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ERG Conference and Dallas Pride Day 5
Sep. 16th, 2018 11:59 pmSUNDAY
Didn't sleep as well as I'd have liked, but was still up just before the alarm at eight. After the big meal last night I didn't feel much like breakfast, so I went back to sleep for a couple hours before preparing for the parade. The Uber driver had a little trouble getting me to where I was told to be with the roadblocks, but she ended up dropping me off a lot closer to where I actually needed to go.
I wandered over to the Dallas Bears contingent to see if any of my friends were there, and ended up chatting with a huge, hot, shirtless bear in a black cowboy hat and matching shorts, named Ben, who's a grad student in Albuquerque. The rest of the group were talking amongst themselves so I returned to the AT&T contingent and sat on the curb. I met Kent and Jay and their friend Annette who works in Two Bell. Also Roger from New York, who designed the Rainbow Globe and speaks with a British or Aussie accent. A contingent of horses left a lot of road apples in the street, which led to a lot of funny scenes as people tried to avoid them. Met Stacey's son the hockey player, whose name is Aaron. There wasn't a seat for me in the van but I managed to walk the whole route without incident. People kept asking me for my spare T-shirt. Had I had time to change, I was considering keeping the spare shirt and handing some hot bear the sweaty one I was wearing. As it happened, I didn't change shirts until I was safely seated on a wall on Turtle Creek Blvd at the end of the route.
Walking up Dickason St. I watched as a double-wide float tried to navigate between oncoming traffic and parked cars. Eventually someone had to divert all traffic from the block. I woofed at a cute daddybear with a long white beard and got a "Thank you" in reply. I found a garden bench to sit on and rest a while longer. While I was sitting there, the Kroger contingent came by with shopping carts, and two young dudes sharing an electric scooter just flew by me. Hot, romantic AF, but clearly not safe. Got a "You're hot" from a young red cub. I thanked him and threw in a woof for good measure. 😁 I walked to the end of the block to watch the parade and noticed a couple of cute Hispanic bears trying to take a selfie with a gal pal. I offered to take their picture but the phone would not leave selfie mode, so I used the other bear's phone to take the picture.
When the parade ended, I crossed the street and stopped by Mattito's Tex-Mex looking for dinner as I'd only had a granola bar all day, but they had a 90 minute wait. So I went to the Starbucks Gary and I visited last year on the way to the Hidden Door, which was surprisingly not ultra packed. I was enjoying a strawberry Frappucino and chatting with a bear named Josh. He was waiting for his teen daughter and her girlfriend. Josh was talking about working in telecom as an installer for GTE and later Verizon, and currently as an Uber driver. He avoids working mass events like Pride because traffic eats into the number of fares he can serve and costs him $$$. He had on a shirt that read "Scottish Lad... Peeking Allowed... Warm Your Hands." He didn't have his kilt on though. When Josh and the girls had left, I stopped by a Thai restaurant called Si Lom for dinner. The place is in the basement of a building two doors down from Starbucks.
After dinner I debated walking the 3 blocks to the Crossroads, but on balance I decided to go to Walgreens to pick up beverages and an Uber to the hotel. The parking lot at Walgreens and the loading zone for the hotel were both crazy with traffic. I returned to the room to watch Sunday Night Football, Giants at Cowboys. Crying shame about Halapio. Also, woof! (Thought he said Jalapeño at first.) After the game I watched the news, left a message for Gary, and fell asleep. Gary did call later after he'd caught up with his college friend Tom in Illinois, and I fell right back asleep afterwards.
Didn't sleep as well as I'd have liked, but was still up just before the alarm at eight. After the big meal last night I didn't feel much like breakfast, so I went back to sleep for a couple hours before preparing for the parade. The Uber driver had a little trouble getting me to where I was told to be with the roadblocks, but she ended up dropping me off a lot closer to where I actually needed to go.
I wandered over to the Dallas Bears contingent to see if any of my friends were there, and ended up chatting with a huge, hot, shirtless bear in a black cowboy hat and matching shorts, named Ben, who's a grad student in Albuquerque. The rest of the group were talking amongst themselves so I returned to the AT&T contingent and sat on the curb. I met Kent and Jay and their friend Annette who works in Two Bell. Also Roger from New York, who designed the Rainbow Globe and speaks with a British or Aussie accent. A contingent of horses left a lot of road apples in the street, which led to a lot of funny scenes as people tried to avoid them. Met Stacey's son the hockey player, whose name is Aaron. There wasn't a seat for me in the van but I managed to walk the whole route without incident. People kept asking me for my spare T-shirt. Had I had time to change, I was considering keeping the spare shirt and handing some hot bear the sweaty one I was wearing. As it happened, I didn't change shirts until I was safely seated on a wall on Turtle Creek Blvd at the end of the route.
Walking up Dickason St. I watched as a double-wide float tried to navigate between oncoming traffic and parked cars. Eventually someone had to divert all traffic from the block. I woofed at a cute daddybear with a long white beard and got a "Thank you" in reply. I found a garden bench to sit on and rest a while longer. While I was sitting there, the Kroger contingent came by with shopping carts, and two young dudes sharing an electric scooter just flew by me. Hot, romantic AF, but clearly not safe. Got a "You're hot" from a young red cub. I thanked him and threw in a woof for good measure. 😁 I walked to the end of the block to watch the parade and noticed a couple of cute Hispanic bears trying to take a selfie with a gal pal. I offered to take their picture but the phone would not leave selfie mode, so I used the other bear's phone to take the picture.
When the parade ended, I crossed the street and stopped by Mattito's Tex-Mex looking for dinner as I'd only had a granola bar all day, but they had a 90 minute wait. So I went to the Starbucks Gary and I visited last year on the way to the Hidden Door, which was surprisingly not ultra packed. I was enjoying a strawberry Frappucino and chatting with a bear named Josh. He was waiting for his teen daughter and her girlfriend. Josh was talking about working in telecom as an installer for GTE and later Verizon, and currently as an Uber driver. He avoids working mass events like Pride because traffic eats into the number of fares he can serve and costs him $$$. He had on a shirt that read "Scottish Lad... Peeking Allowed... Warm Your Hands." He didn't have his kilt on though. When Josh and the girls had left, I stopped by a Thai restaurant called Si Lom for dinner. The place is in the basement of a building two doors down from Starbucks.
After dinner I debated walking the 3 blocks to the Crossroads, but on balance I decided to go to Walgreens to pick up beverages and an Uber to the hotel. The parking lot at Walgreens and the loading zone for the hotel were both crazy with traffic. I returned to the room to watch Sunday Night Football, Giants at Cowboys. Crying shame about Halapio. Also, woof! (Thought he said Jalapeño at first.) After the game I watched the news, left a message for Gary, and fell asleep. Gary did call later after he'd caught up with his college friend Tom in Illinois, and I fell right back asleep afterwards.