The CFY,K Travelogue Phase Three: Colorado

• As has been made, I think, pretty clear by the first two "phases" of the CFY,K Travelogue, I spent a great deal of time on this trip not actually doing much of anything. I found this to be refreshing, coming off, as I was, a hard summer of the final throes of college classes, and all the attendant nonsense therewith. By the time I got to Denver, though, it seemed like it was time to get on with the business of some hard-core tourism. Luckily for me, old Lo-Ha, my lovely hostess, was as bored and as unemployed as I was (and, by the way, am), and therefore ready to seek out whatever action there was to be found in the Centennial State.

• If you laugh "a special kind of" laugh when you're hanging out with Nebraska, then it's sort of a constant thing with Lo-Ha. At least with me. Everything that happens when you're hanging out with her is hilarious, due in no small part to the fact that she's there. It's one of those things like if Lo-Ha was reading out of the dictionary, it would be really, really funny that she was, in the first place, reading out of the dictionary.

• I think our shared inability to take anything seriously came in clutch when we visited - for the purposes of continuing a sort of trip-long theme, as well as research - the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at the Naropa Institute. I had read about this place, but I don't think either of us were prepared for the weird brand of, like, militant freak they have running around that place. Indo-Tibetan Buddhism majors engaged in poetry slams with students of transpersonal psychology. There were strictly enforced rules as to which color of meditation pillow was allowed where. All of it: too much. After a half-hour we commandeered the sole computer in the school's tiny library to purchase baseball tickets online.

• The real highlight of my time in Colorado, I think, was a trip we took from Denver to Aspen by way of Independence Pass. The route is closed during the winter, because the road is high and treacherous. We almost hit a deer to the tune of "Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)." Along the way, one fact became clear: everything in Colorado is mind-bogglingly beautiful. Even the mechanics. I kind of couldn't really deal with it. Once you get to Independence Pass, you're over twelve thousand feet above sea level. So. Even in the middle of the summer, it's awfully cold.

• At "Aspen's hippest hotel," old people play Connect Four at a large table in the lobby at all hours. Aspen is weird. It's surrounded by gorgeous mountains and peopled with citizens that seem nice enough. Be warned, though: they can sense that you are not in possession of a Black Card before you enter into any restaurant, and the wait staff treats you accordingly. Although I felt like some kind of impostor when I was there, I don't want to come across like I had a bad time in Aspen. It's incredibly picturesque and relaxing. It makes sense that rich people spend so much time there. But, really, for me, it was getting there that was the most fun.

• The next day I woke up and embarked immediately to conclude the strange "literary portion" of my tour of America. Lo-Ha and I drove around Woody Creek, Colorado for hours until we finally came across the entranceway to a compound that may or may not have been part of Hunter S. Thompson's legendary Owl Farm. I'm satisfied that it is. But you never know. Lo-Ha was, after a fashion, bored. So, with a final stop at Buffalo Bill Cody's final resting place, and a protracted round of the "Famous People Name Game," we returned to Denver.

• I left Colorado and Lo-Ha and what was essentially the final leg of my amazing trip the next morning. I returned to Orlando to visit again with Higginbotham. (Note: never, ever, under any circumstances, expect any peace and quiet on a flight to Orlando. You will be surrounded be screaming children that are out of their goddamned minds with excitement at the prospect of spending any amount of time at all at Disney World, and you will curse plane travel and want, silently, to die.) I regretfully couldn't spend the night there, though, as there seemed to be pressing issues to attend to in my hometown, so I went to see my folks for a few days. Then my car broke down, and I am now stranded in their home as I type this.