That broken tail light happened on a Sunday afternoon, when I was heading towards the middle of nowhere. I figured that Denver was the closest Mazda dealer, and I have friends living there, so I decided to push on with the broken lens (all the lights still worked) and spend a few days there, getting the car patched up and visiting. As luck would have it, my friend Mila, from Amsterdam, was also in town for a Cannabis related event. We had fun visiting before she got too busy with work.

We ate some good food.

From a food truck called Cilantro. Outside a brewpub.

We saw some funny things:

And ran around town together for a couple days.

Mila was interviewed on the radio.

Chico and I were there and stayed quiet. Well, I might have piped up a couple times, but Chico was perfect.

Colorado, as many readers will know, recently legalized the production and sale (to adults) of recreational Cannabis. It seems that I arrived at the same time as tens of thousands of people coming to celebrate that at a couple different festivals.  Mila’s business is in that industry (yes, the Netherlands has a Cannabusiness sector and I know people who work in it).

So Chico and I went with her the day she set up her stand, and the next day we dropped by with some sandwiches for Mila and her staff after the public showed up. It was like any other trade show, except for the products. And the crowd wasn’t wearing suits.

The crowd was diverse. Surprisingly so, really.

The range of products went from stereotypical,

like brownie mix, hash included, for making controlled-dose “magic” brownies at home.

to high tech innovation.

Self-service kiosks for marijuana. A credit card payment will trigger the release to access a locker containing the items one selects. Sort of like RedBox Movies at the supermarket.

Strange I tell you, strange.

And here’s an interesting development created by the legal Cannabis market:

This stand was *packed.* I wiggled my hand through the crowd to take this shot.

I spared Chico walking through the crowd, leaving him in the car. It started to get hot, so I got him out for a little bit. But he wasn’t too sure about the whole thing. So many people, so little space.

So we didn’t stick around. We headed out to a friend’s house south of town to visit her on 90 acres. Much more to the liking of both of us. Multiple dwellings, lots of workers building things, four dogs (a French terrier named Emma, two Chi-Weenies who’s names I never did get right, and Freddie, a Tibetan Terrier), lots of room for walks. It was a great couple day break from the road and the crowds of our city adventure. The little girl Chi-Weenie thought Chico was the coolest, she kept jumping up to lick his face. He just stood there and looked at her like she was weird until I caught up and shooed her away.

Chico went a lot of of places those days in Denver, and he was very well behaved. He let people come and go from places without announcing every move or challenging people’s right to exist. Such a good boy.

And what did he get for it? A bath.