And so it Begins...

Note: The Harrington Times will be receiving a direct feed from Mike and Melissa Harrington throughout their summer travels. We at the Times have chosen to publish the entries as is with no newspaper tweaking, therefore, the following articles will be written from the first person as opposed to the third person. We apologize for any confusion this may cause, but hope that you will enjoy the entries just as much, if not more.

Day 1: June 27, 2009 - Laramie to Denver to Ft. Collins

The End of One Adventure the Beginning of Another

Today marked the finale of our UW Summer High School Institute experience. It has been a wild ride! The kids, are of course wonderful, however, they required our attention and supervision, to say the least, we had to maintain responsibility not only for ourselves but for many others. The road trip will be a nice way to "let-go" of some of that responsibility. The last day of HSI brought many tears, laughter, the uncontrolled use of cell phones and unabashed flirting. As we said good-bye to the High Schoolers we had come to love and respect as well as the co-workers who we'd come love, respect, and laugh at uncontrollably - we said hello to our little teal Subaru and an Adventure to surpass all others!

At approximately 5:19 pm, we hit the road. We took highway 287 to Ft. Collins, hit I-25 and made our way to the infamous Grizzly Rose. At the Grizzly Rose we enjoyed an excellent cover band, good company, and the headliners: Cross Canadian Ragweed. Some co-workers of Melissa's, Chelsea and Alison along with fiance and a friend, Jeremy and Jake honored us with their presence at the venue and concert. Some danced, some sang, some drank a brew-ski, one even caught a frog- all had a fabulous time!

Day 2: June 28, 2009 - Ft. Collins

Of Movies and Soccer

After staying the night on the most comfortable bed in Colorado, located at sister Luella's house, we woke up to some tasty breakfast cooked by the aforementioned sister. Mike then took off to go watch the USA play Brazil in the finals match of the Confederations Cup at the SportsCasters Bar and Grill, a match that took a couple miracles for the USA to get to. After much excitement and the USA going up 2-0 at half time, the match turned sour, and the USA ended up losing 3-2 in the second half. All is well though, and the USA has much to look forward to after beating the number one team in the world (Spain) and nearly beating Brazil. Keep the momentum going til' 2010 USA!

While Mike was at the bar watching soccer, Melissa met up with some good friends from HR camp and elsewhere. Hannah, Erin, Annalise, Luella and Liz all got together to eat some lunch and then went to watch the movie My Sister's Keeper. They had all read the book more or less together, and the weeping and sobbing through the movie quickly turned to bitterness at the movies' split from the books plot in the last five minutes. However, that's to be expected.

After the soccer match, Mike and his friend Dave (the jynx of the soccer match who showed up after the first half and "caused" Brazil to score 3 goals in 40 minutes) went to Longmont to shop for a cartop carrier. We quickly found out that our little Subaru has unusually wide cross bars on it's roof, and were unable to buy the carrier that was #1 on Mike's list. However, carrier #2 both fit and was cheaper so it gets two stars for the day. We are very excited about the carrier, as it allows the following:

• A place to put stickers from all the places we will be visiting this summer.
• A place to put the our overabundace of stuff that we hope we will use at least once on this trip.
• Space in the car to pick up hitchhikers, friends, or those in need.
• To look hip and with it, because we now have a sleek cartop carrier like everyone else in Colorado.
• Keep our stuff relatively safe and out of view from potential "take advantage of the situation"'- ers

We were unable to attend the Brewfest here in Fort Collins this weekend because we realized on Sunday that it closed that evening at 6, and we had other plans most of the day. However, it looked like a good time, and we may have to attend in the future. As a result of our lack of attendance at the Brewfest, we decided to go to a drive in movie theatre. Neither Mike nor Melissa had ever been to one before, so we all piled in Dave's pickup truck and headed over and watched Up and most of The Proposal before falling asleep. Great experience, and look forward to attending again someday.
On the way over to the drive in theatre, we stopped by a grocery store to get something to drink and a few snacks, and Mike ran into his cousin or cousin-in-law, Joey...we'll just say cousin, because that's basically what he is. This is the third time in a little over a week that Mike has ran into cousins unexpectedly. He saw his Cousin Ryan with Jenny, Peyton and Braedon at the McDonald's in West Laramie after touring the Territorial Prison with some HSI'ers while they were on their way to Yellowstone National Park. Shortly after, he ran into his cousin Jeff on the University of Wyoming campus who was there at a wresting camp. And then Joey, who knows who else he'll unexpectedly run into!?