The Holy Grail of Footwear
Posted on May 5, 2007 by Ching under Life, Reviews, Travel.
I bought three new pairs of shoes over the last week. This is amazing for someone like me who rarely shops. I wanted to blog about shoes today because I want to brag about this amazing deal I found. The shoes pictured on the left are a pair of Tribeca Get the Scoop sandals, $72.99 at Zappos. If you’re wondering why they’re pricey it’s because Tribecas are made by Kenneth Cole. Anyway, I was convinced that I could find them cheaper elsewhere on the web. Mission accomplished! I found the exact same shoes at Shoemall (through Amazon)
Why the sudden shoe obsession? Well, shoes are an important part of our upcoming anniversary trip to Jamaica. I’ve read that shoes actually occupy the bulk of your luggage on these sort of trips. Even if you plan to pack light, somehow you end up having to bring several pairs of shoes. You’ll need shoes for horseback riding, water shoes for climbing the falls, beach sandals or flip flops for the beach, dressy shoes or sandals for fancy dinner night, sandals for your sundresses.. The list goes on and on and on. A lot of people will bring shoes for every outfit. On the other hand, Brian and I fully intend to accomplish our goal of packing light, so we plan to bring only a couple of pairs each. That got us thinking, could we find a single pair of shoes that would work for everything? Thus, the hunt for a pair of versatile shoes went…
The hunt began last weekend with trips to Payless, Shoe Carnival and Target. Payless and Shoe Carnival both had “buy one pair get the other pair for 50% off” (BOGO) sales going on. Brian and I tried our best to find versatile shoes for each other at one place so we could avail of the BOGO offer. Unfortunately for us, he couldn’t find shoes for himself at Shoe Carnival and I couldn’t find shoes for myself at Payless. We didn’t find anything at all that would work at Target so Target was immediately out of the running. Anyway, we still managed to take advantage of the BOGO offer because he found two shoes for himself at Payless and I found two shoes for myself at Shoe Carnival.
Brian’s versatile, all-purpose shoe find is a pair of black water clogs. They’re like Crocs but they’re made by Airwalk. The shoes can be worn as a slip on or with the attached back strap. He plans to wear the shoes for everything including horseback riding. He also plans to stretch the dress shoe rule at Le Gourmet by going to dinner wearing the water clogs. I’ve read in the Couples message board that this practice is frowned upon but a few have actually gotten away with it. Brian is not averse to going against the norm for the sake of packing light so he will try to do it. His other pair is a pair of canvas sneakers. He got them for no other purpose than the BOGO offer. Well, that and he’s wanted a pair of light canvas sneakers.
My versatile, all-purpose shoe find is Skechers Bikers Excursion. These sandals are the best. I plan on wearing them anytime I do any kind of walking on our trip, including horseback riding. I ended up getting a 5.5 size and they fit perfect. There was no break-in needed. The shoes felt great the second I put them on. I also walked a mile on the treadmill in these shoes to see if they would be uncomfortable at some point. That point never came.
The only downside to these shoes is that they look weird when worn with a swimsuit. So my second pair is a pair of Skechers sandals that I can wear with my swimsuits. It was tough convincing Brian to let me have my second pair because my first pair cost quite a bit more than we planned to spend on shoes originally. The BOGO offer helped, though. Anyway, I guess we didn’t completely accomplish our goal of finding the perfect pair. However, I think we came pretty close.
If we need to declare a winner of this shoe hunting contest, I’d have to concede that Brian wins this round. After all, he’s going to pass a pair of water clogs off as dress shoes. That’s going to be something to see. LOL.
While we’re no longer shopping for shoes (we certainly can’t afford to buy any more after this shopping spree), the perfect pair is still out there. Someday I will find it — the holy grail of footwear. But we’ll have to continue the hunt another time, when we are not so broke. =P
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