WSMsL2012 - PrideTrip days 8, 9 and the final 10

Friday ended up being a ton more fun than I think either Sir or I had expected it to be. We got going to a slow start and drove around the town a bit, looking at all the amazing Model A's that were all over the Riverside of Boise. After that, Sir took me yarn shopping.

Sweet joy! Fiber, fresh to my fingers and blissfully unaware of it's precious import to me. I got some Malabrigo lace & some Debbie Bliss fingering. I was only going to get the Malabrigo but Sir told me that I could have both and made me nearly cry in the store I was so happy. I am a very lucky and loved little knitter.

After the yarn, we went over to Joe's Crab Shack and I got to have a bucket of steamers! Snow crab, Dungeoness crab, and lots of shrimp as I couldn't have the andouille sausage. Also potatoes and sweet white corn. It was so delicious and I couldn't even finish it, so I took it back to the hotel and popped it into the fridge.

Upon sitting down, we both realized it was a nice day and we had a lot left to do before we could go out for the night. So I pulled out my boot black kit and dragged a chair onto the balcony of our hotel room along with both pairs of Sir's boots and mine as well. I put on my iPod, jammed out to Daft Punk's soundtrack for the Tron sequel and started onto Sir's knee high boots. Cleaning and drying them with care before starting the process of applying the polish and working it into all the forms of the boots before brushing them to a soft polish. I was very happy with my work thus far and accepted a beer from Sir before picking up His jump boots.
I needed a bolstering swallow of it to face the daunting task ahead of me - I haven't worked on those boots in a while, and Sir wears them nearly every day. So I grimly started cleaning them, one at a time and having to go back over spots time and again to get the grime and dust out. Once they were clean, I let them sit for a few minutes while I debated what to use. I started with touching up the wear points with a bit of dye and then carefully glued down the patch that snagged somehow...
In the end, I started with my standard two body coats of Kiwi black. It fills in the cracks and wear points well and gives a nice warm shine to the boot when polished. Then it was time to pay special attention to the toe caps and heels. I told myself that 3 coats of Lincoln's would do the trick but 4 coats went on and they still just couldn't pull a shine together. Gritting my teeth, I carefully added the lucky coat #5 and suddenly I had glittering shine in my hands. Sir came out and said He was very pleased and they looked fantastic so we moved them inside to let the polish harden before he would wear them in the parade the following day. (Seeing how it *was* 80 degrees, this made since)
I meanwhile sat down and started on my boots. I'm glad oil tans are so quick but my poor boots were THIRSTY. I cleaned them and then had to oil them twice to make them happy! I suppose I deserve it, I've been so busy I haven't given the pretty leathers the attention they deserve. My vest still needs to be cleaned and oiled... hrm.

Wish I had a form bodice...

Anyway! After boots, I jumped into the shower and then we started on our outfits for the evening. The plan was to meet up with Jezabelle and DVana at Lucky Dog to carpool to the Burlesque show, so we couldn't play the go back and get things game - but we did anyway before we forgot things, of course. In the end, we still got there in plenty of time and were able to find a nice spot in the front for the show.
Also, Fatty's has 32oz super beers. I couldn't resist a giant ice cold quart of ShockTop Belgian White. :) It was amazing.

The Burlesque show was entertaining and the head of the show is quite adorable. Also, her perma-lip color really was perma-... I scrubbed for 10 MINUTES to get it off. That thought makes me wonder if my left tit is scrubbed raw instead of sunburned as I originally suspected.

But I am getting ahead of myself.

After the show, we went outside and had the opportunity to wave hello to some Queen-shocked Mormons. I've never seen muggles aperate before, I will just say it this once. I know it's probably horrible of me to be so amused but they truly weren't sure what to do because one of us happened to ACTUALLY BE A WOMAN. Oh it was priceless!
Once we had our fill of tormenting the normals, we made our way back to the car and drove back over to Lucky Dog for the Leather Night. It was a lot of fun but there wasn't very much leather to be seen which was disappointing but not unexpected - their community has almost disappeared although there were several people who quietly expressed interest/desire to have the community regain a foothold. We are both hopeful (Sir and myself) that we can help this happen but regardless of who is responsible, I'd love to see Boise get a Leather community again!
After we both realized it was time to get going so we could get enough sleep to be able to march in the morning, we headed back to our hotel room. A few friends stopped by and brought some beer to mellow for a little before we all decided it was sleepy bed time and said farewells and good nights.

Saturday dawned far too early and far to bright for me; I woke up with a migraine-esque haze on the horizon. We both tiredly crawled out of bed and made for showers and then dressing for the parade. I got eye liner in my eye and then all over my eye lid so called a quit on make-up for the day, rinsed my eye with lots of cold water and Sir laced me into my leather dress. Then I remembered the allergy drops for my eyes and did my best to not look like I had the startings of a shiner from the stupid eye liner causing my eye to get inflamed and red and angry. Fortunately, the eye drops did the trick and it was sunny enough to keep my sunglasses on the entire time. On the unfortunate side, however, I was suffering from heat sickness before the parade even began being so small and garbed all in black leather.
We were lucky to find water bottles in one of the first aid stations at the beginning and Sir got me a lemonade and pretzel afterwards. The actual march of the parade was amazing, at one point we turned and could see neither the front nor the back of the parade for blocks in both directions and the parade ran on and on and on... there was such a huge crowd of marchers, it was amazing. Ironically, I don't think there was anybody left in the city for the size of the parade. Which sort of makes it all that much more amazing.

The parade wound from the steps of the capitol building all the way to the park on the other side of the city. The park was large and beautiful and fully of such amazing colors. There were walking rainbows everywhere - it was so fantastic and surreal.

After I had to call it quits and head back to the hotel, Sir called a cab and we slunk back into our hotel room to take cool showers and snuggle under the covers for a bit while we just shook from all the energy. We were elated and exhausted all at once and agreed to set an alarm and get some sleep. So, snuggled together although very sore, we let time slip past for a little while. I got up first, needing to eat, and pulled out some left overs. (Remember Joe's?)
I had a wonderful snack, sitting on the balcony in the summer heat and gnawing away on my sea-spider (as Sir lovingly calls crab). After that, I very carefully washed all the seafood off and snuggled back up with Sir who laughed and called me the eater of death; I guess I'm okay with it, as long as I'm His death eater. (I know, I'm a dork)

We got up eventually and got ready for the After-Pride Party at Lucky Dog and made our way over. I was hoping to boot black and set up but nobody had leather or was interested so that was a little disappointing but otherwise the night went really well and was a lot of fun. We even got to go over to a private party and chat with a lot of really cool people before calling it a night and heading back to bed.

We got up a little later than expected on Sunday and hurried down to the continental breakfast room for waffles, bagels and yogurt before going back up to pack and do a final once-through before loading up the little blue Leather Bug and starting for Seattle.

We stopped in Yakima for lunch at Black Angus and then I got to drive the last leg of the trip. I was disappointed to watch the temperature consistently drop from 85 to 54 degrees before we reached Seattle. Still we got into town early enough to stop and see a good friend and unwind from the driving before heading back to our dwelling to unpack.

We slept heavily last night and I woke up knowing I was not ready for work; so I took the later bus in and left a little early today so I can make up the time later in the week when I'm feeling a little better.

But yes, that has been our 10 days of Pride travel; I have had so much fun and truly do feel really refreshed. I am looking forward to Seattle's Pride this week, Vancouver is next week - which I don't know if we'll hit or not yet, and then in 3 weeks is Bellingham.

And then we'll hopefully be back out to Boise for coronation at the end of July. :)