We arrived in Denver on the evening of the 27th and went to stay with Woody and Georgia Garnsey, long time friends of the family. El and I were remarking in the car that long road trips really make you want to have a drink and Woody was happy to oblige with a nice gin and tonic. Eating a cheese plate (JBall!) and sitting on the porch, both Woody and Georgia told us some phenomenal stories of their days past (James Brown and Mitt Romney were the stars of two of them) as we told them of our journey so far. We then had a great pasta dinner and headed for bed. Thanks again for your hospitality Garnseys!
Friday morning (the 28th) we putzed around a bit and then headed for the other side of Denver to see former roommate and good friend Caitlin Mangus. She had a great apartment in The Highlands. The place was also a short walk to Mile High Stadium and Coors Field which I thought was pretty sweet. We hung there for a bit and then headed for my old stomping grounds of Boulder.
There are very few food dishes that will fire me up to the point of pumping my fist as I walk in the door of the restaurant that serves them. Well, a burrito from Illegal Pete’s in Boulder is one of them. For those that have never been (and I pity you), Pete’s does a burrito right. An over sized tortilla is filled with a marinated meat of your choice (apparently the marinade recipe is under lock and key in Denver somewhere), rice, beans, lettuce, tomato, cheese, corn, sour cream, guacamole, salsa, jalapenos and even cilantro if you want it. The next part is KEY. They take a huge spoon and MIX the ingredients thoroughly before wrapping up the tortilla. All these amateur burrito joints like Anna’s, Qdoba or Chipolte refuse to do this and even if you ask them to, they take a plastic fork and pathetically move the ingredients around until you just say, “You know what, forget it. Stop touching my food.” If you are ever in Denver or Boulder, do your palette a favor and go to Pete’s. (I’ve been waiting eight years to have a forum to profess my love of Pete’s to the world. Thank you blog.)
After the greatest burrito in the whole universe, we walked around University Hill, did some shopping, toured my Alma Mater’s campus (do kids get into college at age 12 now? Why does everyone look so young?) and headed for Nick’s, where we would crash for the next two nights. Here we got to say hi to Nick’s new “child”, Tupac, a 4 month old Puggle (Pug and Beagle mix) who Ellie immediately fell in love with (he is pretty cute).
Nick arrived home from work shortly after and we went to hike Mt. Sanitas, a nice but challenging hike in the foothills near Boulder. Here are a few pics. (That’s Nick trying to get tan. He loves blogs.)
Caitlin and Kristine (Nick’s girlfriend) came up later that evening from Denver and we did dinner at one of my old favorite spot Centro (formally Rhumba) and rocked some of the old bars of my college years, mainly Juanita’s which has bought a sweet jukebox. We tried to be heroic and keep up with all the young folk that were out and about but 1:00 AM found everyone at home, fast asleep.
Saturday was pretty epic. For those of you that don’t follow college football, Colorado, whose football program has been devastated by scandal over the last five years, managed to stage an epic fourth quarter comeback against the Oklahoma Sooners, formally ranked 4th in country. I had initially planned on getting us tickets to the game but as the game got closer and the Sooners were putting up an average of 60 points per contest, I decided that our time would probably be better spent doing something outdoors rather than watching the Buffaloes get decimated by my second least favorite team in college sports (Nebraska is 1). Well, that turned out to be a bad decision. And to add insult to injury, we could hear the Folsom Field going crazy from our hike on the Royal Arch trail. At least we got some good pictures… 
We actually got a fair amount of good sleep on Saturday night despite Colorado’s big upset. Somewhere along the lines, the University thought it would be a good idea to have big games (CSU, Nebraska, Oklahoma) in the morning (11:30) so that students didn’t have time to get too drunk in the parking lot before games and cause some raucous. Well, anyone whose been to college in the last ten years knows what you do in this case…you set the alarm for 8:00 and start getting after it then, on an empty stomach. So to make a long story short, Boulder was actually pretty quiet by the time Saturday night rolled around as the majority of the student body was fast asleep (read: passed out) by nine or so. So we went out for a few beers and turned in to be ready for a full Sunday.
Second only to Pete’s as far as great places to eat in Boulder is Salvaggio’s sub shop. They make the best breakfast sandwich and steak bomb you can buy. I won’t opine like I did with Pete’s but just make sure you get a sandwich there if you’re in town. We headed there after a great early morning hike up the Flatirons so we had worked up a solid appetite. The only problem is that Salvaggio's is run by a bunch of, umm, slow, and umm, bleary eyed, and umm, munchie craving (get it?) hippies so it took us about 20 minutes to get what we wanted. It was worth the wait though.
After scarfing our subs we all headed down to Denver for the Rockies game where our friend Chris had hooked up a large group of us with tickets in right field. Its old news that the Rockies won (and then made the playoffs Monday night) to complete a legendary comeback in their division but I will say something about the fans around us;
If I had to wager, I’d say that this was the only Rockies game 80% of the people in the stands had been to all year long. The friends that we were with were all good fans but most of the folks in the stands around us seemed pretty new to the whole “let’s root for the Rockies” thing (and baseball for that matter). It really made you appreciate the die hard fans for other teams like the Sox and Cubs. I’ll just give one example and be done: In the ninth inning Manny Corpas had put guys on second and third with a three run lead, thus bringing the tying run to the plate. He was in a serious jam and keep in mind that if the Rockies lose this game, they go home until April. So like any good fans, our friends from Denver, and those of us there for the experience, stood and cheered for Corpas to close the game and keep the Rockies playoffs hopes alive. What happens next? Everyone behind us, all in (fairly new looking) Rockies apparel, tells us to shut up and sit down. This was the biggest moment of the Rockies season and the bleacher fans couldn’t even stand and cheer them on. It was just weird. Anyway, congrats to those who have followed the Rockies all season long.
After the game we headed for Vail…
(NOTE: We are going to get Colorado Part II: Vail and Breckenridge up as soon as possible. Maybe even today it will be up, but going forward we are going to have limited internet access since we will be camping for the most part from here out. So instead of checking back to see if we've posted every half hour, you'll have to make it every hour. Just kidding. Thanks to everyone whose been keeping track of us on our journey west. We'll get you Monday (Oct 1) through today/tomorrow up as soon as we can!)
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