Day 35

Day 35 - Sunday, July 26th, 2009

Denver, CO to Colorado Springs, CO

A lazy day. Doubletree just might be my favorite Hotel chain. They have a huge strike against them for not having refrigerators in their rooms, but those delicious chocolate chip cookies that they dole out upon arrival make up for so much. The cookies are not quite as good as Chef Allen's at The Buckley School, but they have helped us to survive the long summer without an FBC (freshly baked cookie). I finished my cookie for breakfast as we checked out of our room at the very last moment.

Once again, hoping for the best, we started the car and the "Service Engine Soon" light remained brightly lit. Our plan is to take it to the GMC Dealership in Colorado Springs, CO bright and early Monday morning. In the meantime we headed for WalMart to replace my camp chair. We stopped at a Panda Express on the way for our first true meal of the day and had the best Chinese Food since NYC. When we started the car, the light didn't come on. Relieved and mystified we made our WalMart purchases, and jotted down the names and addresses of used bookstores in the area from the phonebook at the Customer Service area.

Our first stop was the main branch of the Denver Public Library. Ever since Cleveland, OH when we wandered into the library downtown to discover that they were weeding their inventory, and purchased a James Patterson audiobook for $1.00 (which we later sold to a Hastings Books for a $4.50 credit), we have been stopping at libraries on our way looking for deals. Denver's Library was located downtown across from the state capital building

and surrounded by the art museums. It was a nice, peaceful place that felt well used and loved. Unfortunately, the weeding store was closed on Sundays, so we moved on to the Used Book Mall about a mile further south and each found a book. It was right next to a Big Lots, so while Tara perused the merchandise, I looked through another phone book, having lost the original sheet of addresses from the WalMart. This time through I found a used audiobook store in Arvada, CO a suburb of Denver. We zipped north on I-25, and saw that the store was closing for good...on July 31st. Just in time. This store had thousands and thousands of audiobooks and we spent at least 45 minutes sifting through the titles. I found the CD version of the BBC Radio Broadcasts of the original Star Wars Trilogy and nearly geeked to death. I recovered, added a couple of Douglas Adams titles to my haul and joined Tara at the register with her titles of "Devil Wears Prada" by Lauren Weisberger and "Good in Bed" by Jennifer Weiner.

As soon as we exited we noticed the time was 4:30 and headed straight to a Taco Bell to take full advantage of the Rockies promotion of 4 tacos for a quarter that was only going on from 4 - 6 pm. Filled with the goodness that is Taco Bell, we headed to Colorado Springs to another Doubletree and the wonderful cookies that were waiting.

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