July 17, 2011

Success.

So we are back from our trip to Denver. We arrived home around midnight last night. My luggage decided that it wanted to do a little more traveling, so it headed to Houston when we headed to Newark. Rumor has it that the luggage arrived in Syracuse this afternoon. We’ll have to see if it can hail a courier to get it out here to the house.

I was just mentioning to Earl that I feel amazingly relaxed and refreshed after this trip. Honestly, the trip was more relaxing than I expected it to be. This is a good thing. It cleared up my outlook on life a little bit.

Since my birthday was on Wednesday, I let everyone else decide the agenda for the day. We ended up going to the Downtown Aquarium in Denver. It wasn’t as large as anticipated but it was most enjoyable.

There were a few unruly kids around, but for the most part everyone was well behaved.

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I always find it a little creepy when the restaurant at the aquarium serves fish but I suppose they get it from somewhere else. It’d be weird to dip into the tanks and grab something. Especially one of the mermaids or something.

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After the aquarium we went to Dave and Buster’s for some afternoon fun in the arcade since it was nearly 95F outside. We scored many points to be added to the family card. I think we have our eyes on a PacMan arcade game for the house.

Everyone wanted to take a short nap so I decided to go for a walk, since it was a beautiful day. I got about a mile from the hotel when it started raining. I took refuge in the entrance of a supermarket called “King Soopers”.

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My birthday dinner was on the 16th Street Mall in Downtown Denver at a restaurant called, appropriately, Earl’s. Excellent food, excellent service and excellent company. Highly recommended.

Thursday we went to Cheyenne to visit our friends Tim and Gordon. We hadn’t seen them in about six years and it was the first time Jamie and Scott met them. It was a great visit, though I didn’t take one picture. I don’t know why. I guess we were too busy catching up. They are going to visit us soon – they’ve haven’t been in this neck of the woods yet.

Friday we did some touring around Red Rocks Park.

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Friday evening I went on a little hike on my own at Green Mountain. I ended up hiking about five miles. It was a good way to relax and bring the last evening of the vacation to a close.

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Just starting the hike, I took a picture of Downtown Denver in the distance.

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As per the daily tradition, Mother Nature gave us another light show on Friday night, just to keep it interesting.

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All in all an excellent vacation. I have said before that I prefer the attitude of folks west of the Mississippi and this vacation was no difference. Upstate New York, especially the eastern side of the state, has a hell of a lot of cranky people. Hopefully, I brought a big helping of hospitality back with me so I can spread it around a little bit.

 

Perform This Way.

Now this is the way the song should have been performed.

And I think that he looks a bit like Jane Krakowski!

Here’s Weird Al with “Perform This Way”.