Day 4 – Aquari-Yum

Easy morning today. We figured it snowed all night, so we were expecting a lot of inches. Downtown Denver received 2-3 inches. Enough to make it a real mess for morning commutes and slop up everything. Add that it would be no more than 15 degrees before 3pm and you got yourself a very cold morning.

Anna and I got ready and headed out a little before 9am. We walked over to 16^th Street Mall and looked for a place to eat. After some miscommunication and non-discussion, we got on the bus and headed towards Union Station. I thought we were heading the opposite way, so we got off on the next stop and just on the opposing bus. I thought the Denver Museum of Arts would be a good call for the morning. All we needed now was just a bite to eat before they opened at 10am. We walked around a few places, but everything was shut due to the weather.

Upon getting to the museum, we were told that the tickets were sold out. Apparently, today was the start of an exhibition unbeknownst to us. No art culture for us today. The ticket agent did give us the name of a good restaurant right around the corner. It was a cold trek to get to the museum, so we were both happy when we got to the restaurant to sit in some warmth and finally get something on our bellies. With minds fully nutritioned, our brains decided to go to the aquarium. I called us an Uber. It just was a much warmer option of travel.

We got to the aquarium around 11:30am. The aquarium itself was not that large, but the exhibits and species they had in it were totally awesome. We sat and watched the swimmers at all the large tanks. They even had a tiger cage in the center of the aquarium with three tigers. Beautiful creatures. We ended our stay there by visiting the restaurant. We got seated by one of the larger aquariums. Anna and I watched the redfish, red drum, and jacks swim for at least an hour while we had a few drinks.

I called us another Uber to pick us up from the Aquarium and had them take us to Larimer Square. Looked around in a few stores and slowly walked back towards the hotel. Stopped in and had some more to eat SoKo, a Korean BBQ/Japanese Sushi place. YUMMY!!

 

Day 3 - Here Cometh the Snow

Lounged in bed until about 8:30am and then slowly managed to get ourselves ready. Today the weather forecast was guesstimating we would receive up to 8” of snow today here in Denver. Knowing that Anna and I decided to stay downtown and not push our luck on the roads. This is very unusual weather for this time of year and we have been told that the temperature records have been shattered here and around the area.

The bellhop recommended we should go to eat at Snooze at Union Station. He also mentioned we better go early. Fair enough we said. Off we went to 16^th street to grab a bus and headed up to Union Station. A beautiful building and definitely a center point for the city. Upon entering the station, Anna softly poked me and said, “Look over there, it’s Jim Belushi.”. I quickly had a rush of movies with him in it speed through my brain. I would have loved to have gotten a photo of Anna and Belushi, but want to respect his privacy.

Found Snooze and was told there would be a 3 – yes I said THREE – hour wait. Nope. I don’t care how great the food is, there is no place worth 3 hours. We left the station and went into the Thirsty Lion. After changing tables just 3 times we got seated in the perfect spot. What a great time to spend with my wife and such an enjoyable breakfast. Anna got an Avacado toast and I got a Spicy Chicken and Waffles. I did not try the toast, but the waffles were the bomb. We hung around and had several beers, while Anna has a Mimosa.

Walked around a bit and then hopped back on the train and headed back to the hotel. Took a break for a bit while Anna took nap. Got motivated again and headed back out around 4:30pm to grab a bite to eat at West of Surrender. I feel like we have been on a culinary tour since we got here. I will need a major two-week fasting when we get home.

Enjoyed the evening walking the town and taking in the snow. Bed and asleep by 9pm.

 

Day 2 - Off to Vail

Anna and I slept like a rock last night. I think we rolled out of bed around 7am and slowly got our stuff together. We hit the road about 8:15 and planned to head out and have breakfast in Vail. As in most times, plans changed and we ended up stopping in Dillon at Arapaho Café, where Ashley and I ate back in August. Unfortunately, the café was closed, but we found a unique little place call Red Mountain Grill.

There was a young little lady with a shirt that just didn’t make the cut. This wasn’t even a belly shirt. It wouldn’t have been bad but belly hung way out and she had the midriff show on purpose. It was one of those things you didn’t want to see but couldn’t stop watching.

The food was great. We were the first ones to eat. Anna got a breakfast platter with sausage and eggs. I went a little more extra and ordered a Salmon Benny. It was a salmon, egg, and blue cheese egg muffin. The design in the restaurant was very eclectic with some really outstanding lighting chandeliers all over the ceiling. After some beers and Bloody Marys, we got back on the road of headed to Vail.

Straight west on I-70, we managed to get to Vail about 30 minutes later. Vail was not what I expected. We were both a little underwhelmed! It was a cute and quaint little town and we could see how this place would be lit up during ski season, but right now was not the time to really be there. It had a cute little village with some stores and gluten of restaurants. We stayed in Vail for maybe an hour and decided to head back towards Denver.

The next stop was Frisco. We came in from the west, so we took the exit that took us straight through Main Street. We decided to hop over to Breckenridge for a quick stop to visit the Organic Therapy place before coming back to Frisco to eat at Propst. I had seen Propst the last few times we were in Frisco and contemplated eating there but never got the chance. It’s a German restaurant and we had some brats and a couple of beers. The brats were amazing! Really yummy! I felt like we had been on an eating and drinking tour. Awesome.

With bellies full, we headed down the mountain. Swung in at Copper Mountain to see if we could get on a gondola. It was a bit deceiving as we saw multiple people on the chair lifts going up. However, the people going up were ski teams testing out the slope. We were not allowed to ride up. So, we did whatever one should have done and sat in one of their loungers, drank a beer, and what the gondola. The place was a ghost town. Since it was out of season, there was literally almost no one around. Kind of eerie!

Back in the car and off we went. Anna saw a cute little town and we decided to stop at Silver Plume. When I say this was an old town, I mean this was a very old town. Gravel roads, buildings from the early 1800s, and it felt like this place was totally stuck back in time. We got a bit and walked around and thanked our lucky stars that we very fortunate.

Earlier in the day we heard about a train ride that you could get on for 4, 6, or 8 hours and wanted to ride it, but later found out that the ride was closed. We did, however, go by the place on the way back at Georgetown and stopped in to look at the rail yard. Quaint place and surely would have been fun to see the terrain from a train. Maybe next time.

Off to Idaho Springs where we spent the rest of the day. It was a beautiful little town, which coming from the interstate you wouldn’t think to stop at, but Anna called it and we had a great time. It was an old town with beautiful architecture with modern amenities. Part of the town had its old flare on Main Street where it kept all its historic charm and then had its newer builds a block out with more up to date structures.

Anna and I ate at MTN Prime. The food was by far the best quality and value since we got here. Anna had a phenomenal prime rib and I had rainbow trout. Both of the meals were exceptional and the service was awesome. Now that I had completely shoved the max into my pie hole, we slowly rolled to the car and headed back to the hotel. It wasn’t long after getting back that we finally crashed out, or tried to.

Day 1 - Denver Here We Come

Charlotte was a beautiful and muggy 69 degrees this morning. Anna and I headed to the airport pretty early as our flight to Denver was at 8am. No doubt Denver was to be quite a bit cooler. We managed to get our tickets and got through TSA amazingly fast. Not a lot of people were flying out this early I guess. Anna got us some burgers, yes burgers, at Smashburger's for breakfast. They were not like they looked in the picture.

Once in Denver we picked up our Mitsubishi SUV rental and headed to downtown Denver. I booked a night a Le Meridien for the evening. Nice hotel in the center of town right on 16^th Street in the middle of 16^th street mall. After we checked in, we dropped off our stuff and were ready to get a bite to eat. We walked down 16^th street a few hundred yards and chose Apolossa Grill. Not sure if it was the hunger or the food, but everything was really good. The filet Anna had was a little overcooked, but still yummy.

Bellies full we continued on our adventure. We tried to get tickets to the Burton snowboard movie showing at Red Rocks Amphitheater, but they had been sold out for some time. However, we decided to head up and visit Red Rocks anyway. We both spotted quite a few mule deer in the park and stopped and walked around the area for a bit, until heading back to the hotel around 5pm.

We were originally going to watch the sunset at Red Rocks but then decided to go view it on the Rooftop at our hotel instead. Got back to the hotel and was made aware that there was a 1.5-hour wait to go onto the roof. Oh well, we thought let’s just take it easy and enjoy the sunset on another day. We did put our name in though. About 2 hours later we got a text and headed up to the rooftop. Had some amazing food up top. We got seated near a fire pit. Had a few beers and ate Anna had a Wagu burger. I had some deviled eggs and a tomato soup.

Back to the room and off to fairyland we went.

Day 5 – Lion Tamer

Today we were going to change the odd. Darryl and I got up early in the morning and went back to Tildens to get our scuba tanks filled and decided to rent the gear for one more day. I was also on a mission to find a ZooKeeper. A ZooKeeper is a brand of a holding tube used when catching lionfish. 

Once you spear it, you simply stick it in the tube and pull the fish off on

the flap located at the top of the tube. Tilden's did not have it but did have what looked like a Home Depot 5 gallon bucket. The manager told me it would work great! Not sure what medication she was on, but there wasn’t a chance in hell I would use such a thing. After checking at Halls, we finally found two at West Marine. Yeah – West Marine!!! Now we were ready!

We lollygagged around the house until about 10am before getting on the boat. Darryl, Tobi, Lane, LT, and I headed on the boat for gas first, then out to Sombrero Beach for bait, and then finally out to the reef. We dropped anchored about a quarter-mile off of the lighthouse near a ledge. I went down and managed to spear 3 lionfish.

While I was looking for my fourth lionfish, a nurse shark started to swim around me. Beautiful creature! It started to circle me and thought this is odd behavior. I petted it and then tried to push it away. It kept circling and then a prodded it gentle with the spear tip. It did not make a difference. Finally, it occurs to me that it was likely smelling the lionfish I had shot that were now in my holding tube. Swimming forward my eyes now were concentrating on to things, Lionfish and the nurse shark. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a lionfish and proceed to spear it. Within a millisecond of the spearing of the lionfish, the nurse shark flew passed my side and ripped the lionfish off the tip of the spear. I was so giddy! That was one of the coolest things I had ever encountered scubaing.

LT hammered out about 5 hogfish. Lane speared two hogfish but was on a half-empty tank. While Lane was done, he got his second regulator caught on the reef and it started to blow out air. Unable to get the regulator unstuck for a while it dropped his oxygen level to near empty. Luckily he was able to free it and managed to get back up with an empty tank. With all the parties back in the boat, we headed back to the house to refill the tanks.

While we were out on the water, Darcy and Jake arrived at the house. They drove down from Tennessee. We said our hellos and then Darryl, Tobi and I headed to Hall’s dive center to get scuba gear for Lane, Tobi, and Olivia, along with six scuba tanks. They wanted to make sure we had plenty of air and enough to go out for several dives each. Gear rented and we were off.

We had a boatful today, but the water was calm and had plenty of daylight to make the best of the afternoon. Again, we headed out towards Sombrero Lighthouse and anchored off about a half-mile out near one of the ledges. It was hard to see the bottom from up top, but once you got about 20 feet from the bottom you could see all the structure. It was pretty rocky with coral beds and clusters all over. I attempted to go for Lionfish and managed to get six, along with one Hogfish. I saw plenty of Hogfish while I was down, but opted not to spear them. Not sure why, but wanted to really get at least 8 of the Lionfish. Didn’t make eight, but was sure close.

After the deep dive, we headed over to Sombrero National Sanctuary by the lighthouse and the girls get in and snorkel. Olivia was a bit snockered and didn’t take to the whole snorkeling thing well. We could not get her to put the mask or snorkel on and she had a really hard time putting on her fins. Tobi finally jumped in and helped her. The current was super strong so it drifted them quite a way out and it took them quite some time to get back.

We ended up heading back in around 7:30pm and pretty much called it a day. At least some of us did. Darryl took Anna out on the boat for a bit and then the boys ended up going back out on it after 9pm or so hoping to get one last bite of the day.

Day 4 - Project Wonderful Arrives

The house was pretty quiet when I awoke at 6:30am. I rolled around a bit before finally getting out of bed and jumping on the computer. Darryl was going to come today and thought he was going to show up around 8-8:30am. I needed to get a bunch of work done that I had neglected for the last few days.

The troops finally got up around 9:45am and I had Lane help me put a kayak in the water. I took it out for about 1.5 hours and made it to the mouth of Sister Canal by Sombrero Beach. I tried to snorkel there for a bit, but the water was too murky. I ended up kayaking over to the opposite side by the mangroves and fished for about 20 minutes. Caught a slew of small snappers and then headed back to the house.

When I got back the kids were putting the boat together and Darryl and I headed up to Tildens and rented some scuba gear. After we got back we (Tobi, Darryl, Lane, LT and I) loaded up the scuba gear and headed out on the boat. We stopped off to fill the gas tank and off we went to try our luck near Sombrero reef. I managed to spearfish several Lionfish, but was only able to get two chunky ones back to the boat. I lost the other two when I tried to spear a lobster.

With the tanks empty, we headed further out to see if we could have some luck with some Mahi. Lane and LT captained us well and managed to finally find a bouy where both LT and Tobi each caught a Mahi. All of us tried for several minutes before eventually heading back to the hacienda.

The boys cleaned all the fish and Aunt Carla did her magic with the cooking. All that needs to be said is “Yummy!” and “Amazing!” The ladies did a great job with the fish tacos. Bellies full, I laid down never to rise again for the day!