Denver, Colorado

Sophie's daycare schedule included a closure the week of Memorial Day, so Debbie had planned to come help us out. So it worked out when Jessica was going to Denver that week for work, so I could go crash with her for the hell of it to get away from it a little bit, and AJ wouldn't be left alone to fend for himself against Sophie. So that's how I found myself in Denver this past week.

I've technically been to Denver before. AJ and I went there in December 2015 to visit his friend, but we stayed at his place just outside the city, and we visited Breckenridge and Vail and went to a Broncos game, and never went into the city itself. So this was my first time in Denver proper. And by the way, the landing was so awful, I was truly lucky to not puke before I got off the plane, and was able to run off and make it to the bathroom to splash water on my face and take enough deep breaths to walk it off.

The hotel was right in the downtown area off the 16th Street Mall. We had a great location and we were able to walk everywhere we wanted to, which included going down to Larimer Square for dinner on our first night.

This site on my drive in. Precious!

Denver clocktower

Larimer Square! Featuring jerseys
of the Colorado Avalanche, currently
in West Coast finals for the Stanley Cup

Nighttime skyline

Jessica had some work to do and I made my own plans, but somehow Jessica was honestly interested in visiting Molly Brown's house, so we did that together. If you've forgotten, "The Unsinkable Molly Brown" was a real person in history who is known for surviving the Titanic (you'll know her from Kathy Bates' portrayal in the 1998 James Cameron classic) and she was also a huge suffragette and nominated as a Senator. Her and her husband came from a mining town in the mountains and after it started producing the most gold of mines in Colorado (or the West or something like that) they basically struck it rich and moved to this beautiful crasftsman style house on Capitol Hill. I was especially interested because there was a Titanic exhibit commemorating the 110 years of the voyage this year.

The Denver mint!

Colorado State Capitol Building

REAL White Star Line setting from the Titanic!

Signed script!

THEY provided the props and made it
fun! I did cry otherwise at all the horrific
details that were there from the reality
of the Titanic

That night we went out to a Denver saloon for dinner and the Colorado Avalanche hockey team were taking on the Edmonton Oilers in the West Coast finals for the Stanley Cup, game 1. We got very into it and Jessica, who has never even been to a hockey game, was getting very excited, it was hilarious and I was enjoying it too.

The next day I got to sleep in (what's that like?) and relax and get some work done while Jessica went in to the conference. When she was done, we walked through LoDo down to Coors Field to watch the Rockies take on the Miami Marlins. We were actually really lucky, because the game was supposed to just be a 1:10p game that we wouldn't have been able to make it to, but because the game the day before was rained out, they had a double header so there was a second that we got to make it in for. Only $4 to get in! The stadium was empty and we went up the Rooftop bar for drinks and stood and watched the game for awhile. It was super eventful - ended up 12-11 (Rockies win!) over 10 innings. Of course we left long before that, but it was fun. We had also looked up the special food at the Coors Field stadium and learned about Rocky Mountain oysters. We thought we had to try some until we learned that's an expression for fried bull testicles!! WTF! Thank God we learned that in time.

We left to go to a bar across the street to crash a conference party and even came away with a free dessert. When we got back to the hotel, we put on Titanic to watch haha!

The next day was the last day, and Jessica and I had to say goodbye early since she had to go in to the conference and I had to catch my flight before she would be back. I stayed in the hotel until check out and then I decided to walk up to Union Station and take the train to the airport. It was so lovely! The interior was so nice, I actually wished I had gone sooner and could maybe hang out there to read to work on my laptop for awhile.

Flight back was great. Smooth, on time, anything you could want. AJ picked me up and I got to come home to my baby before taking off for dress rehearsal for my ballet recital tomorrow. Yes, you read that right. I'm starting to regret my decision to partake in it but here goes nothing!