Tag: Denver

Fall Break 2024: Colorado

October 21, 2024 / DB

To celebrate the glories of CHS fall break, we took the girls (well, C and L) to Denver to stay with S’s sister and her family for a few days.[1] We hadn’t been to Colorado since Christmas 2017, although we were scheduled to spend spring break there in 2020 until, well, you know…

We flew out Wednesday evening, returned Sunday morning/afternoon. Other than heavy fog causing us to sit at the gate for an extra 40 minutes before leaving Denver, we had no travel issues.

Thursday we headed down to Colorado Springs. Our first stop was a drive through and quick hike in the Garden of the Gods. I doubt these rock formations are quite as amazing as some of the more famous ones in Utah, but they also make less sense because they are far more isolated.

We were just a little behind schedule, thus the short hike. We went to the Broadmoor estate for lunch at the Golden Bee, which was very good.

After lunch we hit the Cave of the Winds Mountain Park for a cave tour. That was kind of freaky, especially for tall people. The girls were laughing at me after saying I was ducking way more than I needed on the tight passages. I told them it’s hard to get a 53-year-old, 6’2” body scrunched into a sub-four foot opening gracefully. We were most amazed by how and why people explored these 150 years ago. There is a part of the tour where they turn the modern lighting off and illuminate a large cavern with the type of candle-lamps they used in the 1880s. You can’t see shit. Maybe that’s how they explored so deep: when you can only see a few feet ahead you don’t realize one misstep could lead to a cold, lonely death.

The Broncos were playing Thursday night so we ordered pizza and stayed in to watch that. Mountain Time is pretty good for sports.

Friday we stayed in Denver. First we picked up our nephew, W, from his school, which had a half day. He’s a freshman at a Catholic school of about 725 students, and was able to give us a little tour. Then we hit the trendy Washington Park area to explore a bit and have a fantastic lunch at Perdida Kitchen. By far the best biria tacos I’ve ever had.

As a huge bonus we have good friends from Indy who are in the midst of a family relocation to Denver. One of S’s best friends from high school, K, who also happens to be L’s godmother, has two daughters who have taken nursing jobs in Denver. Because K and her husband are kind of crazy, after making a first visit to move the girls over the summer and falling in love with the city, they decided to rent their own condo for a year. K has been working from Denver off-and-on for the past month. Her husband C, who teaches at CHS and has our C in a class this year, has been coming out for weekends. He had promised us he would teach long enough to have his goddaughter in class when she is a senior, but we wonder if that’s still in the cards as they really seem to like Denver.

Anyway, we checked out K & C’s condo. Their daughters both have smaller places in the same complex. One was sleeping off an overnight shift so we only got to see her sister’s place.

Fun and kind of random.

Rain was moving in so we cut afternoon plans to walk around Wash Park more and instead checked out the Cherry Creek mall. Holy shit! Who knew there were still megamalls that were full of good stores? The girls spent a ton of time picking out clothes at Zara. After standing around letting them select and try on stuff for nearly an hour I finally discovered there was a Lucid showroom that I could have been hanging out in.

For our family activity that night the dads decided it was time all our kids watched Anchorman. None of them liked it as much as the dads did. Oh well…

Saturday we had to get up early to go watch our nephew play football about 30 minutes north of Denver. This is his first time ever playing football and he loves it. In the C game, he rarely comes off the field, playing a linebacker/safety hybrid on D and as a receiver on offense. He had a great tackle on defense and pancake-blocked a kid on a screen pass, which was awesome. However his team got blasted so that kind of sucked. Especially since it was early and cold.

Now, I could probably write 3000 words about this part of the game, so I’ll try to be brief. W’s team was down 26–0 in the third quarter and had done nothing on offense the entire game other than punt or turn the ball over before they connected on an 85 yard TD pass. However, one of the sideline refs threw a flag because W’s coaches ran onto the field and blocked the ref’s view during the run. Even though this ref had no call to make on the play. I see/hear sideline warnings called in pretty much every CHS game I’ve followed over the past seven years. The refs throw a flag, a sideline warning is announced, they pick up the flag, the play counts, and if it happens again there’s a penalty.

Maybe the rules are different in Colorado, but there was no warning Saturday. In a C game that was a blowout, a ref took away MHS’ only good play of the day. Even if I had no interest in the game, this would have been an insane call.

Well, as you can imagine, the MHS parents were not happy. One dad in particular, who was already an asshole before this call, cranked things up to 11. Or 111 actually. It was embarrassing even as a non-MHS parent how he would just not stop. My brother-in-law was ready to fight this guy because he was being such an idiot. The coaches came over and told him to shut up. The athletic director of the home school came over and asked him to pipe down. But he kept going. Literally 20 minutes of yelling before he finally took a walk around the track. Then when he came back he complained loudly to all of us again.

Makes me look forward to high school basketball cranking back up here in Indy!

We did not stick around for the JV game since W only played on kick coverage. Instead went took the 30 minute trip up to Boulder. I had never been there before so was excited. The only bummer was that the Flatirons were socked in with clouds until right about the time we left in late afternoon. While we were waiting for W and his dad, we walked around campus and downtown. Campus was deserted, it must have been CU’s fall break, too, so it was pretty lifeless. After W and my brother-in-law joined us we had a really good lunch at the West End Tavern on Pearl Street.

Our girls seemed to like Boulder. It is pretty funny to see the juxtaposition of these rich college kids – it’s over $60K/year for out of state students – with all the grungy, anti-establishment-ness of the full timers. And then it’s also a quasi-tech town. Just a lot going on. That’s true of any college town. Boulder is next level, though.

Then it was back to Denver, finally with clear views of the mountains from the car, for a chill evening. We had a very early flight home Sunday so focused on visiting while we watched football and got packed.

C had a cold the whole time, which was a bit of a bummer. My body is trying to decide if I’m catching it this morning.

Fun trip. We didn’t get the best of what Denver has to offer because of the clouds, but it’s easy to see why so many people flock there from elsewhere. Of course, with that comes a much higher cost of living than in the Midwest. Recently S and I have started thinking about what is next for us, in the 5–10 year window when the girls start cycling out of school and she can think about retiring from medicine. Where we end up will depend on where the girls land; we’d like to be centrally located if they spread out. We are both Midwesterners at heart and have a hard time seeing ourselves in certain parts of the country.[2] But Denver would be cool. Especially with family already there and some good friends with one foot out the door in that direction. That’s a long way away, though.

Originally M was going to join us. But it was homecoming week at UC and as house social chair, she had a lot of important activities. Plus she had a big math test from 6–8 PM Friday. Who gives tests on Friday evenings?!?! ↩
Pretty much any red state not in the Central time zone. ↩

Belated Holiday Wrap Up

January 3, 2018 / DB

Glory be! After roughly 36 hours without either cable or internet access, our house (and neighborhood it turns out) has been reconnected! So I can finally start unloading some of the accumulated content from the past week-plus.

First, Happy New Year! I hope your celebrations, large and small, were fun and safe.

Let’s go back to 2017 and review how our family rolled over Christmas.

Christmas Day

I believe I mentioned this in my annual Christmas Spirit post, but the myth of where gifts come from was finally burst in our house this year. There was no formal acknowledgement, just little comments here and there that made it obvious the girls know that all those Amazon packages that show up from late November through December contain their gifts, not a jolly fat man and his reindeer who deliver them on Christmas Eve. L still put up appearances at times, because that’s what she does. But we knew the girls knew.

It didn’t help that at least one of them found our gift hiding place. For years we’ve been able to put boxes on a shelf in our closet that only I can reach. It’s just inside and behind the door, so younger eyes were generally not looking in this area. But one night I went in to change for bed and noticed the box was on the floor. I asked S about it the next day and she said she hadn’t taken it down. We’re not sure how but one/a combination of the girls pulled the box down and saw all their unwrapped gifts. S was more than a little pissed and wanted to say something. I pointed out that one year I had unwrapped nearly all of my gifts well before Christmas.[1] Looks like we’ll have to hide things better next year.

Anyway, Christmas morning… our girls all did well. M got the Beats headphones she desperately wanted but was sure we wouldn’t get her. She also got some new adidas and a shirt. Yep, she’s reached the age where she’s more interested in clothes than toys. Along those lines, C got a new desk and sheets. L got an Amazon Fire tablet and some Star Wars Legos. All were pleased with their gifts.

After presents, we did our final packing and headed to the airport to catch our flight to Denver. As we had hoped, the Indianapolis airport was pretty slow that morning. The weather was fine – we got about an inch of snow on Christmas Eve, but Christmas morning was cold and clear – and our flight was on time. We looked forward to being in Denver in a few hours.

The Flight

Facebook friends know our flight had some issues.

We took off as scheduled and headed west. Shortly after the fasten seatbelt sign went off, we heard an announcement that the front lavatory was not working. A few minutes later, the pilot said the rear lavatories were out of order, too. They were trying to figure out a fix in the air, but he added they were “exploring all options.”

About 15 minutes later, he came on again and said that they were still talking to the ground to see if the lavs could be fixed in the air. He also said that because our flight was so heavy, we had limited options on where we could land if we needed to. That seemed a little ominous. He would keep us updated, he promised.

Another 10 or so minutes went by when he came on again and announced than none of their in-air fixes were working, so we were turning around and landing in St. Louis, hopefully for a quick fix and back into the air shortly thereafter.

We were just a few minutes past St. Louis, so were on the ground quickly. Then we waited as technicians came in-and-out trying to get the shitters fixed. We sat for an hour, with some folks exiting to use the airport restrooms, before they announced we were switching planes. So off we went, down one gate, and waited about another hour before we boarded and took off again.

We figure St. Louis was the only airport on our path that had an extra plane we could switch to if needed. Because it would have made more sense to continue to Kansas City and land there. Yes, I was wondering if there were any decent barbecue places in KCI these days.

Oh well, we arrived about three hours later than planned, hungry, tired, but excited to start our Christmas adventure.

Denver

So my sister-in-law and her husband knew we were coming, obviously, but their kids did not. We Facetime with them once a month or so and ever since we booked the trip in the fall, our girls were always giggling and whispering “Don’t give it away!” when we talk to them. My sister-in-law picked us up and delivered us to their front door, where we all donned Santa hats and rang the doorbell. The kids answered and freaked out a little bit. My nephew, who turned 8 the next day, fell over and grabbed his heart. His five-year-old sister squealed with delight. It was exactly the reaction we had hoped for and a Christmas surprise all the kids will never forget.

On Tuesday we celebrated W’s birthday. We went bowling in the afternoon and had his local grandparents and an uncle over for dinner that evening.

On Wednesday we drove up to Vail, where my brother-in-law’s family has a place, for some mountain time. Since we were only spending one night there, we decided not to have the girls try skiing. So Wednesday we walked around Vail, had lunch and dinner there, let the kids ice skate in the evening, and got our girls the obligatory local sweatshirts.

On Thursday we drove down to Frisco and went snow tubing. That was a lot of fun. We did this ten years ago at Keystone, and that was a small hill on a golf course you had to drag your tubes back up each time. This was a manicured hill that was twice as big and had a Magic Carpet ramp that hauled you back up. We found that connecting multiple adult tubes together really made you fly. It was a pretty good time and no doubt better for our girls than trying to teach them to ski in just one day.[2]

I was pleased at how well we handled the altitude. I was very nervous because 10 years ago I had a really hard time in my first 24 hours in Breckenridge. But I had only occasional moments of needing to quickly catch my breath in Vail. We figured it was because 10 years ago our time in Denver was in a hot hotel where I didn’t drink much water, with a wedding squeezed into the final night. I went to the mountains dehydrated that time, where I was drinking tons of water as soon as we got to Denver this time.

Unfortunately, by this time my nephew was getting pretty sick. And it was beginning to pass through to our kids. C was coughing a lot and the rest of us all had sniffles. So Friday we kept things pretty tame. We had planned on going out that night to look at some of the holiday stuff in downtown Denver, but the kids were dragging so we let them watch a movie at home.

Saturday morning C was feeling much worse, coughing like crazy, and having trouble breathing at times. There were a few moments where we worried about whether she’d be able to get on the plane or not. But we got her steadied and we made it home without incident.

Other than the illnesses, which you kind of have to expect if you travel this time of year, it was a great week. We had plenty of fun in Denver. I do admit it was weird spending Christmas week somewhere else. When we got home Saturday evening I kept thinking, “Wait, Christmas is over?” My brain is still having trouble with the abrupt ending to all our traditional activities. But I also appreciate how our Denver relatives are often spending their holiday week in Indy with us, so was glad they could stay home for a change.

NYE

As has become a family tradition[3] we threw together a last-minute dinner for S’s sisters and their families. I made chili, there were lots of appetizers, and we did a mock countdown around 10:30 for our girls and their young cousins. It was a fun night. I’ve managed to hold off the illness for the most part, but was still pretty wiped out. I think I read until about 11:15 before I called it a night. L claims she was still up in her room until after midnight.

F&%K It’s Cold

We’re are about 36 hours away for setting the longest stretch in Indy history where the temperature has not risen over 20. We had some more light snow Sunday and are supposed to get enough to make rush hour tonight pretty nasty. When it finally warms up a little on Sunday we’re supposed to get hit with an ice storm.

Already so sick of winter.

We’ve had a couple practices and have a couple more later this week. The girls have some friends over now. L has a party Friday. We are gathering with some friends on Saturday. I’m trying to come up with some other indoor activities to get us to next Tuesday when the girls begin the new semester.

We’re a put all the gifts under the tree Christmas morning family. My mom preferred to slowly lay them out over the course of December. Since I was home alone roughly six hours every afternoon/evening, I sliced through the tape on one side of each box, carefully peeked inside, then placed a new piece of tape directly over the original. Christmas morning I made sure to open each gift from the re-taped side to hide my work. As far as I ever knew, my mom had no idea. ↩
And, to be honest, me as well. I only tried skiing once, 30 years ago, and was not good at it in the hour or so I tried. I’d be starting from scratch, too. ↩
Based on the last two years only. ↩

Rocky Mountain High

July 18, 2012 / DB

Four days in Denver. Sounds like a bad political thriller from the 1970s, no? Our weekend in the Mile High City was far from bad movie from my childhood.

The highlights:

The girls travelled very well on the way out. S. sat in a row with C. and L., while M. and I sat a row up. We were lucky enough to share our row with a pilot from another airline who was all-too-happy to share information about flying without being asked. He was just on the verge of being annoying, but fortunately didn’t volunteer flying tidbits for the entire flight.
Saturday we went out to the famous Red Rocks park and concert site. The place was full of people working out. There were people running the seats of the amphitheater, a group of over 50 people doing various exercises at the top of the seats, a large contingent of kids from the Air Force Academy, and then random folks like us who were walking around. Like most non-Coloradans my age, about all I know of Red Rocks is the classic 1983 U2 concert, during which the video for “Sunday, Bloody Sunday” was filmed. It’s a pretty cool place to walk around. I bet seeing a show there would be pretty amazing.
After that we headed higher into the hills to visit two KC friends who are now in the Denver area. We had a fine time with them, and our girls played with the two boys quite well. We headed to the neighborhood pool after lunch. It’s been a very hot summer in Denver, too. But we were just high enough, and enough clouds had rolled in, that the water wasn’t all that warm. Thus we didn’t spend a ton of time in the water. But it was great to see my two friends, Erin and Mandi, and their families for the first time in four years.
We descended about a thousand feet, to where it was a normal, hot, summer day and hopped into the pool in my brother & sister-in-laws’ neighborhood. The girls showed off their diving board skills some more.
Sunday my brother-in-law and I went to the Phillies-Rockies game at Coors Field. Coors was my eighth big league stadium, which is pretty lame when you consider how much baseball I’ve watched in my life. We had terrific seats, the only downside of which was we were directly in the sun. Each time we’d head up to grab another round, our seats would be blistering upon our return. We watched Cole Hamels shut down the Rockies, drank some beer, and enjoyed some time without the kids.
Monday morning we went to the restaurant my other Denver sister-in-law runs, Snooze. It’s a breakfast place that makes some amazing food. We sampled some of their pancakes, which are probably the best I’ve ever had, and I stuffed myself on a massive breakfast burrito.
What better way to recover from eating too much food than to go to the Denver Zoo and stroll around in the heat? That was our next stop. Things began to unravel a bit by now, with the girls being tired from three nights in strange beds, a different sleeping schedule, and the weather. I, of course, handled all their moods with absolute aplomb.
Monday night we ate dinner at a barbecue place not too far from my in-laws’ home. You can’t really go wrong with barbecue, but my pulled pork sandwich wasn’t quite Kansas City quality. We ordered some wings, too, which my brother-in-law raved about, and they were indeed some of the better wings I’ve had. I’m not sure how they were made, but they were fantastic: a little smoky, a little hot, but not dripping with sauce.
The girls had lots of fun with their cousins. Will is 2.5 and loved hanging out with the girls. Anytime he couldn’t find one, he’d start yelling, “Where M./C./L.?” Will’s little sister, Sara, is almost three months old and very cute. The girls loved watching her, trying to get her to smile and make noises back at them.
Tuesday we flew home, and we lucked out with a flight that wasn’t completely full. This time M. and I sat a row behind the rest, and as we sat waiting to leave the gate, a girl from across the aisle came over, sat in the empty seat next to me, looked at M., and asked, “How old is she?” Despite being 5.5, this girl was perfectly happy to hang with M. for two hours, so I moved over to the window and let them have fun. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t let any of my daughters go sit with strangers, even if just across the aisle from me, but this worked out ok.

We made it home safe and sound, to a hot and dry home that made sleeping Tuesday night difficult. But at least we were home. Most of our trips in recent years have been 2-3 nights, and I always feel like I could have used one more. This time, with four nights schedule, I could have easily come home a night earlier. But it was still a great trip. I haven’t spent a ton of time in Denver over the years, but I like it a lot. They welcome Indianapolis refugees warmly there, so if we do ever move, that’s a place I could go.

Now we get two whole days to do laundry and relax a bit before we welcome another visitor and spend another weekend in a lake.

ↁ

Denver Trip Summary

February 13, 2008 / DB

As reported, the family has returned, intact, from our adventure to Colorado. The top of the line bullet points are that the girls earned an overall B+ for their behavior and S. and I have decided we’re not traveling with the girls again until they are both at least five.

The flight out was mostly uneventful. C. was fussy for about ten minutes in the middle, but otherwise fine. M. loved the airplane toilets, which is surprising. After she used it, she jumped into the seat next to me, put her arms out, rocked from side to side, and said, “Dad, I used the BUMPY potty!” Who knew she would like a little turbulence with her bathroom usage?

We were lulled into a false sense of security, though. Around 3:00 that night/morning, C. woke up screaming like she’s never really screamed before. This continued for about 40 minutes, and only some Motrin, milk, and Dora in the DVD player finally wore her down. Based on the newspapers left in front of the doors of the surrounding rooms, we think we may have been the only people in that corner of the floor, so hopefully no one else had to endure the meltdown. Oh, and M. got wound up and did her own act for about 20 minutes. Fun.<

Friday, I met with a couple friends from my KC days who I had not seen in 4-5 years for lunch. (What up, Erin and Mandi?!?!) That night was the rehearsal dinner for my sister-in-law’s wedding. The girls were decent, although they preferred to run around the room, going up the stairs then down the wheel-chair ramp on the far side over-and-over again. Fortunately, most of the people there seemed to think it was cute. By the time we ate, they were pretty much trashed and refused to eat their food. M. and I had a several little talks and took a couple walks when her behavior was less than ideal. Night #2 was better, with C. only waking up once for just a few minutes.

Saturday was wedding day, and we were very nervous. Although the girls were not in the wedding (parents’ insistence) they and we were included in the pictures. So they needed to be in their dresses and ready by 3:00, which should be nap time. They did ok in pictures, then got antsy/fussy. I was really worried about C. going into the ceremony, but the Motrin apparently kicked in just in time and she played happily on my lap. Once, she caught a glimpse of S. up front and said her name, but there was no meltdown. M., on the other hand, passed out in S.’s aunt’s lap about ten minutes into the ceremony. That was nice, since it meant we could sit for the entire ceremony (It was at an Episcopal church, FWIW).

The reception was a little much for both of them. They had fun at times, especially when they got to dance with their aunts, but they tired quickly and we made a hasty exit just as the party was really starting.

I think that night was ok, although I’m not sure. One night in Denver I woke up with a nasty nosebleed and had to sleep sitting up the rest of the night. I forget which night it was. Damn is it dry in Denver.

Sunday, most of the family packed up and headed into the mountains for a couple days in Breckenridge. The weather was great on the way up, sunny and warm. We arrived in the late afternoon and my brother-in-law and I had a celebratory beer. Mistake. Between being sleep-deprived, dehydrated, and the altitude, that one beer hit us both pretty hard. In addition, I had never been at that altitude before and it quickly kicked my ass. I was gasping for breath after each trip up the stairs (our place had four levels, and our bedroom was in the basement while the common area was on the third floor) and when I went to bed, I felt like I couldn’t fill my lungs. It was a pretty nasty sensation. Why do people live in the mountains again?

Monday was our day to play. It was snowing, but we took the girls over to Keystone for some tubing fun. On our first trip down the hill, M., who was sitting in my lap, starting screaming, “I don’t like this, I don’t like this!” When we got to the bottom, she said, “Daddy, can we do that again?” She loved it; C. had a good time but perhaps not quite as much fun. Luckily, my altitude issues had passed and I was able to climb the hill for about 45 minutes.

We headed back to Denver Tuesday in a snowstorm. It didn’t seem like much at first, but as we climbed away from Breck, the snow picked up, the roads got more covered, and big trucks were pulling off I-70 and either putting on chains or waiting it out. As we were climbing one hill, which didn’t seem all that slick, we noticed a black SUV off the side of the road, facing the wrong way. After about two beats we realized it was my sister-in-law. We pulled off and ran back quickly. Everyone was ok, if shaken. They hit a slick spot, swerved across the road, then spun around and into a snowbank. We were able to push her out and her truck (My old 4Runner, BTW) seemed ok, so we cautiously got back onto the road. It took several minutes for the crap-ass Chevy van we had to get good traction, and it was a pretty tense 45 minutes or so until we got below the snowline. I was really glad we were on I-70, which is wide and has guardrails and no steep drop-offs, and not one of those crazy highways that go right to the edge and lack guardrails so the snow can be plowed over the edge.

We made it to the airport in plenty of time, the girls enjoyed the train ride to the terminal, and after a slight delay, we winged it back home so we could drive home in the remnants of the snow/ice storm that had gone through Indy the previous night and morning. C. was a little more restless this time around, but not horrible. The aunts and friend in the other seats were a huge help. M. passed out about 30 minutes before we landed.

Overall, solid trip. It’s definitely different traveling with little kids. You spend a ton of time and energy trying to control their behavior, always worried that they are interfering with other peoples’ good times. It’s a drain and not one we’re ready to repeat, even if we had a pretty decent time. I think this was the first time in two or three years we had S.’s entire family together at one time, so that was fun, too. It’s very nice to have another guy in the family. At another time, I’ll share the phenomenal prank my father-in-law pulled on the bride during the reception.

We’re Off

February 7, 2008 / DB

I forget if I’ve mentioned it, but tonight we head to Denver for a wedding and then a couple days in the mountains. It will be C.’s first trip on a plane, which of course presents all kinds of interesting scenarios. Fortunately, we’ll have two aunts and an honorary aunt sitting in the same aisle as us, so we’ll have five adults to handle two kids. And we’re flying on Frontier, which has the sweet TV screens in the seat backs.

This morning, the girls got to go to work with their mom. S. was doing a presentation for the residents on the developmental stages of kids. So various nurses and physicians brought in their kids, a ton of toys, and we forced the little ones to demonstrate what they can do at each age. C. got to stack blocks and color. M. got to stand on one foot, stack blocks while counting them, copy what S. drew, and pedal a tricycle. And C. decided to eat about 20 things from the breakfast items that had been laid out for the attendees. I’m not sure where that puts her on the developmental scale.

We will return Tuesday, hopefully with our wits about us and pictures and stories to share.