The Army requires me to interview to become a chaplain, so Alison and I made a whirlwind trip to Colorado last Thursday. We headed out EARLY at 5am. Alison very graciously let me sleep the first few hours. She's a giver like that. Oh, and she didn't want me to die. For some reason, I had been up till 1am the previous night. Neither of us remember now why I was so irresponsible, but oh well. Maybe I was packing.
After the run rose, and we were passing into Wyoming, suddenly Alison yelled at me.
"Hey! We just passed 100,000 miles."
Of course, we had to stop and take a photo of the odometer and then where we were on the side of the road. I almost got hit by a semi, but luckily, my Spider-sense kicked in, and I senses the semi while it was still 1/2 mile away.
We eventually arrived in Colorado Springs with about an hour to spare. That was good, as the sticker on the car was way out of date. It was from '05. The gate guards made us stop at the main gate and get a new sticker. Now our car is registered at Ft. Carson. Oh well. At least, the gate registration folks were friendly. I've certainly experienced enough bad attitude gate people in my life to have a healthy fear of that place.
It quickly became time for my interview, so Alison dropped me off at the appropriate building.
The interview went well. They asked me many questions. What is my motivation for ministry in the Army? How do I deal with folks from other faiths and denominations? What's my worship style? Typical chaplaincy-type questions. Thankfully, both chaplains were very friendly and were up for some conversation.
After the interview, and after I changed back into normal clothes (no suit for me), we headed over to the Military Clothing Store to purchase some boots. Finally, we got the service which I so quickly expected on a military base (sarcasm note). Actually, as a kid, I remember service in places like MCS and the PX being awful. It was no different at this MCS. They were severely understaffed. We waited for half an hour before finally someone came to get boots out of the back for me to try. Then, we waited another ten minutes for someone else to come back and get me a different pair. We only had to ask five times for service. Nice, huh?
I shouldn't be too indignant. The prices were alright. Where else can you buy Army boots anyway?
We headed up to Denver for supper with Kerry, a friend from seminary. We ate at Thai Basil, a fantastic thai food restaurant.
I kid you not. My green curry came in a pot with FIRE underneath it. Seriously, sticks were burning in the pot. Here's a picture of the pot just to prove that such a thing can exist.
Here's Kerry and us in front of the Buddha statue.
With full tummies, we headed to a mandatory stop, The Apple Store. Alison and I hadn't been in an Apple store since moving from Denver 2.5 years ago. I wanted to play with an iPhone to see what it felt like. We also wanted to see a Macbook Air in person. They really are super cool and WAY over-priced.
After visiting the Apple store, we turned in at our hotel. Posh!
The next morning, we had a few more essential visits.
One of those was Sunflower Market. Seriously, this place is a produce section the size of a normal grocery store. It's awesome. Also, the prices are amazing.
Loaded up with fruit (and animal crackers), we headed to our second essential stop,
Gart Sports Sports Authority. We were looking for skis for Alison. No dice there.
Third essential stop: REI. Ever been there? That place is like crack.
Final stop in Denver (or at least we thought so) was Chipotle.
One veggie, fajita burrito, please!
This is the sign of contentment. Right here. Who needs iPhones or gadgets or new skis when you're comfortably full on half a Chipotle burrito.
Well, then we started the long haul back to home. However, right away, we noticed that our FM transmitter wasn't working. How odd, we thought. So, we stopped at Circuit City to see about purchasing a new one.
One gasped breath later, we were leaving Circuit City. It was going to cost us $50. No way Frank. No way.
Frustrated, we headed back onto the highway. Odd thing happened though. About 20 minutes later, Alison was fiddling with the adapter and opened it up to discover the fuse was burst. Duh to us! So, we called a friend to find the nearest Radio Shack in Ft. Collins (another town on the Interstate). Three busted fuses and $1.50 down the drain and we realized that the actual problem was in the wires. We headed across the parking lot to Wal-Mart to pick up some batteries. FM Transmitter problem solved, and hey, it only took us 1.5 hours extra!
Our trip home was blissfully non-eventful.
Alison knitted. I read.
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