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colorado day 2: part 2
I was grumpy and tired and needed to check my email to assuage fears and be productive. Too distracted, too preoccupied. The mountains weren't calling out to me, and I felt bad about that too. So Meg and Kiara dropped me at the coffee shop and drove up hills while I sat and typed and caught up and calmed down. Three hours later they came to get me with an extra Sam and Nick stuffed in the back of the convertible. "Where are we going?" I asked. "Booze!" they shouted, and we went off looking for food and drink for the Groom's cookout that night.
The food was easy enough but the liquor proved a problem. We were about to grab a six-pack in the grocery store when Nick stopped us. "Make sure it's not 3.2 percent," he said. It was. Some crazy midwestern values thing, we guessed, but it did us no good. The store clerk told us there was a giant liquor store five minutes away, so we got directions and jumped back into the car, Dukes of Hazzard-style.
Ten minutes later we couldn't find the street, so Meg stopped the uniformed cop walking by with his girlfriend. "Excuse me sir, do you know where we can buy some beer?" The cop didn't blink an eye as he pointed us back two blocks. "You should've said 'more beer'," we joked. "You should've said 'I'm not drunk enough!'"
We found Liquor Mart and it's aisles and aisles of wine and beer and bourbon and gin. It was overwhelming. As we wandered down the aisles we heard about Sam and Nick's flight into town on Hooters Air. "There were two Hooters girls on the plane, sitting behind us," Nick said. "And there was a trivia contest. The first question was 'Guess the combined age of the two Hooters girls'. The answer was 36." I hoped that was double 18s. Their flight was cheap in many ways.
Finally, we made our choices and slapped down twenties and walked out with far too much alcohol to drink in a weekend that was sure to include bars and bachelor events and the wedding itself. But I kept my mouth shut; I didn't know how the kids from Milwaukee rolled. We drove back to the cabin so the boys could drop off their things, then headed to the park to grill with the Groom and his family and friends, in between the raindrops. Some of the friends were familiar from the days that Meg and I lived in Apartment Six. Other people were brand new. All were great. We ate veggie burgers and fake sausages and ran through the rain to play on the kid swings before the downpour started and put an end to the fun.
"Bowling!" the Groom said, and we said "Yes!" so we drove to the most expensive bowling alley ever before quickly driving away again. We tried another ("Sorry. League night.") before giving up and hitting one bar, and then another. We picked up the Bride and her friends at the second, then ended up at the best bar in Boulder. Crammed in a basement, it was cheap and dirty and reminded us all of our respective homes. The perfect mix of familiarity and newness. We drank until Rob finished his fuzzy navel, I hit my head twice on the ceiling beams, and Ian tapped out.
And with the time difference, it was still only 2am. Colorado is good for some things after all.
on to day three!
or back up to day two, part 1