Gods, Games and Good Company

Monday, August 31, 2009

"I get by with a little help from my friends."

I grew up listening to my dad tell me that "we are lucky if we come out of

life with 3 really good -true friends." Real friends, the kind that you call not only to say hello or tell about your new job, but the kind you call when life hits you so hard you can't say hello- or anything for that matter, but they understand your silence, and are there for you.

If this is the case- 3 is lucky, then I should probably buy a lottery ticket. When you take a trip like this, you expect to learn a lot: how long you can go without showering, how

much beef jerky one person can possibly eat in a 24 hour period, how to get the camera ready in time to capture the 100 foot Jesus on the side of the road - you get it. I guess I didn't expect that a phrase I grew up hearing would find me feeling unexpectedly blessed and grateful.

I knew this trip would not be possible without my best friend and co-pilot, J. This was the journey we signed up for. However, little to our knowledge did we expect how much having our friends and family helping us along the way mattered - from places to stay, cat sitting, van borrowing, offers of food and drink, sharing glory days, a spare eggshell mattress to sleep on, boat rides, or spending 96 hours straight with us, we have encountered friendship, generosity and kindness of all kinds. Today is the day I realized that this trip is not just about J and I driving across the country and testing our relationship endurance, but everyone else that we

encounter along the way.

I woke up this morning to the smell of a homemade breakfast and the sight of good fortune as I looked around and saw J, Eric and Stipe at the breakfast table ready for our next day of adventures and reeling from the previous day's misadventures.

We started off at Garden of the Gods where camels were kissing and a man name Cliff just said no to "head change",

because a Dijerido was all he needed.We toured Downtown Colorado Springs and Old Colorado City where we lunched at "Meadow Muffins" and discovered that Stipe was the Rain Man of Big Buck Hunter.

In the afternoon, Eric helped me escape from the fellas to have some girl time getting pedicures. Though I couldn't convince my large firefighter friend to get his toes polished, he did enjoy the massage chairs.

Eric’s roommate and our gracious co-host, Rudy, welcomed us home from my escape with homemade fajitas. Firefighters feed you well. Bellies content, we headed to visit Shannon, Eric’s girlfriend, back at “Good Company,” where she works, also the bar we previewed the night prior, and the place where Stipe discovered that a splash of Mountain Dew can be life changing.

We were disappointed to find out that we needed to show up 2 hours prior to enter in the beer pong tourney. However, the Wii system the bar had to offer tempered this disappointment. So we played Wii tennis and Wii bowling in addition to trying Wii ATM, Wii beer drinking, Wii painting and other homemade Wii activities.

J dominated tennis and bowling, which gave him the title of Wii Champ for the night. I was happy to beat Eric at Wii baseball and after my disappointing performance at Wii bowling, this was the boost I needed for our next game. J and I wandered over to the beer pong tables in an attempt to challenge the tourney champs to an off-the-record match. Instead we found John and John who did not win the tourney, but were up for some Midwest competition. Mountain rules are different than how we play in the Midwest, but J and I were game and after a few sinkers including one where the cups were rotating, we won beer pong in time for last call.

We retired to our temporary home and decided to get an early start to our travels to the Grand Canyon. At 4:30am, I reminisced at the feeling of getting up in anticipation of doing 1000 jumpies and rowing the Cuyahoga. Stipe and J took on the first leg. I was able to crawl up in the back and tried to reset my body from the last few days, laughing to myself as I thought about what great dancers we all were.

-jb