If you have been keeping up with my facebook account, you'll know that Trina and I are in Colorado on vacation. Yesterday was our 10th anniversary. It's been a great 10 years.
We've been having fun up here, driving around, looking at sights. On Tuesday, we went white water rafting. It was fun but my body is still paying the price for it. I think part of it is the lingering effects of the car crash on Sunday where my back in sending little jolts up electricity up my spine nearly everytime I sit down. Of course, this may be aggrevated from when I broke my tail bone some 4 years ago and it may have set wrong -- but what do I do about that? In reality, I need to get some of the pressure off my back by losing some of the weight up front.
But back to white water rafting. It was fun. It was interesting putting your well being into the hands of someone else who is experienced, but in reality, is just as likely to fall out as anyone else. In fact, we had a three rafts of guide trainees with us and one of the trainees fell out of the raft. By the grace of God, Trina and I stayed in the raft. Of course, when we ended, I could barely stand up with my hip feeling like I was Jacob after wrestling with God and had to walk with a limp from then on. I think I'll heal though.
Yesterday, June 3rd, our anniversary, was by far our busiest day out here. We started up waking up at way too early in the morning and then leaving our room about 7 am. We drove down a couple of windy Colorado mountain highways with many beautiful sites along the road, until we finally emptied out of the mountains into Boulder. It was like... poof! You're in Boulder.
In Boulder, we went to the Celestrial Seasons Tea Factory. It was a good tour but not quite up to Jelly Belly standards. Of course, the Peppermint room was mind blowing -- or more like senses blowing. It invaded every sense with it's strength.
After the factory, we started looking for Mile High Comics. One of my friends told me it was in Boulder, so we looked it up on our phone and headed to Denver. This lead us to... their distribution warehouse. Oops. So we drove around Denver. We drove downtown, saw Coors Field (Rockies), then through downtown where I had my first geek-out moment of the day -- we passed through the intersection of Colifax and Broadway, made famous to me by the Five Iron Frenzy song, "From 0 to 15". Around the capital building, through downtown, and then to Invesco Field at Mile High (Broncos). We ended up taking a stadium tour (second geek-out moment) which lasted about an hour and got to walk down to the field (Staying off the grass.) Cool pictures to be posted later.
Spending some time in the team store, we finally took off on our quest to find a brick and mortar Mile High Comics store. We finally found it. It was ok. The guy behind the counter was saying they really do most of their business online now so none of the 4 B&M stores are too big anymore. But it was cool to find it. It looked like... a comic book store.
So we started considering dinner. My sister recommended a place that she saw on Man vs. Food called, "The Buckhorn Exchange Restaurant". So we found it. It is in the projects of Denver now. The building looks 117 yeas old. It was 4:30 and dinner service started at 5:30. So around 5 we head in (after 45 minutes of driving through Denver looking at houses and a lake.) We go in and they require reservations. Bummer. So we go upstairs to look at the saloon. I end up going back down and asking about how long reservations should be in advance. He tells me between 24-48 hours, but since it was just the two of us, he'd sneak us in. I didn't even need to play the anniversary card.
Let me say that this was, by far, absolutely the best restaurant I have ever eaten in. The menu looks like an old newspaper with a bunch of the history of the restaurant. The walls are lined with pictures of people who have eaten here, guns, mounted heads and full body animals, stories of Wild Bill Cody and Teddy Roosevelt, and history. Amazing. Then the two person steak came out. By far the best steak I've ever had. The buffalo noodle soup was fantastic. If you come to Denver just for this restaurant, you've made a good trip. Wow.
So now, it's Friday and I'm waiting for Laundry to dry. After the full day yesterday, now we are resting until we go drive trail ridge road up in the Rockies. Sounds like fun.
The problem with vacations is that they end way too early, but I am looking forward to seeing my kids again. Still, I have been enjoying my wife. Marriage is good.
