Wow.

It's seriously been 12 days since my last post. That's just terrible. You can't really blame me though, as nothing interesting has happened for several days, then the internet tubes at our house were broken for several more. Life in the suburbs really isn't too good for Funundrum, people.

Let's see. Yesterday we decided to see a bit of Denver that we hadn't gotten around to yet, so we trundled downtown and went to the Wynkoop brewery for a couple beers. I had a good red ale and an interesting weiss, and Chris tried an IPA, mostly based on my recommendation of "It's called Monkey's Fist IPA! It has to be good!" It was, especially after the bartender dropped a pallet of glasses on the floor behind the bar and tiny glass shards went flying everywhere. We couldn't tell whether or not any got into our beers, so we stirred the head with our fingers and just left the last 1/2 inch of liquid in case there were pieces at the bottom of the glasses. Neither of us was about to abandon nearly-full pints of microbrew just because there might have been a little glass in it.

We were also thinking of driving up to the top of Pike's Peak because it's the only Fourteener that you can drive to the top of, but then we did a little research and discovered that it's a 2-hour round trip drive (4 if you include the drive to and from Colorado Springs) and they charge $35 a car to get up there. Lame. I don't need to see the top of a mountain that badly. Interesting fact, though -- Pike's Peak is the mountain that inspired the author of "America the Beautiful." Really. Just read that the other day. Now you know.

We're saving up our gas money for something way better than Pike's. We're dead-set on driving out to see the famous Iowa State Fair, which was first held in 1854 and is hailed as America's classic state fair. Why not? We're pretty damn close to Iowa -- it's only a 10 hour drive to Des Moines. How could we be this close and not go? Plus, there's the Butter Cow (pictured). So that's in August.

In keeping with the theme of "poking around the bellybutton of our nation" that we're apparently taking up this year, we're also seriously considering driving to Kansas City for the country's largest barbeque contest. Believe it or not, that's an even shorter drive, at just under 9 hours. The possiblity of attending such an event makes my head spin. You get to wander around and eat pieces of barbequed animals all day. Again, how could we not go? If nothing else, imagine the people-watching at both these events. Oh my god.

Right, I had better go and eat breakfast now, though cereal doesn't look so good after writing about smoked beef brisket and caramel apples.