Punching Through the Edge of the Envelope

 I just spent an hour and a half writing the rest of this post, and blogger erased it when I published it.  I will try to rewrite it later...

Last weekend, Tom and I took an overnight camping/motorcycling trip.  The plan called for leaving Denver on Friday afternoon, after work, and camping on the way to Texas Creek (which is 10 or 15 miles west of Canon City and the Royal Gorge, on US 50).  There, we were to hook up with a couple of Tom's buddies and ride some off-road trails.

I was a bit worried about what kind of trail it might be.  "Don't sweat it," Tom said.  "These guys are in their late 60s, and they'll be riding 4-wheelers.  It'll be a slow ride, and they said that we would be riding the easy trail."

So, Friday afternoon, I made my way down toward Tom's house.  He needed to get home, and change clothes, prep the bike, etc.  I ended up getting to his area of town a little early, so I stopped off and filled up with gas.  A couple of doors down from the gas station was a liquor store, and it occurred to me that a -pack of beer would be a nice thing to have at the campsite, in light of the 100+ degree temperatures.

I went into the store, and looked around to see if they had any soft coolers.  No luck, so I just grabbed a sixer of Iron City, and went to pay for it.  As I was checking out, a gal walked up behind me, ready to check out, herself.  She had a big bottle of Crown Royal, and a 12-pack of Busch beer.

"Looks like you're ready to party," I said.  She laughed and agreed, then I grabbed my beer and went back out into the heat.  I was busily stuffing cans of beer into the empty spaces of my load when the "party girl" came out of the store.

"If I wasn't going out of town, I'd invite myself over,"  I said, as she glanced my way.

"Oh," she said.  "I was going to invite you..."

Feeling like a stud, I got on the bike and crossed the road to Walgreens, where I got a little soft-side 6-pack cooler for three dollars.  From there, I went across the parking lot to Starbucks, where I got an iced vanilla latte, and the girl behind the counter filled my cooler with ice.  I sat inside the air-conditioned Starbucks until it was close to time for me to show up at Tom's house.

I arrived at Tom's, after getting lost in his neighborhood for a little bit, as he was rolling his XR650 out into the driveway.  We sat around a bit, talking to his wife, then Tom and I took off.  After a stop at the ATM to get some cash, Tom led out.