travel

Airport Deja Vu

/ Diane Henders / 36 Comments

I actually wrote this in the airport on Saturday but I’m flying home today, so who knows…?

The sun is coming up and I’m sitting in the airport waiting to board my flight.  While I sit here with my carry-on baggage tucked close to my feet so no evil person can tamper with it, I’m reflecting on the changes in air travel since I flew for the first time thirty-some years ago.

After several decades, you’d think things would have changed more than they have.  I still feel unaccountably guilty every time I go through security.  The boarding lounges are still the same boring rows of uncomfortable seating. In fact, judging by the numbness of my butt, these may even be the very same seats as thirty years ago.

They still ask us to get to the airport an hour or two before our flight, apparently for the sole purpose of clogging the boarding lounge with cranky people.

The aircraft are basically the same.  The same cramped seats, the same seatbelts, the same impossibly tiny washrooms.  I never cease to marvel at the fact that some people actually have sex in those washrooms.  Hell, there’s barely room for me in there.  Then again, I guess if you did actually manage to cram two people in there, they’d pretty well have to be having sex.

It’s funny, but the only major improvements are to the airport terminal washrooms and the public-address systems – the two things that aren’t directly related to flying.

I like the automatic flush toilets, except when they flush before I’m done.  There’s nothing like a splash of icy water on your ass and a sudden loud noise to get the old adrenaline pumping.  But it’s nice to see they haven’t eliminated (sorry) the most critical function of airport toilets:  they still project a spray of contaminated water up to three feet when you flush, and it’s impossible to vacate the cubicle fast enough to avoid it.  You haven’t truly travelled until you have splatters of toilet water on your pants.

I have a love/hate relationship with the motion-activated water taps and soap dispensers, too.  When they work, they’re wonderful.  When they don’t (which is most of the time), I feel like an idiot waving my hands up, down, and sideways under an unresponsive spigot.  But, whatever.  I look like an idiot on a semi-regular basis anyway, so there’s really no added humiliation there.

The change I appreciate most is the improved public-address system.  I used to hate those old PA systems that sounded like a garburator attacking a table-setting for twelve.  You never knew whether they were saying your departure gate had changed and you had ten seconds to get to the opposite end of the airport; or that your flight had been cancelled altogether; or possibly that a fireball of death was speeding directly toward the terminal and everybody should flee.  It’s wonderful to be able to effortlessly interpret the announcements now.

But I’ve just discovered that the more things change, the more they stay the same.  The public address system just came on and delivered a lovely, crystal clear message:  my flight has been delayed for nearly two hours.

Sigh.

* * *

Since “that new-fangled internet” can be unreliable in airports, I’ll be responding to comments sporadically today… unless that fireball catches up with me.  If that happens, all bets are off. 

Home Free

/ Diane Henders / 24 Comments

I made it!

As I mentioned a couple of months ago, I was worried I might be on a no-fly list somewhere.  (That would be a “don’t-let-this-woman-on-an-airplane” list; not a list that prohibits flies from being in my presence.  I’d be delighted to get on an actual no-fly list – then I wouldn’t need fly diapers.)

Anyway, it turns out I’m on neither of those lists.  Last week I successfully completed a trip to Las Vegas to attend a wedding.  I even had fun.

The last time I flew to the States was about eight years ago, and the U.S. Customs guards, while not exactly hostile, were definitely Not Friendly.  Thanks to sponge toffee, I have issues with authority figures at the best of times, so slinking into a foreign country under the disapproving stare of Uncle Sam was a traumatic experience for me.  And I hadn’t even been doing anything remotely suspicious at the time.

This time, with my guilty browser history searing my conscience, I was distinctly anxious.

What if they turned me away and wouldn’t let me get on the plane?  Or worse, what if they didn’t turn me away, and instead dragged me off to an interrogation room, never to be seen or heard from again?

Clearing airport security has been a worrisome experience for me ever since they stepped up the screening requirements.  My waist pouch always contains a number of items that are either overtly weapons (jackknives), or could be construed as such by paranoid security personnel (nail file, screwdrivers, a vial of hand sanitizer, etc.)

So every time I fly, one of the items on my to-do-before-I-leave list is to audit my waist pouch.  Problem is, I have a lot of crap stuffed in there, and I either forget it or overlook it.  Twice, they’ve confiscated corkscrews from me; once it was scissors.  Each time, they write down my name on an ominous-looking list, and then give me the hairy eyeball until I shrivel to the size of a garden gnome and creep away trembling.

This time, as usual, I wrote “Take out weapons” on my to-do list, and then immediately glanced over my shoulder to see if Big Brother was watching.  Honest, I meant “take weapons out of waist pouch”, not “lay out weapons to be packed and smuggled aboard”.

To my surprise, everything went without a hitch in the Calgary airport.  The border guard barely glanced at me; I hadn’t forgotten to remove that stick of dynamite from my waist pouch; and amazingly, I wasn’t even selected for the “random” physical search (for which I’m chosen ninety percent of the time).

Coming home, Vegas airport security took some more nudie pics of me (I should have asked them for copies, come to think of it), but they didn’t tell me to bend over and pick up the soap, for which I was profoundly grateful.  Once I had removed my epidermis and superficial musculature and tucked it all into the little plastic bin to be X-rayed, it was clear sailing all the way.

Customs on the Canadian side lifted an amused eyebrow at my $20 declaration, and that was that.  Home free.

Little did they know I’d cleverly smuggled a prohibited item across the border:  a living creature carrying a communicable disease.

Yeah, I caught a cold while I was there.

But other than that, it was a perfect trip.

Driving Ms. Crazy

/ Diane Henders / 29 Comments

Some days, even the simplest things get ‘way more complicated than they need to be.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, sometimes I’m convinced I’m speaking Swahili because nobody seems to grasp what I’m trying to say, no matter how many different ways I phrase it.  I’m convinced it’s the Universe’s way of keeping me humble enough to summon up some charity and patience when somebody else suffers a brain/speech malfunction.

But sometimes it’s really difficult to refrain from beating my head against the nearest hard surface…

We were going to a store that had recently moved.  I was driving, and my passenger (who shall remain nameless to protect the guilty) was giving me directions.  I knew we were going to 9th Avenue, but I wasn’t sure of the address.

Calgary is divided into quadrants, so there are four possible locations for any given address.  Without the suffix “SW”, “SE”, “NW”, or “NE”, you’re lost.  I was pretty sure the store was in one of the southern quadrants, but I didn’t know which one:

Me:  “What’s the address?”

Passenger:  “I don’t know the actual address, but I know where it is.”

Me:   “Okay, where is it?”

Passenger:  “On 9th Avenue.”

Me:  “I know it’s on 9th Avenue, but where?”

Passenger:  “Just take Bow Trail.”

Me:  “I know how to get to 9th Avenue, I want to know where I’m going once I’m on 9th Avenue.”

Passenger:  “I’ll tell you where to turn.”

Me:  *suspenseful pause*  “And… where will I be turning?”

Passenger:  “It’ll be a left turn.”

Me:  “Congratulations, you’ve given me no useful information whatsoever.  Where the hell is it on 9th Avenue?”

Passenger:  “Oh!  It’s at the corner of 9th Avenue and 11th Street.”

Me:  “Southwest or Southeast?”

Passenger:  *growing impatient with my obtuseness*   “No!  It’s on the northeast corner of 9th Avenue and 11th Street.”

Me:  *gritting teeth*  “The northeast corner of 9th Avenue and 11th Street Southwest or 9th Avenue and 11th Street Southeast?”

Passenger:  “Oh…!  Southwest.”

Me:  *sigh*

Before you make any assumptions about gender vs. navigation skills, I’d like to point out that my passenger was male.  Just sayin’.

I can’t imagine how the phrase “It’s on the northeast corner of 9th Avenue and 11th Street Southwest” could have become any more complicated.  What should have been a five-second exchange turned into a ridiculous “Who’s On First” comedy routine.

It might have been funnier if I hadn’t been playing the part of the straight man while trying to steer my car through traffic to an unknown destination.

But it’s okay.  I know with absolute certainty that within days of posting this, I’ll be the one in the passenger seat, obfuscating the directions while the driver’s blood pressure rockets into the danger zone.

Come to think of it, I seem to recall the following conversation not too long ago:

Hubby:  “I’m supposed to turn left here?”

Me:  “Right.”

Hubby:  “Right?  Shit!”  *swerves over two lanes of traffic*

Me:  “No, left!  I meant, that’s right… that’s correct; you’re supposed to turn left…  Never mind, I’m an idiot.”

Thanks, Universe.  I owe ya one.

Anybody else have one of those “Who’s On First” moments lately?

P.S.  I’m so pumped – my new book cover designs are finally done!  Check ’em out in the “My Books” panel at the right – or bigger versions here.  They should start hitting the stores in a week or two.  🙂

Beer and Jiggs on “Da Rock”

/ Diane Henders / 18 Comments

I thoroughly enjoyed spending last week in St. John’s, Newfoundland.  It was my first visit to “Da Rock”, but I knew enough to be prepared for some idiosyncrasies.  Here are a few things the travel brochures don’t tell you.

Everyone who’s ever visited Newfoundland raves about how friendly everyone is, and it’s true.  Within a day, I’d been repeatedly called Honey, Sweetie, Darlin’, and Doll, all in delightful accents that ranged from lilting Irish to twangy down-home Newfie.  And that was just the women.

The men were even friendlier.  I got honks and waves, offers of rides, and one guy even offered me his hat (it was a windy day and my hair was flying).  Oddly, my husband didn’t get the same warm treatment from the guys.  Sheer coincidence, I’m sure.

Here’s the best piece of navigational advice I can offer:  Turn off your GPS while in St. John’s.  There are so many intersections where streets converge in a haphazard conglomeration, the GPS can’t keep up.  “Turn right” could mean any one of three possible options – and you will invariably choose the wrong one.

When your GPS’s voice starts to sound first miffed, then frantic (“turn right…” “recalculating…” “turn left, then turn right…”, “recalculating…” “turn right, then keep left, moron…” “recalculating…” “RECALCULATING…”) you know you’re doomed.

Paper maps are a better option, but we discovered the best solution is to follow a trucker through town.  You might not end up exactly where you wanted to be, but at least you’ll be on a main road and you can turn around and try again.

And now for a critical health warning:  Through careful research and experimentation, I’ve determined that Jiggs Dinner is highly volatile when combined with beer.  Do not, I repeat, do not consume this unless you plan to spend your evening in solitude.  This meal’s after-effects pose extreme danger to anyone within a thirty-foot radius.  On the upside, you won’t need to use your nose-hair trimmer any time soon.

For the uninitiated, Jiggs Dinner is a traditional Newfie meal composed of salt beef boiled with dried peas, cabbage, potatoes, carrots, and sometimes turnips.  The result is delicious… but mixed with beer?  Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

By my unofficial count, St. John’s has one church and one Irish pub per ten residents.  You’ve gotta like people whose priorities are that clearly defined.  And I’m not talking little churches – I’m talking huge stone cathedrals.  I was lucky to discover that the Anglican cathedral on Duckworth offers a free ½ hour classical concert on their pipe organ every Wednesday afternoon.  I crept into the chill, shadowy building to gape up at the lofty Gothic arches and soaring stained glass while the sonorous tones of the organ filled the enormous space.

One word:  Wow.

But since St. John’s has a total population of about 200,000, I can’t imagine why they need all those giant churches.  I’m pretty sure every person in the entire town could go to church simultaneously and still have room to spare.  That’d never happen, though, because they’re all in the pubs drinking beer and eating Jiggs Dinner.

Which actually makes sense when I think about it.  Those stone cathedrals get damn nippy.  They could use a bit of hot air.

Yep, those Newfies have it all figured out.

P.S. Seriously, if you ever get a chance to go to Newfoundland, go.  Stay in downtown St. John’s, and you can walk to virtually all the attractions (if you like uphill walks).  It’s the oldest city in Canada, with wonderful food, beer, people, and history… and we got to see an iceberg up close in Quidi Vidi Harbour.  Doesn’t get much better than that.

Cruisin’

/ Diane Henders / 24 Comments

On Monday, I thoroughly enjoyed an experience most people would appreciate just about as much as a root canal without anaesthetic.  I drove 800 miles across the Canadian prairies in 12 hours, stopping at hours 5 and 10 to fill the car’s tank and empty mine.  I’ve been making that trip pretty frequently lately, but I’m still not tired of it.

There are many things I love about driving across the prairies alone.  Not the least of these is the opportunity to sing along with my music at the top of my lungs without losing friends and/or straining my husband’s tolerance to its limits.

Auditory abuse aside, a drive across the prairies in good weather is about as close to heaven as I expect to come.  I love the places where there’s nothing to see but a long, straight ribbon of highway that vanishes into the big blue sky with no visible human habitation in any direction.  And I love the variety in the rest of the drive:  sloughs and open fields and occasional clumps of trees; isolated farmsteads and little towns; foxes and coyotes and deer and antelope and (once in a blue moon) a moose; hawks and waterfowl and songbirds and all kinds of other critters.

There’s room to breathe out there.  When I get out of the city and into the open prairie, my joints loosen and my muscles relax and my soul heaves a sigh of relief and soars up to meet that blue, blue sky.

Mind you, I’m a freak.

Most people consider a drive across the prairies about as stimulating as watching paint dry.  Beige paint.  They’re delighted when they finally arrive at civilization.

I consider civilization an annoying but necessary hiatus in the pleasure of my drive.  To wit:

At the first gas station, I waited approximately forever outside the women’s washroom, only to find that the kid who was using it was taking so long because she was industriously clogging the toilet with paper towels and who knows what else.

If I’d known, I could’ve gone straight to the men’s in the first place.  And don’t get me started about men’s washrooms.

At the second gas station/sub shop, I arrived exactly in time to:

  1. Have a guy slip in front of me to pay for his gas, only to engage the clerk in a lengthy conversation about “Where’s the best place to eat in Virden?”  Not satisfied with the clerk’s initial answer, he diverged into, “But what if I want Chinese food?  But what if I want ribs?  But what if I want…”  You want to live, buddy?  Get outta my way.
    This delayed me enough to…
  2. Have a woman slip in front of me and slam the door to the women’s washroom in my face.  Repeat the above waiting experience, this time with trepidation.  Fortunately, the toilet was still functional by the time I took my turn.
    However, this set up perfect timing to:
  3. Have two women slip in front of me at the sub counter, only to order multiple subs.  Each.  With great indecision about toppings.

I’m not sure whether the drive helped or hindered my retention of equanimity.  On one hand, I was happy and relaxed when I went in, so theoretically it should take longer for me to reach maximum annoyance.  On the other hand, the normal vagaries of humanity seemed extra irritating after ten hours of solitary bliss.

What do you think?

Any other prairie lovers or long-distance drivers out there?

Why Orange Plastic Palm Trees?

/ Diane Henders / 25 Comments

Okay, I just have to say it.  What is it with brightly coloured plastic palm trees?  Up until a few years ago, I’d never seen one.  Then one day I noticed a pair of them in front of a Chinese food restaurant in Cochrane, Alberta.  I tried to be polite.  I averted my eyes from the garish spectacle and pretended I hadn’t seen them.

But, like dog balls, they were lamentably conspicuous.  And that comparison is actually quite apropos, when you take the plastic coconuts into account.  Unlike dog balls, however, one was bright yellow, and the other was bright orange.  And they lit up at night.  The trees, not the testicles.

Ooh.  Now I’m having a really disturbing mental image.  ‘Scuse me while I swill brain bleach through my ears.

Anyway, I thought these misplaced, misguided items were pretty much one of a kind.  Because really, who’d want twenty-foot-high psychedelic illuminated plastic palm trees?  In Alberta?

I got over my antipathy, because the food was (and is) excellent there.  The décor of the whole restaurant is slightly schizophrenic anyway.  The floor is constructed of dark-stained rough-hewn wooden planks that would be appropriate in a western saloon.  The windows stretch from floor to ceiling, twenty feet high, clad in sweeping, formal peach-coloured brocade draperies sashed with heavy burgundy satin tasselled ropes.  The walls are decorated with bright-red Chinese weavings, and there’s a blue-and-white porcelain fountain and a temporary tattoo dispenser in the lobby.  When you think about it, the palm trees fit right in.

But really, one of a kind, right?

Fast forward to yesterday.  I’m heading out to Manitoba again for the next couple of weeks, and I was somewhere between Medicine Hat, Alberta and Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan when my horrified gaze was captured by… you guessed it.

A plastic palm tree.  Mounted on a campground sign beside the TransCanada highway, in the middle of Saskatchewan.

I would have pulled over to snap a picture, but I was doing 110 km/hr, and, frankly, I thought I might be seeing things.  It’s a long drive, after all.  But it was still there when I looked in the rearview mirror, so I’m pretty sure I didn’t hallucinate it.  And I’m pretty sure the green flecks in those brownies were zucchini.

When I searched “orange plastic palm tree” on the internet, I discovered these trees are apparently much more common than I thought.  There were a startling number of photos.  In fact, I ran across one photo of one with a multi-coloured trunk, striped in blue, brown, yellow and white.

Which leads me back to my original question:  WHY?

Yes, it can get pretty depressing living in a country where it’s winter eight months of the year.  Yes, I know what it’s like to be so desperate for the sight of something not-white that you watch the golf channel just for the sake of seeing green grass and water that isn’t frozen.

But if that’s the motivation, then why not buy a fake palm tree that looks like a palm tree?  Green.  With a brown trunk.

I guess it’s just one of the great mysteries of life.  So the only logical answer to “Why?” is “42”.

Totally Freakin’ Inadequate

/ Diane Henders / 17 Comments

I’m still on the road this week, and maybe my bad hotel karma has finally run its course, because my hotel in Regina didn’t feature hookers, cattle, or rappelling nudists.

It did, however, make me wonder who makes the purchasing decisions in the hospitality industry.  I stayed in a king suite at a nice hotel (not on my own dime – you know I’m too cheap for that).  But despite the upscale surroundings, I felt… cheated.  Because this hotel, like most I’ve stayed in recently, apparently purchased their supplies from the Totally Freakin’ Inadequate Supply Company.

The low-flow shower head was so pathetic I had to stand under it for five minutes before I at last felt a trickle of water on my scalp.  Granted, I have long, thick hair, and it usually takes a few seconds before anything penetrates.  Some would argue that nothing ever penetrates, but that’s another story.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m actually quite rabid about conserving water.  I grew up on a farm where every drop of potable water was trucked in.  Most people think “bath night” is a tale from the dark ages, but on our farm, it meant two inches of water in the bottom of the bathtub.  The cleanest person went first, the dirtiest last.  I’m not even going to describe what the water looked like by the time five bodies had gone through.

But I digress.  My point is, I fully agree with water conservation, but you have to apply some logic.  It takes X amount of water to wash your hair.  If X is supplied in five minutes, that’s fine.  But if it takes ten minutes to supply X, you’ll be standing there for ten minutes.  You’re not saving water, you’re just wasting time.

The lighting underwhelmed me, too.  There are lots of good options available for compact fluorescent bulbs.  Sadly, the hotel didn’t choose any of them.  When I flipped the switch, nothing happened.  I assumed I’d hit the wrong switch, so I tried the other one.  Still nothing.  At last, the light flickered to life with a series of seizure-inducing flashes.  Not inadequate once it got going, but definitely disturbing.

The toilet paper was totally freakin’ inadequate.  They think they’re saving money by buying cheaper toilet paper?  I could see through the stuff.  Trust me, nobody is ever going to use only three squares of single-ply, micron-thin toilet paper.  Ever.

The towels, too, failed the adequacy test.  At home, I call that size a “hand towel”.  That’s because it fits hands nicely.  Not bodies.  At least, not this body.

But what do I know?  Maybe their target market is bald, constipated midgets with excellent night vision and no tendency toward epilepsy.  It’s all about niche marketing these days.

So here’s my question.  Why spend money on high quality furnishings, and then cheap out on the things that, frankly, guests notice more than the tub and tile?  Half price is nice, but there’s no actual cost saving when you have to use twice as much.  And it annoys the hell out of the folks like me.

But maybe I’m just cranky because my fingers went through the toilet paper.  Again.

Sorry for my tardiness in responding to comments this week.  I’m helping my step-mom after her breast cancer surgery, and I haven’t had much time for blogging or visiting anybody else’s blogs, either.  I hope to be back to my usual routine soon.  Thanks for sticking with me!  🙂

Manitoba Chinese At The Paris

/ Diane Henders / 7 Comments

I’m posting this from Regina, Saskatchewan, partway through another 14-hour drive from Calgary to Manitoba.  Being on the road again has made me think of the Paris Café in Gladstone, Manitoba.  It’s been about 12 years since I visited the Paris, but the internet assures me it’s still in operation, so I plan to check it out again.

Gladstone, population 802 (don’t underestimate the importance of the 2), is a typical prairie town with a rail line through the middle of it.  Most small prairie towns have a Chinese food joint, left over from the days when Chinese labourers pushed the railway across the prairies.  Appropriately, the inexplicably-named Paris Café (Chinese and American cuisine) snuggles up to the railway track.

I don’t know exactly when the Paris was built, but I’m going guess it was around the early 1900s.  There are only a few feet between the wall of the wooden building and the sides of passing trains, and the dishes rattle precariously on the shelves as the deafening rumble drowns out all conversation.

The most exciting feature of the Paris is the view.  If you happen to be looking out the front window when the train is coming, you’d swear you’re about to be run down.  The oncoming tracks are slightly curved, and the train looks like it’s bearing down directly on the building.

Another endearing feature of the Paris is that the entire building slopes noticeably toward the railway tracks.  So much so, in fact, that when you’re sitting in one of the bench seats, you have to cram a sweater under one butt cheek so you’re not straining your back to stay vertical.

As you may know, I talk about my bathroom experiences frequently*, so I would be remiss if I didn’t describe the bathroom.  It was clearly added some time after the building was built, but before the building code got too stringent.

Let’s just say it’s a little cramped.  The door swings inward, so it’s an exercise in flexibility to get into the bathroom and shimmy around the edge of the door to close it behind you.  There’s a large notch cut out of the edge of the door around hip-height, because that’s the only way the door could get by the sink.  This leaves a significant hole in the door when it’s closed, but what the heck, it’s a small town.  If you got caught peeking, you’d never live it down.

The toilet has been installed using as little space as physically possible.  The edge of the seat is inches away from the wall.  This makes it impossible to sit the usual way, so you have to perch side-saddle.  It wouldn’t be so bad if the toilet seat was securely attached.  I won’t tell you how I discovered that it wasn’t.

I promised I wouldn’t tell any gross stories this week, and I won’t.  Last time I was there, the miniscule bathroom was scrupulously clean, and the food was good.

But the best part was the atmosphere.

Anybody else have a favourite small-town restaurant experience?

Gladstone’s mascot, Happy Rock. Get it?

*Hangin’ in the Men’s WC, Toilet Trepidation: Number One, Toilet Trepidation: Number Two

Ride A Cowboy!

/ Diane Henders / 3 Comments

The Stampede is on in Calgary this week, so the medical clinics are bracing for the annual surge in syphilis cases.  No, I’m not making this up.

Forget your sensuous blues, your hard-pumping rock, and your suave, sophisticated classical music.  The true aphrodisiac is cowboy boots and country music.  Apparently, something about the Stampede just strips off your inhibitions, rolls them up in a ball, and kicks them under the seat, steaming up the windows and rocking the pick-me-up truck.

Except for those people who get direct economic benefit from the Stampede, like western-wear vendors and penicillin manufacturers, most Calgarians fall into one of two camps:  those who love the Stampede, and those who loathe it.

I’m firmly in the “Love the Stampede” category.  No, it’s not because I partake in the randy rodeo.  It’s because during the ten days of the Calgary Stampede (inexplicably referred to as “Stampede Week”), the entire atmosphere of the city changes.

All the suited-up, buttoned-down businesspeople vanish from the downtown core, to be replaced by swaggering folks in western boots, shirts, and faded jeans.  The smell of horseshit and pancake syrup floats on the air, and country music blares from every restaurant and lounge, regardless of its musical orientation prior to Stampede Week.  Bales, rough wooden fences, and hand-daubed signs drawling, “Howdy” crowd the lobbies of the sleek highrise office buildings.

Every morning, there’s a free pancake breakfast somewhere.  Just go downtown at 7:30 in the morning, listen for the music, and follow the smell of bacon and syrup.  Every afternoon, there are dozens of Stampede parties.  No need to follow your nose; you can hear them from across town and navigate toward them by following the trail of inebriated cowboy wannabes staggering along whooping, “Yaaaa-hoooo!”.

Some suggestions for safe Stampeding:

  • Don’t stand close to anybody in an enclosed space.  You’ll get drunk just from the fumes wafting off them.
  • Don’t light a match, either.  One of the staple foods at Stampede parties is baked beans.  Flammable fumes abound.
  • Use protection.  Or, if you really want the gift that keeps on giving, try http://www.plentyofsyph.com/.

Stampede strips away food inhibitions, too.  Fifty-one weeks out of the year, the thought of eating a corn dog makes me gag.  During Stampede week, I salivate uncontrollably at the mere thought.

Also, after dedicated research, I have determined that there is, in fact, no upper limit to the number of mini-doughnuts I’m capable of eating at one sitting during Stampede. A couple of years ago, I topped out at twenty-five, but that was only because the bag was empty.  If there had been more, I would’ve eaten them.

If your tastes are a little more adventurous, there’s a bar down on 10th Avenue where you can eat prairie oysters.  (For the uninitiated, prairie oysters are bull testicles.  Or… ex-bulls’ testicles, I guess.)  Mmmm-mmm good!

And the midway vendors vie each year to offer the newest, oddest foods.  A few years ago, it was deep-fried Coke.  I haven’t been down to the grounds yet this year, but I hear they have deep-fried Pop-Tarts.

Hell, those aren’t new.  You can find them after any Stampede party.  Just follow the sound of hiccups and look for the Daisy Dukes.

It’s Stampede time!  Save a horse, ride a cowboy!  Yaaa-hooo!