August 12, 2013

This morning I got up around 9:00AM or so, wrote my entry for yesterday because I was too tired last night to write anything more than a brief synopsis, and eventually took a shower. My friend's cousin left for work shortly after I woke up but his girlfriend was working from home so we were able to get directions from her before we left.

Our first stop was lunch at Fire On The Mountain, a restaurant specializing in chicken wings. I got lucky and they actually had meatless wings in the form of seitan, which I have always wanted to try. So I got six meatless wings with a cilantro lime barbecue sauce. I also got a salad just in case the seitan was not to my liking, and fried pickles because I have always wanted to try those, too. My friend wanted to try two different sauces but you had to order more than six wings to get different sauces, so he ended up getting five with one sauce and five with another. We both ended up getting way too much food. Each boneless chicken wing was about three-quarter the size of a chicken patty and the sauce ended up being really spicy, so my friend wasn't able to finish his order. I think he got through less than half. As for me, when I pictured fried pickles I figured I'd get a pickles-worth of sliced pickles. I think it ended up being three or four pickles cut in quarters. They were delicious because they were fried and fried things are generally good regardless of what has been fried, but I couldn't eat more than a couple. The seitan was also good. It reminded me of those thick beef jerky sticks. Pretty much the same texture and flavor. But again, there was just too much there. I think I finished maybe three. So it was a good lunch but I could have done with less.

From lunch we went back to Red Rocks so we could get souvenirs. I had looked in the gift shop by the museum when we were there for the concert but it kind of sucked. Luckily the trading post had a lot more stuff.

From Red Rocks we went to Mount Falcon for a little hike, with a brief stop at a gas station to stock up on water and throw out our lunch leftovers because they were making the car smell like a cat. I wasn't really dressed for a hike, mainly wearing Chucks for footwear, but I made do and I am glad I did. The scenery was beautiful and the weather was nearly perfect. It was hot at times but there was enough of a breeze to make it quite nice. I took a bunch of pictures which look pretty good on my phone so I hope they look as good on my computer monitor. I am really looking forward to seeing the panoramas. I don't think we ever decided if the hike was two miles or three but with the altitude and my lack of physical activity it was quite the workout. And I enjoyed it.

After the hike we took a scenic route back into town and ended up seeing an area with several amazing houses with perfect green yards and a stream running by them. I lack the ability to fully describe how awesome these houses looked but each one instantly became my new dream home. At the last one we ended up stopping to get pictures and I think it will become my new desktop background.

When we got back into town we stopped at Patagonia because my friend's sister wanted to look at coats. No final decisions were made but several possibilities were discovered. I might have to look into Patagonia coats because they had some nice ones.

Then we drove up to meet my friend's other cousin. The first cousin was a younger, laid back dude. The second cousin was older and more into hunting and things like that. A real nice guy. We ended up going to dinner at a Mexican place and I think it was next to a Ruby Tuesdays that I ate at the last time my dad, brother, and I came to Colorado. At the Mexican restaurant we again ran into portion size problems. I got a veggie burrito that was really good but it was also about two and a half inches wide and close to a foot long. I was really hungry but I barely made a dent in that burrito. My friend got a big bowl of soup that was really spicy and way too big, even though it was only a half bowl. And it was spicy enough that my friend was sweating quite a bit as he ate. And that is always entertaining. Also, the restaurant has appeared on the show Man Vs. Food because they have a seven pound breakfast burrito. Their portions are just way too.

After dinner we came back to my friend's cousin's house and sat around and talked for awhile before his cousin needed to go to bed. My friend and I are sleeping in the basement because it is cooler and his cousin needs to wake up at four in the morning to go to work which is way too early for us. Right now we are watching True Grit but I don't know if I'm going to make it to the end. The hike wore me out and I've been tired since seven o'clock. We'll see.