiple mini braids in my hair) so it'll be wavy for the faire tomorrow. I didn't brush it yet though, it would be over an hour before my mane would be dry enough to even get a brush through.

In the meantime we went back to Walmart to buy some stuff to hand make some macaroni and cheese for dinner. And by 'we' I mean Dave because Jess and I can cook as well as your average raccoon, but Dave was determined to widen our palette outside of boxed Mac and cheese and who are we to stop him! We also picked up a cheap reusable water bottle as we had lots the sad Disani bottle we kept refilling at Haute Yoga and wanted a new one, and also wanted a fresh bottle of sunscreen for tomorrow's faire day. We all split up as soon as we arrive, Dave to get the dinner ingredients, Jess to find egg rolls as we wanted them for appetizers, and I to get the water bottle and sunscreen. Found a cheap blue bottle for $1 and Walmart brand spray-on sunscreen for $6, which are prices I can appreciate!

We once more headed back to Dave's place, in for the evening, to make dinner and relax. On the way back Dave had me read him aloud my blog post from the previous day to entertain him which was quite nice as I know my blog posts are long and probably not half as interesting or witty as I imagine them to be, but he listened to the whole thing and had a few laughs so that was fun! We put on 'Marvel Secret Invasion' to watch while we (Dave) cooked. I grated some cheese so I participated! And Jess did all the dishes so there's our part! We got through about three episodes of 'Secret Invasion' but we weren't all to invested so Dave showed us the PitchMeeting video for 'Rings of Power' and had a hearty laugh before putting on 'G.I. Jane' as Dave had wanted to show us the movie. We all got changed into our pajamas, had ourselves our bowls of macaroni and cheese and egg rolls with some sauces Dave insisted we do a blind taste test with to see which we liked more, and settled in for our movie night. Dave got comfortable on the couch, Jess settled onto the big chair, and I stayed at the island counter. I thought I'd move to laying on the floor eventually, as I do because I'm a floor sitter by nature, but I stayed at the counter through the movie. It was good. Very 90's. Boy they were really afraid of lesbians back then, huh. 

We were all winding down so Dave put on an episode of 'Human Resources' and we all got a laugh in as we started to fade away. All our stuff was packed up as best it could be for the evening but we'd still have to get into full cosplay so there were a number of things we couldn't pack before bed. For tomorrow it would have to remain! But we wouldn’t be up until 9:30-10am Colorado time and we’re not headed to a flight or anything time sensitive. We’re headed to faire!