Ok, here's what happened when we went to Colorado Springs and I gave a presentation at a conference. The week before we left town, I walked into Belk's to look at new suits and laugh at the prices. A very short time later, I walked out the proud owner of a new suit at a fantastic price. I knew then my black cloud was saving up for me. I warned M to expect an engine failure on the way to Colorado.

Saturday, travel day, dawned bright and beautiful. Uh-oh.

Then, wouldn't you know it, we got to Colorado (by way of Dallas, of course) safe and sound. Now I was really scared.

We ran into DK in the airport at Colorado Springs. Turns out he was on the same airplane we were on from Dallas and we didn't know it. We gave him a lift to the hotel, where he discovered his reservation didn't start until the next night and they were all booked until then. (Don't ever stand too near a tree in an electrical storm. You might get hit instead.) Well, ole DK had to find another hotel for one night. The Sheraton (where the conference was) wasn't even going to help him find somewhere else until he put up a stink. We noticed the condition of the hotel and dubbed it the Dirty Sheraton. Anyway, we offered to give him a ride to another hotel and he said yes. We ended up taking him to the Radisson by way of an Arby's. There was rain in the area, the first Colorado Springs had seen in three weeks.

When we got back to the Sheraton, we ran into JT, RN, and The Boss. We were going to go somewhere simple for dinner, like the Denny's across the street. (This was after we discovered the lack of suitable dining facilities in the Sheraton.) The Boss would have none of that. He attacked the concierge and demanded to know where the good restaurants were. To make a long story short, we ended up going to La Casita. An authentic Mexican restaurant, the concierge said. It turned out to be a bright pink converted gas station. Hmm. The place was informal to say the least. Cafeteria style, picnic tables, cement floors. The food was pretty good, I guess. Not great. M got the beef fajitas and I got the chicken so we could each have a little of both. Forgot what JT got. RN got ice cream. The Boss got the combo beef and chicken fajitas. Dinner conversation was nominal. After eating, we all piled back into the rental car and motored back to the hotel. Everyone survived my driving. We thought that was the end of the La Casita...

Sleep was interrupted several times during the night for trips to the facilities. Not much worse than your average Chi-Chi's experience, though.

Sunday morning dawned fairly calm. M and I launched towards Pike's Peak. We caught the train to the top. Along the way we saw big-horn mountain sheep and several Marmots. (Kinda like a cross between a prairie dog and a groundhog.) Saw patches of snow near the top. When we got to the top, (14,110 feet) I made the mistake of trying to stand up. Spent the next 40 minutes on the edge of passing out. It was pretty cool. View was great, shot lots of film (some of it even in focus). On the way back down, M saw a bear. I was still enjoying the pink elephants.

Found out later that JT and RN took the train to the top that afternoon. There was thundersnow when they got there. JT walked over to some point for RN to take his picture and noticed he was tingling all over. Instead of hitting the deck or running like a madman, he decided to let RN take his picture first. Why he didn't get struck by lightning, we'll never know.

Spent some of the afternoon in the Garden Of The Gods. Big city park with large red rocks and stuff. Very scenic, but overrun with tourons. (Touron = tourist + moron). Tried to get pictures, but the tourons all seem to think nature looks better with them standing in front of it. It rained.

The next morning, M and I went to the hypersonic session to listen to JT, DO, and BM. Said hello to The Boss and noticed he had a big gash on his forehead and another on the bridge of his nose. Asked around but nobody knew what happened to him. More on the The Boss later... Went to a session on receptivity that afternoon. It was all invited papers. Understood about 10 percent of it. M spent the afternoon at a massage parlor. It rained.

That evening (Monday) we headed up to Denver to see the Colorado Rockies take on the Houston Astros. It rained bloody hell on us most of the way up. I recall hoping the farmers appreciated all the rain we brought them. We got to Mile High Stadium, found our seats, and regretted not having an umbrella. Bought our hot dogs and baseball hats and settled in for a long, cold, drizzly ballgame. In the middle of the third inning, the umps called a rain delay since it was really coming down by then, and the ground crews covered the infield with a tarp. We were cold and soaked. We left. It rained on us most of the way back to the hotel.

Tuesday started out ok. We headed up to the Air Force Academy and joined the grand tour. Very nice. They have jets parked in the middle of campus. Headed back to the hotel to catch a few sessions in the afternoon. M went back to the massage parlor. It rained. Had dinner with my father. The view out his back door is an unobstructed view of Pikes Peak. Thinking of knocking him off and taking his house...

Wednesday morning we went to the Cave of the Winds for our "Wild Tour". Not the weeny touron tour that lasts 15 minutes and stays on the lighted paths. We spent two hours crawling through caves on our bellies, through passages barely big enough to get through. The only light we had was our flashlights. Saw some amazing things, though. Also got amazingly muddy. It was well worth the trip. Got back to the hotel and cleaned up. Practiced my talk and took it easy. Took M out to dinner for her half birthday.

Ran into JT and got the scoop on The Boss's forehead. He got the scoop from BH. Turns out The Boss didn't fare as well as the rest of us after our visit to La Casita. He didn't get a bit of sleep that night. Spent most of it in the bathroom with a bad case of food poisoning. On one of his mad dashes to the bathroom, he passed out. Woke up in the doorway with blood all over himself. He'd hit the bathroom doorknob with his head on the way down. Good thing I already graduated.

Thursday morning, I gave my talk at 8:00. The talk went ok, but they really grilled me during the questions. Damn those receptivity gurus. They saw through all my smoke screens. Went back to the room and got M for lunch. Then we headed off to the Manitou Springs Cliff Dwellings. Very disappointing. Reminded me of some sort of tourist theme park. Oh, well. Had dinner with a bunch of N.C. State people at a microbrewery in downtown Colorado Springs. Ate a buffalo steak. Not bad.

When we got back to the room, M discovered $40 missing from her makeup bag. The Dirty Sheraton just got demoted to Hotel Hell. As if it's not bad enough that we have the worst maids in the world. They never make up the room until mid-afternoon, several days they left dirty towels in the bathroom, they stole our bathmat and only gave it back to us one day, and they didn't clean out the coffee maker once. Now they're stealing our money. We marched right down to the front desk and demanded to see the manager. The desk girl said ok, and what was this in reference to. I said theft from my room. Her eyebrows hit the ceiling and a minute later the manager and the security guard were there being very nice to me. They gave me $40 on my room tab. They also interviewed the maids. There were two working that hallway. One said she was innocent, and the other never showed back up to work. Sheeeesh!

Ok, between the rain and the theft, I think my black cloud caught up to me.

Friday turned out very nice. And it didn't even rain. M and I went to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo and the Will Rogers Shrine of the Sun. M fed crackers to the giraffes. I have photo documentation. We sat up at the Will Rogers Shrine and looked out over the plains for a good while. Then some tourons came blasting up and we high-tailed it back. Spent the afternoon driving west through the mountains. We got to the other side and I decided to let my father live. I'd found a better view than his. Someday I'm going to build a house there. You get to the back-side of the first line of mountains, and there's a big valley stretching about 20 or 30 miles to the next line of snow capped mountains. You have to see it to believe it.

We drove back and had dinner with the old man again. Sat on his deck, enjoyed his view, and drank his beer. Not a bad way to spend the evening.

Saturday was travel day. Unfortunately, we had no adventures on the way back.