Harley at the Taste of Colorado

Ha! I bet you thought I'd have a picture here...

We took the light rail to downtown today with Harley & Tyler. I intended to get some pictures, but it just didn't work out. Harley was totally oversensitized by the number of people there. He was acting pretty autistic on the train on the way there to the point that I just KNOW that the lady sitting across from him was dying to know what his 'issues' were...Even the trains were crowded with Standing Room Only...

We got off the train and there was a street performer who was doing a comedy act dressed as a robot. I thought he was great but I had a hard time hearing him over Harley's crying and clawing...Now if you recall Harley LOVES robots...Everything is turned into a robot (my vacuum cleaner included!)...BUT he was absolutely terrified of this guy...kept calling him the enemy and hiding behind me screaming. Instead of people moving aside to allow him through the crowd, they stood there and gawked at him like he was some kind of freak. I just let it happen...I didn't do any autism awareness today (shame on me!)...Finally the crowd cleared and the performer came over to talk to Harley which sent him into total spasms. (We did explain to the performer that he has autism, and the performer had knowledge of the disability and began a discussion with Andrew while I was dealing with Harley). It was funny in a way...I used to cry when he acted like this in public...Now it doesn't faze me anymore...I can only imagine what the general public was thinking...

First stop when we got to downtown was a McDonald's...At Harley's insistence. I figured OK, he probably won't eat anything else that's served down here and this is probably cheaper anyhow...So we got him some McD's.

We got to the area where the street vendors were and things didn't improve much. He kept seeing things and saying there was too many enemies...So we walked down the 'service' side of all the street vendors selling food --the backside where you can't buy food!...There was just TOO much of a crowd to try to maneuver Harley through...So at the end of it all there was no opportunity for me to grab a bite from one of the many, many vendors (I was thinking by going it might juice up my appetite since it's been lacking...).

We found a tent where they were selling tie dyed stuff and Harley decided that was the place to be...He bought a tie dye baseball cap (we've been trying to get him to wear a hat for years with his fair skin, red hair and freckles!) I must say he picked a wonderfully colorful hat! It has all the colors of the rainbow on it!

As soon as he was done shopping there, he insisted we had to leave before more enemies showed up...(It was getting more and more crowded). We were two blocks away from the 16th Street Mall shuttle...Had to walk through throngs of people and he was just freaking out...some lady with a stroller came by swearing at him with the F word and nearly ran over both he and I...THIS TIME I would've said something if I had had time to but she was cruising along at quite a clip! Harley didn't hear her or he probably would've freaked more. Andrew and Tyler were behind us (as close as they could be anyhow, with all the people) and saw it all go down...

It seeemed we were entering a clearing in the crowd and Harley began to calm down...Then all of a sudden the band on the KYGO stage began playing and singing (really loud since we were next to the speakers). There was an area marked off for some reason (not sure why) by those metal barrier things and Harley tried to escape the noise and crowd through there and was stopped by security...This guy was in no mood to hear an explanation so we could ask if we could cut through the area. (There was absolutely NOTHING in the area marked off--just big open sidewalk!!). So I held one side of his head to my body and placed my hand over the other ear and walked as fast as I could (with a child's ear pasted to my belly anyhow!)

We finally made it to the mall shuttle bus stop and the first bus was too crowded for any more people to fit, so Harley had a FIT! So we began walking towards the train in the hopes of catching the next bus at the next stop -- and hoping it wasn't too full! We made it two stops before we found a bus with enough room to let Harley sit...All the previous busses that came by were standing room only.

Well, we made it to the light rail and Harley was so happy to be getting on the train homeward bound! The first two trains were the wrong lines, so we had to wait for the D train, but he managed to understand...

After arriving home we asked Harley what his favorite part of the day was...(he doesn't understand the word favorite, so we actually asked him what he liked the best...He responds with "the wind up toy" ...Heck that was the toy he received in his happy meal at McD's!!??

Would I have changed anything that happened today? Probably not! Harley needs to be exposed to these types of situations and I'm glad that I'm around to help him do so!