I actually have to begin this year with something that happened before my wife and I even left for Denver. My wife went to Wegmans to pick up a few things for our "mobile refrigerator", a little cooler among the things she bought at Wegmans. Among the other supplies: a dozen cream cheese, chive and garden vegetable bagels, a dozen half cans of soda & little bottles of gatorade, grapes and string cheese.
After leaving the store, my wife (I wasn't with her) was about to pull out of a parking space, looked around carefully, saw nothing and started backing up. Halfway out of the space, a woman behind her started backing up. My wife sees this and stops backing up. This woman then proceeds to get out of her 'mommyvan', leaving it halfway out of the parking space, races to my wife's window and starts screaming at her. "You bankedly blank! I was blanketedy blanking pulling out! You had to blanking see me you blanking blank blank."
My wife, god bless her patience and tolerance of the situation, looked at this crazy woman and said "Good lord woman, are you off your meds or something?" What a great line! Wish I was there to see it personally. This woman didn't like it obviously, but got back in her van and proceeded to more or less stalk my wife for a couple of blocks, honking her horn consistently for at least a minute, drawing the attention of everyone in irondequoit plaza and most of West Irondequoit. It is truly scary that yes, these people walk among us isn't it?
Anyways, we got a late start--a couple hours perhaps--which, knowing my wife and I, isn't the least bit surprising. The two of us, along with our bounty of food, my golf clubs, all of our suitcases and so on packed into our little Toyota Yaris, which is only slightly larger than those cars your five year old rides in outside supermarkets when you drop fifty cents in the slot. Needless to say, it is quite a squeeze for a nearly 1700 mile trip.
One of the things I hoped would make the trip easier was signing up for an EZ pass from the New York Thruway. Now many of you folks know all about these and have for years, but we are slightly behind the curve. I always felt like we didn't need one because we don't travel enough. For this trip alone though, I thought it would finally be worth it to get one so we did.
The EZ pass folks don't make it easy though. They tell you in their instructions that the EZ Pass MUST BE mounted on the front windshield. They say it must be mounted at the uppermost portion of the windshield, right next to the rearview mirror! They were very staunch about this. However, then in the very next sentence they say, "if EZ Pass does not work in that spot, it may be necessary to move it". Greeeat! So that pretty much nails it down. So we put it where we thought they meant, my wife walked around the Wegmans parking lot to see where everyone else had theirs mounted and off we went, praying we had done it right.
We got to the first thruway toll stop and slowed down, easing our way up to the little yellow light, going probably less than the 5 MPH we were instructed by the signs. We got within ten feet of the light....nothing. Just about the time we were both about to panic, the light turned GREEN!!!! We both shouted out a brief exhaltation of exuberance, sighed a sigh of relief and went on our way, a little merrier than a few moments prior.
Sad to say, but from that point on, the EZ Pass was the highlight of our trip. Every time we came up on yet another toll plaza, we both sat upright with excitement. "There's an EZ pass only lane there hon, go!" I would jubilantly exclaim, and we would slip on through, green lights all the way. We couldn't WAIT to give away our money at the EZPass lanes, even though it didn't seem like that is what we were doing. It seemed like we were priveleged customers, allowed to drive the nations highways for free, while all those other paupers had to pay. Just like with any other thing credit-oriented, we will pay the price later, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
The trip out wasn't really eventful. Thanks to me again, we had our music. My wife had cleaned the house for the house-sitter, packed the car, bought the snacks, got the dogs food, filled up the car, took it for an oil change, cleaned and vacuumed it out, set up the dogs beds and everything else pertaining to the trip. I had downloaded the time life best of the 80's collection, as well as the 60's for my mother in law, and the 70's for the ride home. I lovingly burned them to cd's and tested tham all to make sure they worked. Hey, as I said last year, music is important.
So we had great tunes. We had our EZPass, we had our supplies, and we drove. And we drove. And drove some more. It is a loooooooong way from Rochester to Denver, Colorado. We made good time though. Stopped the first night in Joliet, Illinois.
Joliet is a little south and west of Chicago. The exit that we stopped at wasn't the best as it turned out. We had called a Motel 6 and I tried to talk to the desk clerk. I say tried because he had a THICK indian or Muslim accent. He quoted us a room with two queen beds for forty eight dollars, and most of all, said they were "pet friendly". We got there and saw dozens of twenty something punks hanging out in the parking lot, smokin doobies and partying. Not the best look for a motel, so we passed and went over to the nearby Holiday Inn express. It was about twenty dollars more but nicer, so we jumped on it. The desk clerk told us it was a good thing we bailed on that Motel 6, saying "bad things happen over there".
The second night we made it to Kearney, Nebraska, and stayed in a much nicer Super 8 for about the same price as the previous night with our AAA discount. The beds were so soft and comfy, it was like sleeping on "sleep number beds" or something. The wiener dogs even liked it better and slept much better through the night.
The best part of the next morning was, after check out, we went to get gas and spied a Taco Bell. Michelle had said that Denver Taco Bells have chilito's otherwise called chili cheese burrito's, and thought Nebraska ones might too.
Now I used to LOVE Chili cheese burrito's when Rochester Taco Bell's used to serve them, but for some reason never explained well to me, took them and tostada's off Rochester Taco Bell menu's about a dozen years ago, never to return. So I have missed my Chili cheese burrito's for a long time. We checked the Kearney Taco Bell, and sure enough, they had them! I got two for breakfast and it was like reuniting with an old girlfriend--the excitement of tasting that long lost chili cheese burrito on my taste buds again made excitement and pleasure drip from every pore.
Once we hit the road again for the final home stretch five hour drive to the Mile High, the dachshunds staged the first open wiener dog rebellion. For the whole trip, they had laid nicely, side by side in two halves of a kennel that my wife had split into two halves and dressed with blankets. Finally, Leroy had had enough. He jumped into Koko's half and laid down with her. We tried three times to move him back to his half and he kept jumping back into hers. He had already begun his rebellion by lifting his leg in both hotel rooms before we could get up and out, and this was the final straw. It was obvious we were going to have to let him stay on her side the rest of the way.
We got into town around four pm, and father in law was home to greet us. My mother in law and sister in law were out getting the final fitting down on her wedding dress (my sister in law, not my mother in law obviously). Our two dachshunds got reaquainted with their western family of Punky the dachshund, Opie the dachshund and Suzie the beagle. Much barking and butt sniffing ensued and was enjoyed by all of them.
Mother and sister in law came home and gave my wife an I a big hug. My father in law then took my sister in law's newly and perfectly fitted wedding dress upstairs to put it in a closet for the big day next Sunday and proceeded to accidently drop it, which sent sister in law into a frenzy, and understandably so in some ways. After numerous fittings, that dress is like GOLD! It was quickly picked up and dusted off and everything was deemed to be OK, so off we all went to a restaurant called Piccolo's.
Interesting place. Family owned and operated for decades, they specialized in BOTH Italian AND Mexican. I love both so of course, everything looked good to me. Figuring I would be going to more than my fair share of Mexican places while I'm here, I opted for the Chicken Parmigiana and it was out of this world....perhaps the best chicken parm I have ever had.
On the way home, the family agreed to stop off at a local department store so I could buy a hat and sneaks. See, about two or three weeks before this trip, I bought my first ever pair of sandals. I have always been a sneaker and socks guy. In fact, pretty much the only time my feet ever saw the light of day was when I would shower.
Anyways, I bought these sandals and have been trying to live a life of naked feet. I had been doing so well at that, that I had forgot to pack a pair of sneakers. I also forgot to pack a baseball hat, which with my eye disease, is almost a daily necessity. So we went to this discount department store called "Ross" and I got a Bronco hat for seven dollars and a Nike swoosh hat for nine dollars as well as a pair of white FILA sneaks for twenty two dollars. Forty one bucks after tax for all--not too shabby.
While we were in there though, my father in law found a kermit the frog hat, put it on and started to act...how shall I say...a little intellectually challenged. It was pretty freakin hilarious, and we all broke into howling laughter. My sister in law laughed so hard, she sat on the floor and wet herself. It was quite a time.
The next day (yesterday) my wife and I along with Kip and Jan (father and mother in law) went to Chatfield resevoir and out on their motorboat. I jumped in the cold water, took a swim around the boat once or twice and hopped back in the boat. It was oh so relaxing though, and great to get some sunshine and relaxation after a long drive.
Last night, we had dinner at home, a Randall Cobb salad, as I called it shortly after her returned a punt for a touchdown in the Green Bay game. I saw the Bills lost big to the Jets, but I was out on a boat on a picturesque Denver waterway at the time and couldn't have cared less. Guess the Bills defense isn't going to be mistaken for the '85 Bears just yet. At night, we all happily watched the Broncos beat the Steelers (again), this time with Peyton Manning looking back and 100 percent. Well, almost everyone was happy. My soon to be brother in law Bryant is a huge Raiders fan and roots against the Broncos every time.
Most of this week will be pretty boring for me. It will be all serious wedding preparations for my wife and sister in law and family. I will be being left alone a lot while they all work and run around getting things for sissy's wedding on Sunday. I probably won't have much to say until a week from now, so check back!
Bye for now from sunny Denver!
