String Cheese- Article Eleven

'Five Stars' Can't Outshine Lone Star
by Aryn Corley

There’s no place like East Texas.

I recently attended a wedding in Colorado Springs, Colorado. The picturesque mountains there provide a stunning backdrop to the surge of “cookie cutter” housing developments going on in the area. It was nice to visit during a time when there wasn’t any danger of freezing off parts of my body.

The wedding itself was held at the historical Broadmoor Hotel. The Broadmoor Hotel is a very nice, top-of-the-line five star establishment. To the rest of the world, it’s a place of luxury and elegance. To us East Texans, it’s a whole lot bigger than Wal-Mart.

In the front of the hotel, valets were scurrying around parking people’s cars while bellhops were rushing around taking care of the luggage. I saw one lady who had so many bags I thought she was moving there! A guy in a turkey-pee yellow colored jacket and hat asked me if he could take my car. He was the either the nicest car jacker ever or he worked for ABC’s Wild World of Sports.

I handed him the keys, then my wife, kids, and I cautiously entered the enormous building.

Inside the hotel, everything was ornately decorated. The floors sparkled and the brass shined like the rails outside of the Walls Unit in Huntsville. It was also filled with thousands of things any 2-year-old would love to get their tiny “raccoon fingers” on. On the wall hung a picture of a disdainful old man who looked like he was about to shoot lasers out of his eyes. It was one of those creepy pictures where the eyes seem to follow you as you move around.

I approached a long wooden counter top where two people were smiling and looking at me. I slapped a five-dollar bill on the counter and said, “Bartender, I’ll have a Shirley Temple!” Their faces suddenly looked like that old man in the picture. “This is the registration desk, sir. Libations are served in the hotel bar on the mezzanine level.”

Mezzanine? Libations? I was starting to feel like Jed Clampett.

The hotel bar has a patio area overlooking a small lake filled with swans, geese, and several other varieties of waterfowl. I sat at a table and was approached by a man dressed like a bus driver. I asked what the special for the day was and he told me it was Duck A L’orange.

“I’ll believe I’ll have that one right there,” I said, pointing to a bloated swan.

His face started to look like those two people at the registration desk. He walked away and I never saw him again. He must’ve been a ghost.

Suddenly, I realized my wife and kids were nowhere to be seen. When my children are quiet, they’re usually up to no good. It didn’t take me long to find my two heathen cave children throwing peppermints at a poor squirrel sitting on a planter. I couldn’t decide who was more foolish, the kids for trying to bag a squirrel using hotel candy or the squirrel for taking it. As it turns out, my wife had run to the restroom, leaving them unattended. She’d gotten sick when she saw a woman carrying an actual Hermes “Birkin” handbag. The price of those hag bags is more than my Chevy pick-up truck!

After the wedding, we ate in The Penrose Room. For those who like fine dining and excellent quality food and service, this place is like heaven. For those who are more into seven-layer burritos and Route 44 Dr. Peppers with vanilla, then this is a little piece of hell.

My 5-year-old is such a picky eater that I couldn’t imagine why he wouldn’t want a Caesar salad. To him it “smells like feet.” My wife couldn’t get over how much the six-course meal cost. It affected her so much, she had to go back to the ladies room for another round of disbelief.

My 2-year-old declared she had to go to the toilet too. Anyone who’s ever potty trained a kid knows when they say that, you have about five seconds to respond. I scooped up my child and headed for the bathroom. I hadn’t gotten very far before a very official man wearing a bus driver’s supervisor uniform stopped me.

“Excuse, me sir. You have to have a jacket on when you come into the ballroom,” he said curtly.

I paused. Then very politely I responded.

“ I don’t have a jacket anymore because I donated it to a homeless guy who really needed it. Unless you want this 2-year-old to drop wolf-bait on your dance floor, I recommend you letting us pass.”

The nice man glared at me and stepped aside. He must’ve been related to that old grouch in the picture in the lobby.

Not long after that encounter we left. The Broadmoor Hotel is a nice place, and I recommend everyone to see it and stay there if you have the dough. Be warned! I don’t think it’s a place for the redneck crowd. Since being in East Texas, I’ve grown accustomed to the unrefined and uncomplicated way we live here in the Piney Woods.

Some people may call it uncivilized. I call it home.

UPDATE: It seems that bears read String Cheese too. I bet they let him slide on the jacket...
http://www.denverpost.com/rapids/ci_10070899