More on Denver

First, about the girl kid.

Libby came home yesterday with a bunch of papers stacked together to make a sort of "math notebook." This notebook was "To Libby" "From Jackson." Interesting.

After inquiry, it seems Jackson (who I met on our last unofficial walk to school day, riding his bike two neighborhoods over and called out to Libby as we walked by), sits with Libby some on the bus nowdays. Jackson is in second of third grade (I can't remember) and evidently shows Libby his math homework and she said, "teaches me math." (Glad somebody is doing it besides me!) She let us know that we need to go over this book with her and help her learn more about it. Now this is truly awesome news, but Michael and I are still scratching our heads about this whole thing, since despite our regular, and differing questions about her days and her bus rides, we have never heard her voluntarily mention this boy or his name. But you can see that effort went into this fine work.

PHOTO

Also, her headstands are getting better. She had done several seriously pretty good ones before I took the video below. Immediately following this video, she did one so good that she would up flipping the entire way over, unfortunately landing on her back. She was okay, though. And you can see that Matthew is practicing, too.



Back to Denver.

I mentioned The Avenue in the last post, but actually the first night was even better! We ate a delicious meal at Potager, preceded by a few minutes at the bar there, where we both enjoyed new beers. I have no photos of this one, so I guess that's where I got thrown off? Anyway, it's a chef-driven, farm-to-table restaurant, and we got the last day of the 'summer' menu. It was delicious, and based on that, I wish I could try the fall one, too. Highly recommend Potager if you are in the area.

Of course, we were pretty tired by the travel and time change, so we headed back to the hotel for our chocolate chip cookies and hot tea while we soaked in the hot tub on our balcony.

The next morning was our first delicious breakfast at the Castle Marne, and we met the folks in town for the beer festival and two other nice couples in town for various reasons. Then, we strapped on our hiking boots and headed out for our day at Deer Creek Canyon where we hiked the Deer Creek Canyon Loop to get a feel for our surroundings. On our way there, we spotted some Big Horn Sheep in the distance!

We lathered up in sunscreen, got our bug spray just in case, and started UP. It's a rather sunny path, so the ball caps were definitely handy all day on Thursday.

Lip balm, lip balm?

Every angle seemed different, and we really enjoyed the views. And of course, working off breakfast so we could eat more.

The modern silver building, that is also mesa-like is Lockheed.

Hardly a cloud in the sky!

The sky was SO BLUE.

Then, it was time to hop in the car to dash over to Red Rocks, where we hiked the Trading Post Trail. Driving over was like something out of Jurassic Park. You didn't have to do much to imagine a stegosaurus wandering by on the landscape.

Red Rocks Trading Post trail hike was not as tough, but it was lots of fun. Around every curve was another new view! I loved it. We did some goofing off, too.

Loved these keyhole views!

Statue of John Denver. Red Rocks was his favorite venue and he said if he could fly all audiences to Red Rocks, that would be his favorite.

 I can see what. What a great venue! We didn't see a concert there this time, unfortunately. But the daytime views were awesome.

After our hikes, we drove to nearby Golden Colorado, the location of the Colorado School of Mines, as well as a Coors Brewing Co. brewery and bottling factory. Both had HUGE signs there The town was very well branded and planned out. And it was amazing how everything in the area town-wise was almost exact squares. Not quite Atlanta or our landscape or layout.

We even stopped by the chamber!

We also found a fellow UGA fan at D'Deli, where we enjoyed GIANT sandwiches for lunch.We ate them all, too. And the guys making the sandwiches were very nice. I even found a 10 percent off coupon before we went, AND remembered to use it. Win!

After that, we tried to go to Lookout Mountain. Instead, our car wouldn't operate properly. The stupid thing was acting like it was in overdrive. So we fooled with every possible possibility, with no luck. Next up, it was time to call around to the local Hertz locations to see about swapping out the car. Nope. All cars booked. Instead, after many, many phone calls (by me), Michael got to drive the car 45 minutes, on surface streets and the interstate, with both of us praying, back to the Hertz place at the airport. Did we get a free day for our trouble? A percentage off? No. But, at least the car swap WAS easy after all the mess.

Got that Carola this time.


After that, it was time to head back to the hotel for tea time and showers. Thank goodness. Amazingly, we didn't get something stronger right away, but if you'll note from the first blog, we did make it in time for cocktail hour at dinner. And of course, chocolate chip cookies back before bedtime.