A slight drizzle kept me indoors, so here is a photo from Mt. Lookout, taken through one of those alien-shaped tourist binocular doodads. This is looking east, you can see the golf ball radar domes at top center, close to forty or fifty miles away. I still have not seen a snow-capped mountain, which I really would like. I’ve done some planning with map and compass (the distance measuring device, not the magnetic needle) and there is a mountain pass north of Boulder that goes to a place called Neversummer. I’d like to see that.
It was a quiet day and that goes for the whole town as well. Half the population has disappeared. I have a 1982 edition of the Smithsonian I picked up in west Texarkana that fascinated me with the ads. I had just finished college and started my first real job (November 1981, the phone company) and had yet to buy the Cadillac, vacation in Hawaii, and live in a real city apartment (without having to share).That era was when mutual funds were just starting and the wording seems corny. The perpetual ads for overpriced silver editions use the same pitch 30 years later. Other ads concerned travel. Mississippi steamboat rides, “The Last Great American Adventure” would have interested me. Same with a train ride on the “Orient Express”, although I see that “tariffs” began at $4,150. In today’s money, that’s what, $9,650. It was aimed at “the affluent traveler”.
Sony advertised the largest TV console ever made, 30” for $10,000 or $23,000 today. And a piano that had a magnetic tape recorder with a selection of 3,000 “computerized tapes” or record your own. The steamboat and the piano did not quote prices.
My treat, Marion and my first time at Outback Steak House. I was at the original “modern” style steak place, called “The Keg & Cleaver” for my 21st birthday and rarely patronized them since. It was nice, but geared to a crowd I didn’t really run with, those who went to a restaurant to be seen as well as eat. In this case, we ordered out, as Marion cannot tolerate the cold A/C and we’ll enjoy the food just as much. T’was the second most expensive date of my life and Marion is only a friend.
Myself, I had the rack of lamb with horseradish crust, and we shared the coconut shrimp. Marion went for the cheesecake dessert, which I can’t touch for the most part. She had the chicken and ribs, a blooming onion, and fries. Like most restaurant food, it did not fill me up completely and mine could have used a touch of garlic. Since you’re likely curious, the tab was $65.12. It’s a curiosity lamb is expensive when there is so much of it in the world. My largest expense of this trip has become entertainment, at 24%, more than gas and food combined.
So it was dinner and a movie. I skipped Karaoke. It just isn’t my idea of weekend fare, as in that’s the show you have during the week when the house can’t afford a band. We watched an old favorite of mine, Remo Williams. It had so much promise as a series, but it was based on a convoluted set of books by authors who didn’t get along. There seems to be no data online as to why the concept never continued.
As I drove back from the restaurant, some gorf drove in my blind spot half way down Iliff. I tapped my helmet, as in, hey brain boy. Next light he pulls up and says snarkily he didn’t see my signal. Excuse me, I didn't recognize God drove a import. Well, now we know we need his permission to change lanes. Only idiots drive in a blind spot and think it is somebody else’s fault. I got ten bucks says he works for the government. The Radio Shack here is not much better than back in Florida. They seem to stock exactly the wrong parts. If you explain this to the people who work there, they roll their eyes like you don’t know what you are talking about. Fine, I’ll take my business elsewhere. My conclusion is they are not the owners, since they were not receptive to your answer when they ask if you found everything. No, I didn’t. The few bins of parts that are actually useful were empty. Mind you they have more and better books, which is easy to explain if you’ve ever been in Miami. People here know how to read and that increases the odds they actually do.
This is a steam shovel used on the Panama Canal. The only one of six shipped back to the USA, the plaque says it was a steam shovel originally designed to sit on railway tracks, now placed on Caterpillar treads. This gave it the then novel 360 degree radius. It is now resting outside a museum in Nederlands, Florida. So, in this photo you see two rare and unique vehicles, probably never to be seen together again.
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