And so, once again, I awoke at Angie’s looking forward to leaving that day until I stepped out of the bedroom and saw things that still needed to be done. I began to feel a bit grim so I figured getting some coffee and fixing up the website might make me feel a bit better. It certainly did.
Things ended up not so near as grim as I first gave them credit for. Angie woke up a few hours after me and said she’d pretty much fallen asleep again as soon as I’d left for the movie. This was actually good since she had gotten so little sleep the past few days. The work that needed to be done was minimal and by noon it was looking like we were about to set to step out the door and take our first steps together off on the walk. That is, of course, until my friend, Angelina, stopped by to pick something up and say goodbye and I let the dog out.
It was a half an hour hunt in which Angie, with banged up knees from a bike wreck a few days earlier, shimmied between two buildings and had to scoop ole H out from under a car. She was a bit upset with me for a little, but by one we were out the door and all was forgiven and happy.
We walked a few blocks over to a school that had a map of the US painted on the sidewalk to take some pictures then we headed up to the grocery store talking to both of our sisters on the phone. Angie ran into an old lady there who was fascinated with the whole ordeal and wanted to figure out which guy waiting in line was her boyfriend. She kept pointing out different guys and Ang kept saying, “the guy with the big red pack on. No not him, the big red pack. The guy with that huge pack on.” She finally found me and asked a few questions and wished us both luck.
Either way, with our chores done we went up to the Mercury Café to meet some of Angie’s friends, Kim and Scott, to say goodbye. It was a nice short visit where the owner, one of Angie’s friends, gave us some magical corn to plant, then off we went again planning to visit her sister, Stacy, and niece, Mia. We ended up not going though due to some issues about us having screwed up our entire day the day before. So straight to the adventure it was for us after that.
It felt very strange being back in nomad mode again especially back with having someone with me again. It was great having someone to talk with now, and take breaks with. We passed through neighborhood after neighborhood just chatting away and she had no problems keeping pace with me. In fact, when I suggested our first break she wanted to keep going.
Our main goal was basically just to get out of familiar territory and to get out from under the all seeing eye of the blue Quest tower. Denver was celebrating Cinco de Mayo that day so as we passed through some of these neighborhoods we heard one kid yell in good fun “Mexico’s better” upon seeing my draped American flag over Rommelton. A few miles later down the road he past us again in the back of a truck waving the Mexican flag.
Soon we could no longer see Denver’s towers and even sooner the sun began waning in the sky with our late start so we consulted our map for a place to bunk out in. Memories of Atlanta started swirling my mind with all the difficulties we had there coming from the heart of the city. Angie, however, was completely unconcerned and had good faith we’d find a spot. Getting into the suburb of Westminster we realized we were about to walk within twenty feet of an old friend of hers whom she hadn’t talked with in a good while. We debated calling him since they last spoke on bad terms, but finally she decided she should and mend old wounds before leaving for a good while. He answered and welcomed us as if nothing had ever happened.
Before getting in we ran across two little girls, probably about 8 or 9, coasting their bikes down an incredibly steep hill. They asked us what we were up to and their eyes widened at hearing our tale. One was greatly enthusiastic about the whole trip; the other seemed to think it was the dumbest thing anyone would want to subject themselves to. None-the-less, we gave them cards and off we went to Bob’s.
Bob was the friend and he was great. We got a pizza; some other friends came and went that Angie had known a long while, so it was nice watching them all relive old times. Originally Angie wanted to keep going fearing that we weren’t covering enough ground that day, but it was such a great time and good place to stay that we stayed the night.