the springs

I am no longer listening to anyone's mumbo jumbo about gay-hating, conservative, religious, uptight or rigid places. Colorado Springs is the last place I will visit with any preconceptions or negative expectations. We had an absolutely amazing time. Our check in time was at 2pm and we arrived around 1. We had skipped breakfast so we had both been craving eggs and talking about it increasingly the whole ride from Denver. We decided we had plenty of time to eat and we were very excited to find a diner only blocks from the B&B. We parked the car on the street and ended up making the decision that we needed a designated places for quarters (if i write that in the blog it will help me remember to do it). Finally after crawling around the car for a few minutes, we were legally placed and had plenty of time to finally have breakfast! The outside of the diner was really colorful and you couldn't see through the windows due to an excess of advertisement. It was hard to determine what to expect, but we knew that if it was a diner, it could make us eggs. Inside there was blasting rock music, and a very unique atmosphere. It had a really young, Colorado feel to it. Very excited for what we just walked into, we were seated and immediately became engrossed with our menus. Everything sounded good and some of the items boasted a "Famous Green Chili Sauce". We started to notice all the accolades displayed on the walls. KING'S CHEF DINER- WINNER '08 BEST GREEN CHILI IN COLORADO SPRINGS" I don't remember exactly what they said, but thats the general idea behind all these posters and banners. Then, after barely a minute comes the waitress. If this blog site allowed me to write in paragraphs, I would use a few spaces to pause here. Our waitress swaggers over covered in tattoos, with a not-on-purpose swoop half covering one eye. She asked us how we were doing today. We both, I think, had to take a second to remember who we even were so that we could locate an appropriate answer to her question. I don't actually remember what answer we gave. We managed to communicate that we would like coffee and water to drink and we'd need a few minutes to decide what we wanted to eat. We had a quick moment when she left to discuss how attractive our server was got back to looking at the menu. She came back with our coffee and water and we had not decided yet what we wanted. She said she'd give us more time. Again, we needed a moment to discuss again how attractive our server was. She came back to the table to take our order. To take our order, she sat at our table in the seat next to mine. This surprised both of us. Most of the time sitting or squatting at a table while taking an order is strictly forbidden. We ordered and smiled and she left. Our server looked like a mix of Scarlett Johansen and our friend Danielle from NY. This is NOT an unattractive combination. It was one of those people that fit into the "top 5 best looking people you've seen this year in real life" category. But it wasn't even just that. This girl seemed really cool. She was a vegetarian (which i always find a great quality). She just seemed like someone me and Rachel would hang out with in NY. It was really refreshing and surprising to have our first Colorado Springs encounter to be such a positive one. It made us both feel a little guilty that we came in with pre-experience judgement and expectations. One refill of coffee later our food came out. HUGE portions of eggs, omelette, toast, hash browns and sausage. The food was really good. We chatted for a little while about how we regreted not getting that famous green chili sauce. We'd definitely have to come back before leaving Colorado to try it. We paid and said goodbye but realized when we got to the car that we still had 20 minutes to kill. We were right downtown so we decided to walk around. First of all, Colorado Springs is gorgeous. It's at the base of Pike's Peak, which is one of those mountains taller than 14,000ft. It's the mountain, supposedly, that inspired Katharine Lee Bates to write the song "America the Beautiful". It's so clean and clear, and that huge mountain, covered in jagged rock and snow is just so close! The streets are busy with friendly looking people shopping, dining,or walking their dogs. We turned our first corner into Tejon St. This seemed like the main street of downtown. The first thing we noticed was the sidewalk. Someone had sidewalk chalked a series of rectangles in rainbow colors and the word "RIGHTS" under it and below it. Whichever direction you walked on the street you could see the word facing upright. This is the last thing we expected to see after our anti-gay warnings. As we walked we discovered this was written on every corner. It's pride month and we were happy to see that there was a an active community in the area. We've learned now that Colorado Springs gets this anti-gay reputation because it is the location for "Focus on the Family". I plan to look it up tonight and learn more about it, but what I've learned so far is that it is a program, or camp, that is supposed to treat homosexuality. If you or a loved one are suffering from homosexuality, there is help for you. FOCUS ON THE FAMILY can help ease the symptoms of homosexuality and make it possible for you to have a better life. Homosexuality is not your fault, it is a chemical imbalance which causes confusion. Promiscuous behavior. Drug use. An Unsafe environment for children. Attention seeking behavior and the overall disrespect for everything and everyone. If you feel any of these symptoms please call now. FOCUS ON THE FAMILY is clinically proven to reduce the effects of the homosexual imbalance. At FOCUS ON THE FAMILY we believe that you can be normal. Through therapy and prayer, FOCUS ON THE FAMILY will help you overcome homosexuality so that you can can stay with your family. Call now. I've always been really interested in these kinds of places. A few years ago I tried to find one online. I wanted to attend one so that I could then write a book about it. I couldn't find one. I don't know how I didn't come across it. I want to find out how long the programs are, and what's entailed. I don't know if I'd actually want to go to one anymore, but just learning about it sounds really interesting. So anyway, we got back to our B&B right at 2. Our host, Conchita, opened the door and knew who we were. She was so sweet and the house was beautiful. So far so good. I'll write about the rest of the trip later or tomorrow. This is even long for me! -lj