Nostalgia

I finished my document review this morning and spent the day sight-seeing.

First, I had lunch at one of my favorite Mexican restaurants: “El Taco Rey.” Sounds pretty cheesy, I know, but they make the best tamales I’ve ever tasted. I’ll be ordering a dozen to take home when I depart on Friday. My wife will love ‘em and they’re great to just take out of the freezer and throw in the microwave. I sat at a table with a “local” and we discussed our observations of the changes over the past 10 years. This fella was born and raised in Woodland Park which is 45-minutes to an hour outside Colorado Springs (toward Pike’s Peak).

After lunch I went to “The Book Broker,” formerly “Four Corners Book Shop,” a used book store downtown. This is one of the best used book stores I’ve ever visited and was disappointed that I only found one book on my wishlist. It was very nice browsing the bookshelves, listening to the fire crackle in the fireplace in the “reading area.”

From there, I visited another favorite used book store: “Hooked On Books.” This store is smaller than “The Book Broker,” but they have more paperback books. I’m told it’s still owned and operated by the same pleasant woman I knew 10 years ago. I found several of my wishlist books here! I’ll have plenty of good reading in Korea!

I spent several hours in these two stores. I just love the smell of old books. There’s something timeless and magical in these tomes. Whose eyes have read these words? Whose hands of turned these dog-eared pages? How many smiles have these books created? How many tears? To think about the amount of knowledge amassed through the words upon these shelves is simply earth-shattering!

From “Hooked On Books” I visited my old neighborhood, St. Francis Hospital (I used to work there) and spent the remainder of the afternoon and early evening driving the old streets.

Tomorrow, I begin my interviews at Peterson and that evening will meet some old friends for dinner.