reflection

I took some time last night while Rach was at work to reflect and read over our blog from the beginning. It was so much fun to do! We worked so hard on this adventure idea and were so excited about it! How can we give the idea up after only three months? We spent three times that long planning it! I say we must go on and I insisted to Rachel when she got home that she should take time to read our blog as well. It just gives a different perspective. One that we had a very clear view of only a few months ago. This is such a cool idea! What twenty five year old wouldn't want to go on a two year (give or take) long road trip! The experiences and friends we will walk away with after this will be far more valuable to us than going back to school right now before we're ready. We had already pretty much decided to continue on adventure a few days ago but reading the blog sort of set a reset button for me. It restored me to my original factory state and reignited my passion for what we're doing. I'm so glad I did it. Anyway...I apologize to readers that blogspot does not let me make paragraphs while I'm writing. Sometimes the lack of paragraphs make it hard to follow when I all of a sudden change subjects. If I could separate my ideas into paragraphs for you to be better understand, I would, however, I cannot. So...switching topics... the movie yesterday was amazing and so funny. It was touching, very clever and if anything, left Rach and I wanted daughters rather than wanting to be actors. But remember when I said I couldn't wait for the cartoon in the beginning? Well, there wasn't one! Maybe I was wrong- I guess it's not a Pixar movie. Regardless, I was very disappointed because i just LOVE those little short cartoons. I want to get that DVD of them that one an Oscar two years ago. I find short cartoons so intelligent and imaginative. So, moving on, after the movie we decided that our little travel bug was hungry. Two nights earlier we had watched our (or maybe my) hero, Anthony Bourdain eat at a sausage cart placed somewhere on the 16th Street Mall. The 16th Street Mall is sort of Denver's Times Square. It's the tourist strip but its still full of fun shops, the book stores, restaurants, the movie theatre we go to (a lot), piano's in the middle for anyone to sit and play and a free bus that runs up and down the street from Capital Hill to the little canal. Don't picture Times Square in your head. If there's one thing about Denver its that its clean clean clean and does NOT resemble New York City. This explanation having been said, Rachel and I decided to find this sausage cart that Anthony Bourdain showered with praise. We decided to walk toward Capital Hill since we were closest to that. No go, it wasn't that way. So we turned around and walked down the street in the opposite direction. We went into one of my favorite stores called Mt. Everest Imports and Rachel bought a little good luck statue. This store has imports from Nepal and Tibet and smells like inscence. I've always loved this store. So now with good luck charm in hand (which cost us $5.34, 34 is my lucky number!) we continued down the street. No cars are allowed on 16th st, only those free busses so the middle is a free, safe space. In about two blocks we saw an information booth and walked over to inquire about this sausage stand we'd seen on Travel Channel. The lady knew exactly what we were talking about! "You must mean Biker Jim." Yes! That was the guy's name! She took a little black and white map printed on a piece of computer paper and marked an "X"on the corner of Arapahoe and 16th. She handed us the paper and wished us a good day. We kept walking and finally found the stand! We knew it was the right one because we recognized the sign in front. "Elk and jalepeno, Alaskan Reindeer..ALWAYS" Yep, this is what we were looking for! This is the stuff this adventure is about! Although this was the right cart we were disappointed that a nice looking guy around our age wearing a green shirt promoting recycling, replaced the famous Biker Jim we were excited to meet. We chatted with the guy and he explained that he sort of worked the cart for Jim now because they were busy getting a restaurant built. This guy seems really passionate about the cart and it seemed he'd been working with Biker Jim for a long time so we found him a very acceptable substitute. We wanted to try all the sausages since lots of them were proteins we've never tried, but they seemed so big we only chose two. We chose the Elk jalepeno and the Alaskan Reindeer. He asked what we wanted on them and we told him to be in charge of that. They came with a squirt of cream cheese and carmalized onions. We're not crazy about onions but if there's one important thing we've learned working in restaurants, it's that chef's do things for a reason. If it normally came with onions, then thats how we were going to eat them. I had been eyeing some picked relish the whole time and threw that on the reindeer one. (A move I will regret) We found an empty table on the side walk with an umbrella and sat down, super excited for a culinary adventure which is our ABSOLUTE very favorite kind of adventure. They weren't quite as good as we expected and we had to spend a minute scraping that super sweet pickle relish off the reindeer but they were still pretty good. Our mistake was trying these spicy, meaty, hot sausage/hot dogs on a 100 degree July day. The reindeer meat was especially delicious. It was really sweet and juicy. The elk was a little gamier but still full of flavor. Next time we definitely want to try the rattlesnake/pheasant sausage and I want to try the reindeer one without onions. I get why they're there... I just can't help it if I don't like them! We practically had to roll ourselves back to the car we were so full. Even though it wasn't as good as we thought, we think under different weather conditions it could be so we totally plan on going back till we try all of them. The experience gave me yet another reason to want to move to Alaska for a few months... Reindeer meat is really really good! Today we're going to check out some hiking grounds we might want to take the Popson parents when they come next week. It's going to be so fun to show them around and for them to see where we've been living. I wish my parents could come. My biological parents! Last time I was with the Popsons I was instructed to refer to them as mom and dad. Well...as dad. I need an arm around my shoulder and a "moment" to start calling Karen, mom, which I will force her to do next week. Another night alone tonight for me while Rachel goes to work. Don't be surprised if you get a second post today! -lj