Denver, I miss you -second in a series of three

Denver is such a great place to visit that I'm dedicating three posts to it.
I'm going to back up a bit and take you on a little chronological tour. I arrived on Thursday night and ate a very light dinner with Jeannie in the wonderful restaurant Panzano that was downstairs in our hotel. I don't remember the name of the dish, but it was a pasta with feta cheese, I think some dried cranberries, some nuts and something like sour grass, but I really can't remember. It was very tasty.

The next morning Jeannie was at her conference, so I was on my own. I knew it was going to be a great visit, because what can go wrong when you have a wizard wandering the streets of a city?

Later, when Jeannie was out of her conference, we took off on foot to see some of the city. There were signs around the city that said "Organ Trail," and looked blood-spattered. We asked about it and were told the city would be crawling with zombies as they tried to break a record for the most zombies on Saturday.
On Saturday we had a food tour scheduled for later in the day, but first we wanted to walk to a "Made in Colorado," store and pick up a few things. We thought it was not very far from our hotel, but it turns out it was very far from our hotel.

We walked a little more than three miles just to get there. Three miles is a lot for me these days, but I was OK. However, the air in Denver is different. It's a bit thin, and just felt different to walk that far. Some of it was a bit hilly, but nothing like here.

That Made in Dever shop also had a specialty chocolate shop called Roberta's Chocolates. But as we walked and kept checking my iPhone to see if were were getting any closer, we knew there was no way to make it back for our food tour on time if we walked, so we caught a cab back. We only bought a few things at the store, because by the time we got there we were both so tired and hungry we had lost interest. They had chocolate dipped Jalapeno peppers, but I opted for a small box of truffles. I also bought Chuck some chocolate covered bacon.

While we waited for the cab we walked across the street to the Mexican restaurant.
Our taxi dropped us at our hotel just in time for our food tour, and as we walked from one restaurant to the next we saw thousands of zombies, and some zombie killers. There were zombie babies, zombie umpa loompas, a zombie Queen Elizabeth and even a zombie banana. Some of the costumes were very realistic.

Oh, and the food was good. I truly can't remember the names of the restaurants. The first one was a desert place. It was OK. The second one was the best, and they brought out a real spread of foods. I had the salmon, and it was really, really good. And this is coming from someone who is used to very fresh and wonderful salmon. I also enjoyed the side dishes. The others in our group enjoyed a few meats that I don't eat, including pork. The presentation was really nice, and the dishes I had were just perfect.

From there we went to a pizza place. Not my favorite. The vegetarian option was a small salad that was nothing special, and the carnivores were served Trotter Pie, which is made of pig's feet. I didn't hear any of the feedback. They offered a couple of beer samples as well. It was OK, but I'm not a big fan of dark beers.

Jeannie and I met a couple of really nice ladies at our hotel lobby, which hosted a happy hour with something tasty and free wine, as well as a neck massage. They were so nice, and invited us to share lemoncellos with them to celebrate their birthdays.

Denver was a lot of fun, and it was great to reconnect with Jeannie after so many years.
Now I'm back and in the groove of work and life again. But I look forward to another adventure sometime soon.

In my next post I'll provide a list some great things to do in Denver.

Denver, I love you!

Tattered Cover Book Store in Denver.

I'm in Denver, staying in this quaint and unique Hotel Monaco and enjoying myself immensely. There are free massages in the lobby in the afternoon, we have fluffy robes and loads of pillows on the beds, and everyone is friendly.

My childhood friend, Jeannie, invited me to join her here while she's attending a conference. It was so nice of her to invite me along, and tomorrow we'll be able to spend more time doing fun stuff. (This summer was the first time we had seen each other since we were kids.) Today we took a short jaunt to the incredible Tattered Cover Book Store. I felt so at home I could have stayed all day! In fact, I stayed a long time after Jeannie had to leave and get to her conference. I decided to browse and browse, and then I got hungry so I ordered a Tangy Tuna sandwich and a water and sat in the cafe area and took it all in. I have a soft spot in my heart for cafes that serve whole foods, and have their menu handwritten on a chalkboard. I used to work at one of those.

It's been a long time since I was able to hang out in such a cool bookstore. We have them, of course, and have a wonderful one in Seattle, but I haven't been there in a long time. Plus, there's just something about embracing a place you've never been. The wood floors, and the wood shelves, and the books that seem to go on from floor to ceiling, and the staircase that leads to MORE BOOKS! Ahh. Just wonderful.

I eventually did need to mosey on down the street and see what else there was to see. I passed by some really cool looking restaurants and shops, went in to a couple of shops that were way outside of my budget. $499 for a sweater. Umm, no.

Feeling the shock of that tag, I ventured farther and saw the Federal Reserve money museum. It's free! That's within my budget, so I went in. Now, granted, there is not a lot to see once you get in there, but what can you expect for free, right? There is a display of shredded money and dirt, and info on how they put shredded bills that are taken out of circulation into compost. There are some metal insets with raised images you can make your own money by placing the paper over it and rubbing a crayon over the top. There's a display of $30,000,000 in $100 bills, and a newspaper clipping of the robbery in the 1920s and a description and cartoonish drawing of the suspect.

And hey, they give away free bags of money! Well, it's shredded and worthless, but there's $165 in that bag.

Sick Day

Sean is sick today, which means I'm home as well. I find sick days to be a blessing and a curse. Though  I have some time to relax and do housework I wouldn't be able to do if we had a normal day of work and school, I know that this time off will make tomorrow a busier work day.

So today I'm puttering around, doing some laundry, monitoring my email in case I can do some work from home, and watching TV. I can't even say how long it has been since I watched mid-morning television.

I'm also chugging Airborne and taking vitamins because I feel a little scratchiness in my throat and that sickish feeling in my head.

What do you do on sick days?