Before I could finish my multi-part Hawaii travelogue, Meli and I galavanted over to Colorado Springs, Colorado last weekend, whence we just returned. (Photos here, with much love for Eloise). I just now realized that I don't really know where Colorado is. But I know it borders Kansas, because the Pike's Peak train conductor pointed at something from the train and called it Kansas. Upon returning home and picking up the mail I discovered that Sean, being the fount of awesomeness that he is, had sent me the coveted Single Moms T-shirt from T-Shirt Hell as a post-Bar congratulatory gift. Thanks Sean!
The Colorado Springs trip, while thoroughly enjoyable, merits less ink than the Hawaii trip since it involved less adventure and more loafing. Here's basically what we did, in no particular order:
(1) I played two nine-hole rounds of golf with Meli's mother and brother. They were my first actual golf games, and I played extremely poorly. But it was a lot of fun and I can't wait to play again. If there isn't already a movie with a golf cart chase in it, there should be.
(2) Meli and I went down a waterslide, hot-tubbed, and swam, all in the rain. Also a lot of fun. It rains in Colorado Springs every day at 3:00 p.m. but it doesn't get cold.
(3) Meli, Meli's mom, Meli's brother, and I went to the top of Pike's Peak on a cog train, asthma and acrophobia be damned. Apparently Pike himself never made it to the summit of Pike's Peak. But we did! While at the top I discovered that you can make yourself look like Jamie from Mythbusters with the aid of a simple giant pretzel.
(4) Meli and I watched Deep Rising on cable, for no reason at all.
(5) I had a dream in which Gene and Kristen stole my car.
(6) Different ones of us went to Seven Falls, which is really One Fall with Seven Kinks. I felt cheated. I was wearing my Legal Aid hat, which prompted a woman from Little Rock to accuse me of being a Democrat and then tell me all about how she works at the Eighth Circuit. I'm discovering that when you meet strangers on vacation and they find out you're a lawyer they feel compelled to share whatever connection they have to the law with you. Like that woman on our snorkeling boat in Hawaii who told me about her brother-in-law who's an attorney for the City of Sacramento. I guess I should get used to this.
On the way back from Seven Falls we saw wacky sculptures and an adorable deer family. Or at least we thought they were adorable until the fawns decided to moon us.
(7) Meli went horseback riding with the other Elliott women. She saw buffalo, elk, a bear with a beer, and a great deal of horse ass. Also, Meli's sister killed a dog with her bare hands.
So there you go. Five days in Colorado Springs and I came back feeling like a marathon runner. Back to Hawaii re-caps as soon as I gather the energy.
I sure hope "galavanting" isn't going to replace "jack-assing" in the Holohan vocabulary. That's one of my favorite phrases even though I can't pull it off myself.
I too saw Kansas this week, but then, I was _in_ Kansas. It was quite hot, no? The humidity was what really bothered me. I wonder what it was like in the south.
The weather in Colorado was nice. There was no humidity since they don't actually have any air in Colorado, so we didn't have to worry about that. Golf balls went all kinds of far, though.