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Sep. 24th, 2021 09:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
waitingmanDay 15 & a day (& night) on the town
Sept. 25. Tuesday – Boulder
Gary had to return to work, so we arranged to meet up with him later in the day, for him to show us a few good places to buy real, genuine, preferably made in the USA cowboy boots. At our second stop we found a couple of nice ones, though they didn’t have Julia’s choice in her size. Never mind, there’s plenty of cowboy country ahead of us...
Afterwards, Julia & I entered our first Wal-Mart... In fact a Super Wal-Mart... & an amazing, slightly surreal & overwhelming place it was. There were a few things we actually needed, but we were mostly there just to see the place & the people who shop there. Disappointingly, the clientele all seemed pretty normal, unlike the ones we’d seen on ‘peopleofwalmart.com’. But there is a gun section & it’s not far from the pharmacy counter, where you can get your anti-depressants before stocking up on ammunition... of which there was a scarily large selection & have we mentioned how cheap everything is in the States? Even so, we walked out about $250 lighter in the wallet & into the first rain we’ve encountered on the trip. And yet more of those billboards for ambulance-chasing lawyers... Must be a growth industry in the USA... you can always tell when you’re either approaching, or in, a large town or city, because these smarmy, pearly-white-toothed smiling suits beg you to let them sue somebody when you get out of Intensive Care. Or maybe they visit you while you’re still in there. They could even be the first person you see when you regain consciousness, handing you a business card while the doctor checks your pulse. The whole concept horrifies me
Back to Gary & Kathy’s in time to try on the new boots & head into Denver for dinner with some friends Julia met online, but had never ‘met’ before. Fortunately, they recognised each other outside the chosen venue, so there was no embarrassing wandering around looking at people & wondering who they were. Scott & Debbie turned out to be a quite nice couple. Scott is also a photographer, so he, Gary & I were set for conversation for the rest of the rainy evening, over steaks & an Australian red wine that I normally wouldn’t touch back at home, but seemed quite palatable over here. Either I was homesick, or they export the good stuff... I suspect the latter. Debbie, Julia & Kathy seemed to hit it off rather well too, so a good night was had by all & we all have some new friends to keep in touch with
Back to Boulder in the rain, to be adored by the dogs & for Gary to share more techniques... this is turning out to be quite the crash-course & it’s only cost me the airfare, car-rental & petrol... hmmm, maybe not quite the bargain I thought. Then to the TV for the News, weather forecast & America’s bizarre advertisements for medicines... You can get a pill for just about anything that can go wrong with you in this country, but you’d be a brave soul to actually take it – the ads feature about a minute’s worth of warnings about possible side-effects, clashes with other medication, detrimental effects on other, healthy, body parts... In fact, the warnings go on for longer than the advert itself. And so, to bed... without sleeping pills... they might kill me
No photos from the day, so have another couple of the elk in Rocky Mountains National Park...
Sept. 25. Tuesday – Boulder
Gary had to return to work, so we arranged to meet up with him later in the day, for him to show us a few good places to buy real, genuine, preferably made in the USA cowboy boots. At our second stop we found a couple of nice ones, though they didn’t have Julia’s choice in her size. Never mind, there’s plenty of cowboy country ahead of us...
Afterwards, Julia & I entered our first Wal-Mart... In fact a Super Wal-Mart... & an amazing, slightly surreal & overwhelming place it was. There were a few things we actually needed, but we were mostly there just to see the place & the people who shop there. Disappointingly, the clientele all seemed pretty normal, unlike the ones we’d seen on ‘peopleofwalmart.com’. But there is a gun section & it’s not far from the pharmacy counter, where you can get your anti-depressants before stocking up on ammunition... of which there was a scarily large selection & have we mentioned how cheap everything is in the States? Even so, we walked out about $250 lighter in the wallet & into the first rain we’ve encountered on the trip. And yet more of those billboards for ambulance-chasing lawyers... Must be a growth industry in the USA... you can always tell when you’re either approaching, or in, a large town or city, because these smarmy, pearly-white-toothed smiling suits beg you to let them sue somebody when you get out of Intensive Care. Or maybe they visit you while you’re still in there. They could even be the first person you see when you regain consciousness, handing you a business card while the doctor checks your pulse. The whole concept horrifies me
Back to Gary & Kathy’s in time to try on the new boots & head into Denver for dinner with some friends Julia met online, but had never ‘met’ before. Fortunately, they recognised each other outside the chosen venue, so there was no embarrassing wandering around looking at people & wondering who they were. Scott & Debbie turned out to be a quite nice couple. Scott is also a photographer, so he, Gary & I were set for conversation for the rest of the rainy evening, over steaks & an Australian red wine that I normally wouldn’t touch back at home, but seemed quite palatable over here. Either I was homesick, or they export the good stuff... I suspect the latter. Debbie, Julia & Kathy seemed to hit it off rather well too, so a good night was had by all & we all have some new friends to keep in touch with
Back to Boulder in the rain, to be adored by the dogs & for Gary to share more techniques... this is turning out to be quite the crash-course & it’s only cost me the airfare, car-rental & petrol... hmmm, maybe not quite the bargain I thought. Then to the TV for the News, weather forecast & America’s bizarre advertisements for medicines... You can get a pill for just about anything that can go wrong with you in this country, but you’d be a brave soul to actually take it – the ads feature about a minute’s worth of warnings about possible side-effects, clashes with other medication, detrimental effects on other, healthy, body parts... In fact, the warnings go on for longer than the advert itself. And so, to bed... without sleeping pills... they might kill me
No photos from the day, so have another couple of the elk in Rocky Mountains National Park...
