Wow… I just won a free 20 oz. coke. How about that? That’s pretty awesome, huh?
Now that we have the important stuff out of the way (because I mean, really, what could top that?), lets get on to that thing where I went to Denver. The trip started off well enough. Thursday morning I heard the most hideous sound in the known universe blaring in my ear, beckoning me to wake up. I hit the source of the abhorrent sound a few times, and then got up, tired, but eager to get away from school and classes and homework and… all that kinda stuff.
So seeing as I had only gotten 4 hours of sleep, I decided to take a shower so as to assist myself in waking up so that I could drive to the airport without dieing in a car accident because I fell asleep (as a side note, despite popular opinion, sleep driving is NOT a good thing.) So then I drove to the Orlando International Airport, where they did NOT check my ID before giving me my ticket. What kind of security is that? I decided all the other rediculous things they do, like make me take my freaking shoes off, were enough to make up for it though, and got on the plane feeling nice and safe.
I flew to Atlanta. Why, you might ask, would I want to go there? It’s not really on the way to Denver. The answer, of course, is that Delta likes to fly people to Atlanta. Apparently, it is their favorite city or something, and they think everyone should see it. An interesting fact is that there has never been a Delta flight in the history of aviation that has NOT had a stopover in Atlanta (this is highly inconvenient if you are flying from say, Seattle to San Francisco.)
So was Atlanta all Delta makes it out to be? Not really. Not the airport, anyway. I got food from this place called Paschal’s (sp?) which was really, really, really bad. Well, the chicken was ok, but the corn was disgusting, and the black eyed peas tasted like they were rotting. There was also this jerk businessy guy who was in front of me… and.. there were 2 registers, and one guy just left the one, so i walked around the guy in front of me to get to that register, but the guy that was working it had gone to do something else, and then that guy wanted to go around me. Now, I was somewhat in his way, so I moved to where I felt he could go around me. But apparently he wanted to be in the exact space I had moved to. Now, a rational person could figure out… hmm.. if I step around him, he can then step back to where he was, and I can get to where he presently is. He did not come to this conclusion. He made some smug comment about how i needed to “do something about my backpack”, clearly feeling very superior to me. To this, I responded by saying “You really need to do something about your face. Here, let me help,” and then I punched him in it. Not really. But that is what I wanted to do. And if he had said anything else beyond that point I probably would have told him off, because it really pisses me off when people talk down to me. Anyway, with that resolved, the place was really crowded, so there were no free tables, so they just sat people at free spots even if other people were at the table, so I ate lunch with this guy who apparently works for a tobacco company… I forget the name of the company, but I think he said they make Red Man cigarettes or something. I don’t really know anything about such things, so I could be very wrong, but, I think that’s what he said. Anyway, he was a pretty nice guy, even though he sells death. This concludes the time spent in the highly overrated city of Atlanta.
I got on the plane. No one sat next to me on this flight, which was nice, because I had more room. It was uneventful.
I arrived in Denver. I went to go get my bags. It took quite awhile. But not too long. Then we figured out where Nick’s bag was, because he got there like a couple minutes after me. Then we got on the bus. This was the beginning of a far too long endeavor to find the hotel. We asked the driver at the second stop where we should get off to go there, he told us to get off there, and take the number 7. We waited like 45 minutes, and finally the 7 came, 2 of them, but they were both going the wrong way. The guy on one of the busses told us to take the light rail, so we did. A lady on the light rail told us we should have taken the 7, going the other way, and that we had needed to go aroung to like the other side to catch that one, which no one had told us. So we got off the light rail. We walked around for awhile, not sure where to go… finally, we found another number 7, and while the driver didn’t seem to know the street we were talking about, we managed to get there, with the help of another person on the bus. The people of downtown Denver are surprisingly nice and helpful, considering it is a big city and all that. We got there. It was good. Except stupid Orbitz hadn’t ACTUALLY paid for our hotel, they just reserved it for the price they said they could get it for, which was a good price, our room said on the door that it was like $130 a night, we got it for $55. But still, how dumb is it that they didn’t just pay for it, since I had put in the credit card number and all that?
We then found out our hotel had a free shuttle, which we actually used on this one time, when we went to get the “best pizza” and “best dessert” “ever.” It actually was really good, both things. It was kinda funny though, they stole their plates from other restraunts.. haha… I noticed our plates looked like chinese plates, and then nick noticed my plate said “House of Hunan” on it. haha…
After we ate the very good pizza and dessert (called a chocolate candle… mmmm) we decided to walk around Downtown a bit. It was cool.. the city looks awesome. We eventually found our way to the 16th street mall, where we saw this guy carrying a cross, and a bunch of people with him. Anyway, this girl was arguing with them about something, and she had something written on this piece of paper… We tried to figure out what was going on, and then started talking to them and went with them to this street ministry thing that their church does every thursday night, where they serve a big turkey dinner and give out sleeping bags and stuff to the homeless people (there are a LOT of homeless people in Denver, and I understand there are even more in non-winter months). It was cool. I talked to this one native american guy who said he was a medicine man, but apparently he used to be a christian, but he lost twins (he didn’t say how) and from there his life went way downhill. So I prayed with him and stuff, he seemed pretty open at least. We actually ran into him the next day while we were walking to the library, and stopped and talked to him for a little bit. Oh yeah, and the guy who I guess was apparently the youth pastor? I forget. Anyway, he went to BRSM, and was apparently in the same class as Pastor Matt, though he didn’t really remember him. And he grew up in Lakeland, like right around Southeastern… and apparently his family is friends with the family of one of my former professors. So.. that was interesting. Anyway, we accidently stayed there till after the last time the shuttle would leave (which was 10.. I think we were there till 11)… So we asked for directions from the youth pastor, but instead he got this other guy to give us a ride and came with us. So that was convenient. Then we slept. End Thursday.
I will continue with Friday later. I have to go to a class soon. It will continue as part of this post, so check it again in a few hours or something.
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Part 2
Friday
On Friday we decided we would probably want to go to the 2nd to last show in Boulder that night… so, we went to the library to get info on it. We walked there, it was cold. On the way there was the first time that we stood on Colfax and Broadway. There is a park there, as well as a bus station (for the record, this is where the 0 line meets the 15 line, hence, the name of the song), and there are lots of homeless people there. We got there a bit before the library opened, and got some coffee and stuff, and then Eric came and met us there… the library was pretty nice, we used the internet to get the info, then we went with Eric to Lee and Maggie’s for lunch, before heading out to Red Rocks, which was really awesome. It’s an ampitheates, but there are some cool rocks to climb on there… heh… however, after climbing on them (I didn’t make it all the way to the top with nick and eric, because i have this pesky fear of falling to my death) we discovered this sign that said there is a $999 fine for doing so. Luckily, we were not caught 😉 After that we checked out this fossil things that were in some of the sides of the mountains nearby. And then Eric dropped us off in Boulder, which is a good ways out of Denver… I guess like 30-40 minutes. We had no idea how we were going to get back, but, you know, we wanted to go to the show… so.. we did 😉
It was really great… we were up front pretty much the whole show (got pushed around a bit), got some great pictures I think. Reese told a story that made the closing of the show in Denver a little more meaningful then it otherwise would have been. Anyway, we waited in the cold for like 2 hours to get in, and the place was packed out. When we left, Nick made a sign saying we needed a ride to downtown denver… and 5 or 10 minutes later, we were offered one… a girl named Deb, a kid from Germany named Andy, and another guy whose name I forget. But they were really nice and drove us back to our hotel, so that we didn’t have to walk the streets of Boulder all night.
Thus ends Friday, day 2.
More after a short break.
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Part 3
Saturday (11-22-03 – the big day)
Sorry, that wasn’t really a short break. More like a 4 hour break. I decided to sleep for a bit. Anyway…
We woke up to see that it was snowing outside, which was incredibly cool, except for the fact that it was freezing cold outside. This was bad, since we didn’t want to sit inside all day, and everything downtown is outdoors (you can go into shops obviously, but… you know what I mean.) We decided to go to the 16th street mall, it was cool. Lots of touristy stores, and, like Five Iron said, it’s a tourist trap, but a pretty cool one. The bookstore “The Tattered Cover” was really cool. It’s a stinking huge independent bookstore. One thing I still don’t understand is how so many music stores, movie stores, and book stores survive in the same area. Seriously, there are hundreds of them. Anyway, we got real cold (though Nick was much more complaintive about it then I was, and I’m used to FL weather ;)) and cut it kind of shorter then what we had intended. Took the free mall ride back to Broadway. Oh yeah, on the way to the mall we had taken pictures at the corner of Colfax and Broadway… good stuff.
On the way back to the room we stopped at Capitol Hill Tattoo and Body Piercing, for reasons which will not be discussed at this time, but perhaps tomorrow. There we met the guy that did Reese’s sun tattoo (the one on his elbow). So that was pretty cool. Oh yeah, and though this was not the reason we went in there I went ahead and got an ear pierced because… i dunno.. i was there… and… felt like it?
Then we left and went back to the hotel, on the way we passed the Fillmore and saw a large line of people there… and we were like.. crap.. guess we need to go get our tickets and get in line… so.. we went back to the hotel… got my ticket… and went back to the Fillmore, and picked up the other tickets from will call. Then we walked over to the line and just sort of started talking to these people who were like.. right by the front of it… we didn’t really realize that we were in the front of the line for about 10 minutes… then, we considered going to the back for about a second, and then decided, if those guys didn’t care we were there… we would just stay there.. so.. we did 😉 Good thing too, cuz when I walked up and down the line to look for Stefani (the girl who i sold my extra ticket to, for those who don’t know), the line was freaking HUGE 😉 The Fillmore people wouldn’t let me bring my water in, but then this kid who was behind me picked it up from where i sat it down and snuck it in and gave it to Nick when we got inside(he had been at the boulder show the night before, so we kinda sorta knew him). It was a really cool venue, I liked it a lot… it was way big, and yet, way packed out. We will bypass all the opening acts, and just care about strictly Five Iron. Show highlights included Reese forcing himself to vomit (sorry ladies, he didn’t do it on stage, so I have no pictures… he left, and came back and told us all what he had done… he was sick and had been kind of throwing up in his mouth on stage, hence.. yeah)… it was pretty funny, but the humor will not carry over text I don’t think, but I will quote a bit anyway… these are probably not exact… “my mom’s here tonight…. mom, I know that you’re thinking that i have an eating disorder or something, but it’s ok. When I went back there I looked in the mirror and cried and said to myself… ‘I hate you.’ But then I looked at myself again and smiled and said… ‘you go get ’em.'” Ummm…. another cool thing was the playing of Michael W Smith’s “Friends” (they didn’t like.. PLAY it play it.. they played the cd… and joined hands and swayed. It was very… inspirational.) Oh yeah, and right before Every New Day the crowd gave like this really huge cheer and thank yous and stuff…. and like… pretty much all of the ppl in five iron cried at some point between then and the end of the show. They sang worship songs after END… some started by Reese, and some started by people in the crowd. Reese closed it all up by singing Silent Night. Which was really cool having heard the story he told the night before, which I can’t really tell properly, and so I won’t, but hopefully it will make it onto the “The End is Here” cd.
Then we went outside where it was really really cold. (like below 0 with wind chill) It felt good for about 2 minutes because of being so hot, but then.. it was just really really cold. So… very sore, and sweaty, and tired, we went back to the hotel for another night of sleep.
And now, yet another break.