The Southwest - Part 4

August 21 -  The Day Before the Day After Tomorrow

I don't remember the rest of the trip into Ridgway.  Free booze will do that to you.

So waking up in a foreign bed (or as I call it, saturday) I decided the best cure for my hangover would be to go for a run.  My reasoning can only be explained by a) still being drunk and b) altitude sickness.

The problem with this plan, aside from the obvious, is that in Ridgway there is only one direction of travel: UP.

Not to be deterred by simple things like common sense, aversion to pain or the instinct to survive, I tore up the nearest hill (read: motherf***ing mountain.  Colorado doesn't do hills).

Passing by   the conjurings of my booze-addled oxygen-deprived mind  a llama farm I soon realized (the full extent of) my mistake: there is no way to gently descend a mountain while running.  My return trip was more of a (un)controlled plummet.  Don't even think about   petting that llama  tying that shoelace!

That afternoon I  was carried  went to what my Seventh Day Adventist kin call a "devotional".  A devotional is basically like a wedding but without booze, cake, music, booze or cake.

This was followed by a group hike (still no booze) and then a barbecue (no meat AND no booze).  Can you even call it a barbecue if there's no meat?  That's more like a stir fry.

I don't know if you've ever attended a family barbecue sober, but those things are long.  It's amazing how slowly time goes by without social lubricant.  Where's the classic after dinner entertainment: those two uncles who can barely contain their hate for each other long enough to unwrap presents, whose animosity needs only a sprinkling of eggnog to erupt into a (hilarious) showdown?

This was going to be a long weekend.