denver and beyond, continued
G: [shamelessly stolen
from journal entries, continued from last week]
More vacationing; look for
pictures
soon...
I made the mojitos for everyone, including one without the rum for
Billy, and one without the rum or mint for Leo. They said they liked
them but didn't finish them. That's okay, we used up all their
leftovers. We used pint glasses which I think are too big because after
putting in all the ingredients and topping it off with club soda they
were a bit weak. Meg and Joe liked them but not to the extent that we
do.
So, Saturday was Meg's birthday and I gave her a pile of necklaces to
pick from that I had made. She chose glass beads from India strung on
stretchy cord, because it had no metal on it to irritate her skin.
Actually a pair of them, and she wore them all day. We all went to the
Windmills restaurant, the only one in Spearville, and met the cook. We
were the only ones in there at first but the place filled up as it got
more into lunch time. Anyway, Meg practices her Spanish with the cook,
Mario, and he practices his English with her. But his English was just
fine. We went into the kitchen to see what they had so that he could
figure out what to make for us. There seemed to be plenty of veggies
and even avocados. What he brought us was delicious, a potato hash with
other veggies, a whole avocado, and veggie fajitas made with onions,
french fries, mushrooms, and cooked lettuce. With tortillas. It was all
really good. Meg ordered something and later Mario was calling to her,
asking if she
wanted cheese on it. But what I heard was, "Queso Margarita?" What? A
cheese margarita? Later we met the owner who had wanted to cook for us,
and wanted us to come back. Nice friendly place.
We went to "the Merc" and looked around. John got a Spearville T-shirt.
They had everything at the Merc, from groceries to hardware. It was
neat.
The rest of the time in Kansas was spent walking around near the farm
with the goats, driving around and spotting wild-life and wild-death
(roadkill), hanging out, and tickling Leo. I went with Joe and Billy to
visit a neighbor who had a prairie dog town in his pasture. When we
arrived Joe spotted a large bull snake. Billy went crazy chasing it and
wanting to pick it up. I took about ten pictures of it.
Anyway, the prairie dogs were too smart for us and wouldn't come out
when we were near. The pups were a little more brave and hung out
crouching down at the entrance to the hole, and they are pretty much
the same color as the soil so they are hard to see in the pics I did
take.
The farm has some cats, and one named Tom who had had kittens recently
but no one knew where she was keeping them. When we were getting ready
to leave and saying goodbye to the goats, Meg saw Tom coming from an
old animal trailer, and decided they were probably in there. Billy
climbed in the front part and saw two kittens in the bottom, I went in
and saw them too, looking down large sheets of plywood that were
leaning, slanting from the bottom of the back up to the front. There
was a whitish one and I could see the paw of a black one. Quite young
and squirmy. Meg said they were fine there and told the boys to leave
them alone, but they were very excited. Meanwhile we were all also
looking at a hawks nest above, from the right place you could see the
big white fluffy chick, and it was squawking. We wandered off towards
the car and there was some confusion as I tried to make sure I had
everything; couldn't find one of my camera batteries, even though I was
sure I put it in my purse. After going through it twice and the house
once, I found it hiding in my purse. When we came back out we could
hear Leo crying loudly from over by the kitten trailer.
We went over there, thinking something terrible might have happened.
Billy was yelling, Leo was bawling, and the back door of the trailer
was on the ground. I was scared that the kittens were crushed, but they
were fine. The boys had taken axes to the back door of the trailer
trying to get in, and it fell off. Leo might have gotten hurt by the
door falling, or was just scared. He calmed down after a while, and we
said goodbye to everyone and the kittens and spent Sunday driving back
to Denver.
We went on slightly smaller roads and passed through many small towns,
and that was kind of interesting.
We stopped in Lamar on our drive back, and saw a Thai restaurant and
pulled in. It was interestingly fancy inside like a big city
restaurant, while outside was a medium/small Colorado town. We shared a
dish. Whenever I'm in an ethnic restaurant and there is something with
coconut milk in it, I have to get it, I can't help myself. Especially
coconut curry. We got a tofu panang, but I asked for it mild and I
think they just watered down the coconut curry sauce, it was thin and
weak and the dish wasn't that good.
When we got back to Grant's he was playing Age of Empires with
Catherine and his friend Doug in Atlanta, over the internets. We just
hung around the rest of the night until sleepy bye time.
Monday the three of us drove up to a hike up to St. Mary's Glacier. As
usual, the hike was great and the views spectacular. We got up to the
glacial lake, wait till you see the pictures. We tried to go up the
glacier, but I had on my holey sneakers and the air was really thin up
there. We went up walking in the snow a short bit and would have to
rest. I felt kind of lightheaded so we decided to not try and go the
whole way. We hung out on some rocks and enjoyed the views. Then we saw
marmots running up the glacier in the distance. Later one of them slid
down it again. They looked like they were having fun. We had fun too
when we went down, sliding on the snow.
We met Catherine at Grant's favorite Thai restaurant and had a
wonderful meal. Grant asked us if we thought we could eat 6 saltines in
60 seconds. John claimed very confidently that he could, and Grant
claimed that no one could. We made plans to try it out. Turns out
Catherine had saltines back at her place, so we all went back to her
house.
Grant decided to try the saltine challenge while John was preparing
himself. It was very funny. The saltines just turn into a ball of
unswallowable dough that you can't get down. Then John, who had worked
out a strategy, tried. He only got to the last two when he had 10
seconds left. I didn't really try but put two in my mouth and THAT took
almost 60 seconds to get down. It's a fun experiment. The saltines are
tasty.
Then we played UNO for a while with Catherine's son and Catherine won
most of the games. We also showed them "hissy fit" on You Tube. Have
you seen it? Look it up for a laugh.
Tuesday, John and I did some shopping at Whole Foods for lunch and some
supplies. It cost $92. !!!!!
Then we drove to Boulder and went to Pearl Street to look around. Then
plan was to stop there briefly and then go hiking but we ended up
shopping for hours. I bought a pretty necklace.
We made our way to Baseline Rd. and took it into the mountains a little
ways. We parked and walked around the rocks a little. It was beautiful.
There were rock climbers bouldering around there and lots of cyclists
going up and down the road. I got a call back on my cell from Ellen
that she and Keith would have dinner with us so we made plans to meet
back at their place. Then we continued to hike around a bit. We drove
further up the mountain. we stopped at (I think) Lost Gulch overlook.
We got out of the car and were walking up the short path to the
overlook when I saw a large red fox just a few feet in front of me,
chewing on something. I started to get my camera ready, but John was
saying something as he came up behind me, so I swung around to quiet
him, my camera flinging around my wrist on it's string. So it took me a
little longer to get my camera ready and the fox was moving along. I
got a couple of bad shots.
We enjoyed the view and headed down to Boulder to Keith and Ellen's
place. The four of us walked to a Chinese restaurant and the food was
excellent. We went back and hung around chatting until 11:30pm and then
headed back to Denver.
Wednesday John and Grant finally got to go play a poker tournament at a
Black Hawk Casino called Gilpin. It was a $20 buy in with two re-buys,
and everyone just buys their rebuys in advance so it's really $60.
J: I played OK, made a couple
mistakes but did well and made it more than halfway through. The
turning point came when I was dealt pocket Jacks and made a big bet.
One of the players down the line reraised all in. I thought carefully
about the situation. The guy who reraised was playing almost every
hand, and I could see out of the corner of my eye that he was leaning
forward and staring at me, a classic sign of showing aggression because
your hand is weak. I decided I had a better hand and called. He showed
Ace Ten offsuit, which I knew my Jacks were about a 70% favorite to. My
opponent admitted that he thought I was trying to steal the pot. Then
the flop brought him two more Tens and my Jacks were cooked. After that
I was severely short stacked, and the next time I went all in several
players called and checked down to the river to kick me out. I had a
great time playing though, and I was happy that I made the right
decision and called that guy's huge raise with the best hand going
before the flop.
G: While they played I hung
around the penny slots, slowly losing money. I had fun, though.
Everyone around is nice, talking about each other's good wins, "Oh,
that's a good one" and the like. I had a couple of free drinks and
enjoyed myself. The penny slots will usually hit something every 3
times, but it's a payout smaller than what you spent, usually. I
started with $20 to fritter away, but I put in $5 at a time and any
time that went over $6 I'd cash it out, pocket anything over $5, and
put the $5 back in. So I gambled away $20 but won around $14 back. Then
I spent a little more of that when John and Grant came back from the
tournaments after they busted out.
Keith and Ellen were having a reception night so we went back to
Boulder that night. Actually we went to Michelle and John's first.
Michelle is one of many people who we knew in Maryland and has moved to
Colorado. They had two beautiful little girls. They made us dinner
(build your own burrito out of tofu, avocado, re-fried beans, tomato,
etc.) and we saw their amazing, recently remodeled house with a great
view of the mountains. Michelle came with us to Keith and Ellen's. Rob
and Dan were there, also former MD-ers. Another guy showed up, and all
the guys playtested a game of Dan's while the three gals chatted. It
was a very nice time.
Thursday was to be another afternoon in Boulder, meeting up with Rob
and his wife Aileen, along with Keith and Ellen, for dinner. But we
ended up heading straight there for dinner after spending most of the
day at
Denver's Museum of
Nature and Science. There was and exhibit there, recommended by
friends and everyone else in Denver/Boulder, called
Body
Worlds 2. FASCINATING. And kinda ooky.
So, we went to Rob and Aileen's with Keith and Ellen, and met their
adorable children. Then Rob accompanied us to the Tea House, and very
nice restaurant that was ornately decorated. We all had good food and
tea. Then we went back to Rob's for dessert. Aileen had made a vegan
cake. Their older child has allergies to many foods so this was old hat
for her. We all enjoyed the cake on their lovely deck. Keith and Ellen
went home and John and I stayed until 11:30pm playing games with Rob
and Aileen.
Friday, our last full day there. We picked up Catherine and went to Elk
Park in Evergreen for a hike. Another lovely hike up a lovely mountain
with lovely views and thin air that made Catherine loopy. It was fun,
but it got dangerous. We saw as we started our hike that certain areas
were marked, "Caution, Aggressive Elk in Area." We went away from that
area but at the end of our hike we were headed into it. We were making
all sorts of jokes and real plans for what we would do with the
aggressive elk should one come our way.
A jogger wearing only yellow shorts was headed our way, and we joked
that he was an elk in disguise. He stopped when he got to us and said
we should be careful because there was an aggressive elk between the
next two ridges. He said he was jogging and it came after him. He
stopped and waved his arms over his head, and the elk stopped, but when
he started jogging again the elk chased him. I guess he got out of the
territory because the elk was not still behind him.
We got a lot more sober. We clustered together. Catherine and Grant
picked up large sticks, and I had been carrying a couple of large
pieces of white quartz rock, which Grant offered to take so I could
have my camera ready. I nervously held the camera with one hand and got
another rock in the other.
We walked and watched and looked all around us, and saw nothing. A
woman with two black labs on leashes came up behind us. She'd also been
warned by the jogger but seemed unconcerned. She said they come up near
her house but have never been aggressive, and if they get too close she
squirts them with a water gun and they go away. I suggested that a
group as large as us would keep the elk away, but she continued on
ahead of us, being pulled by her dogs.
Catherine noticed one of the dogs looking off to the right, and then
saw the elk. It was headed toward the lady and the dogs, trotting. But
she was moving pretty fast and just kept going, and soon the elk's
attention was turned to us. He was following closely, and looking at us
like he did not want us there, and I followed Grant's example of waving
my arms in the air and trying to roar at it. The elk would stop but did
not leave and kept following us. John's plan, if it charged, was to get
behind a tree. At some point, I guess when he thought we could get
away, Grant started to run. I followed suit. John and Catherine didn't
notice right away and were shocked that we left the safety of the
group. But I thought we were all going to run. I think maybe Grant said
run. I don't know.
Anyway, the elk gave up after a little while. The whole time everyone
was asking if I was taking pictures. I did try once or twice, but
generally I said no, I was too scared. I didn't want to be distracted
from running for my life if I had to. Around the time the elk gave up
we saw a female elk nearby. She paid us no attention. After the whole
thing was over Catherine said she had not been afraid the entire time.
I guess that's why she kept asking me to take pictures of the elk
chasing us!
We went out for Thai again that night, and my meal was great. Then we
went back to the bar with the pool table, next door, but it was Friday
night so it was quite busy. We just all had a drink and then went home.
Saturday was just for taking time to get ready to leave. Slept in,
packing, eating lunch at home, and then leaving on time to return the
rental car and get to the flight on time.
We didn't realize until we were about to get on the plane that we had
seats in row 3. Row 3? Business class again? You mean we upgraded for
this leg of the trip as well and didn't know it? BONUS! And look here,
at our tickets for the leg from Atlanta to Baltimore. Row 2! Extra
Bonus!
John had a beer on that flight, just because he could, for free. Can I
ever fly in coach again? I guess I will have to.
We had a wonderful time in Colorado and Kansas, and hope to visit again
soon.
J: After our
vacation I came down with some flu, durn it. but at least I didn't have
symptoms while on vacation. I've been mostly puttering (and hacking,
and shivering, and feeling blah) for the last few days. But I did get
to see some of Izolda's students give a recital at the New Deal Cafe
last night. They all sounded great, and each used her own unique,
genuine voice; Izolda's a good teacher.