To recount some of the shenanigans that went on over my Christmas break...
Drewsky and I drove out to Laramie, Wyoming for a couple of days. We were going to ski at Snowy Range but the lodge burned down two days before we got there. So we just putzed around. The old part of town is still somewhat like it must have been originally, and has not yet been discovered and cashed out by the tourist industry. We ate in a wood-panelled bar beside the train tracks. Trains rumbled by in the night about every 15 minutes, shaking the tables. The next night the only bar open was the Ranger Motel so we went there to shoot some pool. There were five distinct groups there and not a lot of intermingling: a bunch of hippies with a dog, a group of frat guys, sorority girls, the locals, and two out-of-towners (Drew and I). The next day we went to the yuppie coffee shop downtown and saw the lead hippie with his dog at the hippie coffee shop across the street. The small town effect can be neat if you haven't felt it for a while.
After stopping by the New Belgium Brewery in Fort Collins, we went on to Frisco, Colorado, where we skied with Kauffman peeps for the next three days. Hintertux paid off and I was attempting/crashing on a lot of jumps by day three. There was a hot tub at the motel, which was nice after a hard day of skiing. One night there was about the most densely tattooed dude I've ever seen in it, and all of them were (get this) Christian tattoos. He had a crucifix on his chest and an entire chapter from a gospel on his back, and I overheard that a belt of truth and a breastplate of righteousness were in the works. He was talking "the talk" with an older guy who I assumed was a preacher or something. Anyway after a while the Illustrated Christian left and we got to talking with the preacher. During a lull in the conversation, this guy got up quietly, climbed up onto the ledge surrounding the hot tub area, and did a somersault dive into the pool one story below. We had seen some drunk Colorado State students pull this dangerous stunt the night before but I never expected it from a fifty-year-old, especially since I had him cast as the preacher character. Guess that goes to show.
On the way back from Colorado Drew and I stopped at a Texaco for gas. None of the squeejees were there, but there was a second Texaco across the highway, so I ran across and brought a squeejee triumphantly back like an Olympic torch. As I was standing around idlely looking at junk food inside the station, the clerk gets a phone call, and says to me "Sir, the Texaco across the way called. They want their squeejee back." "We were going to take it back, actually," I told her, which was the truth, but less out of respect for property than from a desire not to see the squeejee-less Texaco benefit from the deal. When we did return the thing the clerks across the way were watching like hawks and waved at me, and there probably hadn't been that much excitement around the place since the last holdup.
Posted by Alan at January 13, 2003 11:48 PM