Drew's First Big Boy Vacation

I've been on vacations as an adult before. I'd just never planned one. Every flight/vacation I've been on has been planned by an ex-girlfriend, my mother or my sister. It was kind of a big deal to me.

So for Labor Day I decided to make my triumphant return to Denver (or as I affectionately refer to it: Donkeytown). Most of the friends I visited had either
A: Never seen me drive
or
B: Hadn't seen me drive in 10 years
- so I rented a Cadillac.
Thursday night I had dinner (proper Denver Mexican, natch (anything can be smothered with green chile IMO)) with Myron and his girlfriend Diana and he absolutely could not stop marveling at the sight of me behind the wheel of a car, much less a Caddie. Totally worth the extra dough. Here's a pic of me and the Caddie:



I stayed with my friend Brian (Dirty Curty) that night and had a ball. As different as he and I are, and in spite of 18 months of separation, we slipped right into our familiar shtick like putting on old shoes.

Friday I spent the day with my bro Matt & his boy Hank. We played dominoes, ate some (more) awesome Mexican at Senor Pepes, picked up Hank from school, ate ice cream, played Legos and took some gorilla suit pics. Here's one of Matt, Hank & I:



I spent Friday evening with James (JimJam) and his girlfriend Amber (AmBam) in their groovy apartment in the newly gentrified Five Points neighborhood. It's a neat place and we went out for Chubby's (Denver's best green chile, hands down). We stayed up late-ish laughing and visiting.

Saturday James & I had breakfast at my old favorite haunt, The Park Tavern, before I headed north to Fort Collins to see my sister, Kelly. She and I went for a pedicure (it's become a bit of a tradition when we get together) and, as always, the gal got a kick out of painting my toenails. That evening we had dinner and drinks at her husband Hal's restaurant. His green chile's a bit fancy for my taste but he promised the recipe so I could use it as a base, at least, to make my own. We played some pinball and I laughed at people's reactions to Potty-Shirt version 2.0.

Sunday was Ween (my absolute favorite touring band) at Red Rocks (my absolute favorite venue for live music). I'd been entertaining the idea of temp-tattooing my own face on the back of my shaven head and this seemed like the perfect moment: Several thousand people standing behind me to view my insanity. Here's about the best pic of it:



The way I'd printed it (and the way the temp tattoo paper works) I had an extra. Kelly thought it'd be a good idea to put it here:



We drove back down to D-town and checked into our hotel. Having something stuck to back of your own head kind of deprives you of enjoying people's reaction. When we had our first viewer Kelly started laughing which made me start laughing. Apparently the gent was quite stunned/amused. We ran a few errands for sandwiches and liquor and cackled often at the reactions of the norms.

JimJam & AmBam arrived and we headed to the show. I dunno why I'm always surprised at some people's lack of reaction to some of my hi-jinx - I guess everybody's just too cool/jaded nowadays. Some people did enjoy it so there's that.

Here's a good pic of J & A:



And one of me & Sis:



And one of the four of us:



Anyhow, Ween played great and fun was had by all.

We partied a minute back at the hotel and hungover to the moon I made my way over to DIA to fly back to The Land Of Draw-string Pants. I turned in the Caddie and hopped on the shuttle bus. I'm sitting there wondering how my head/face tat's going over with the public at large (again, I can't see their reactions and no matter how hard I whipped my head around couldn't catch anyone agog) when a guy who looks like Ween's bass player (Dave Dreiwitz) gets on the shuttle. He's the sort of celebrity (?) who's nondescript enough that I only barely ventured a "Great show last night." My pretty blue toes caught him by surprise and after my comment registered he gave a quick "Thanks". I glanced back later to catch him and his girlfriend with big smiles (I presume it was due to my insanity.)

To wrap up: only two people had the temerity to ask WTF?!? about my head from DIA to OKC and I was "home". The whole trip seemed to only reinforce the feeling that I'm living in enemy territory and left me very homesick. Oh well. Sorry if this all was TL:DR.