Some good luck for some hapless boys

As I mentioned last time, I got to go to a Rockies game during a short Denver interlude in my Colorado "vacation." The poor guys are having a miserable year, but the ballpark is beautful, the guys are (mostly) fun to watch...AND, we brought them luck in the guise of a smashing 11-4 victory! Yes, they should pay us to come to games all the time.

Those eleven runs were generated in part by 5 homers by the good guys. The ballpark has a neat feature to celebrate Rox home runs...not as wild as the old Astrodome scoreboard, but more in keeping with the nearby mountain scenery:

fountains erupt when Rox go yard

We got to see another interesting feature of the ballpark on a stroll around the Wells Fargo Club level, where our great seats were thanks to a friend's fortunate status. Here's the control room, not of Cape Canaveral, but where this small army of technocrats operates all the many screens on offer around the park:

this would be an interesting place to work, don't you think?

I really think they have too many of these devices distracting from the game (especially between innings) although I find the out-of-town scoreboard and the strikeout tallies interesting. But I've never seen where the sausage is made for these things before. Fascinating!

One good use of the video board is to show closeups of the musicians playing the national anthem. This night it was a fine brass ensemble...

Altogether a fine, fun evening at one of my favorite ballparks. And in the company of some of my favorite people...

Wordless Wednesday: late for your flight?

Starting out from a Mile High

We took a quick trip to Colorado last week that was supposed to be mostly for work purposes (arranging for the exterior painting of our cabin in Garfield—which we really couldn't do in January due to the enormous amount of snow hiding most of the walls to be painted!).

But it turned out to offer lots of opportunities for fun along the way as well, which I'll tell you about in upcoming posts.

However, even our first day in the Centennial State was more enjoyable than anticipated.

It started at the glorious Denver International Airport; it's one of our favorites—gigantic but well-laid out and clearly signed, spacious with lots of eating and entertainment options, should you ever be stuck there (as we occasionally have been)—but its main drawback is its location, on land that seems like it's hours from downtown.

But even that minus has been at least somewhat mitigated by the city's light rail extension. You can catch it in the new airport station, down an escalator from the gorgeous new onsite hotel pictured above. Here's another shot of it:

And, since we are old ^{[citation needed]} it doesn't even cost very much to ride in comfort all the way to LoDo and the main station downtown. (We found out later that it was even a better bargain than we first thought—more about that later.)

Incidentally, long-time readers will remember that LoDo is the home of Coors Field, the fabulous Rockies ballpark. Unfortunately a game wasn't on our schedule this trip, but we did get a glimpse of the stadium from the train...

Since we were meeting our adorable grand-nieces down there for a late breakfast, taking the train was a no-brainer...

cute twin great-nieces enjoy the fountain near Union Station

We also had another errand to run in the area: Henry needed new hiking boots. His old ones had been glued together with contact cement a few months earlier but that hadn't proved to be a permanent fix. So how handy that Denver's main REI store is within walking distance (just barely) from the train station.

It did turn out to be a longer walk (with giant suitcase) than anticipated, but it allowed us to see more of LoDo, including this charming mosaic as we walked under an overpass...

The flagship REI where new boots were purchased is a tourist attraction on its own...

...located in a turn-of-the-20th-century building, and including its own climbing wall. There's also some neat gear and gear/vehicles on display, like this nifty trailer...

...plenty for me to look at while Henry boot-shopped.

There are also helpful staff members who can tell you where to get a bus back to Union Station (which we should have thought about taking the other way!). And since our senior train ticket is also good for bus rides all day, it was free!

AND, that's not all that we got out of our $4.50. It also provided us with free bus transportation all the way from Union Station in LoDo to Longmont, where a friend picked us up and hosted us for the first two days of our excursion. More about this exciting and non-work-related side trip next time.

More mile high fun

In addition to going to a ball game—a required Denver activity during baseball season—last weekend, we did a lot of other fun things in Colorado for such a short trip.

We paid a visit to Denver's wonderful Museum of Science and Nature, which I blogged about here. We took a nice hike in the hills west of the city (see photo above). We played with and were entertained by my adorable great-niece Evie. Here she is wrestling with her Grammy while proud Mom looks on. Who needs TV when there's a toddler around?!

We also spent a pleasant, if gluttonous, morning at the Denver farmer's market, admiring the multitudinous stalls selling everything from locally baked bread, 

to Asian dumplings, to Bavarian sausage, to tamales (that really were good!),

to raspberry chipotle jalapeño jelly (souvenir jar bought for Henry), to one of my greatest weaknesses...freshly made biscuits:

Needless to say, much too much was eaten this weekend! Especially since my nephew made a mistake ordering his mom's birthday cake and got one that was 'way too large for the gathering...

...in addition to being quite lovely and very scrumptious. So we all felt obliged to dig in and help put a dent in it.

Which we gladly did. Yes, the occasion for the visit was a milestone birthday for my "baby" sister. The number was kindly not put on the cake, but it was remarked that since the cake was so big, all the candles would, indeed, have fit on it!

Happy birthday, Joan!

Wordless Wednesday: Mile High

Wordless Wednesday: out the back of the train

Great timing!

I'm going to try and catch up with the postings I owe you from our Colorado trip in the next couple of days.

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First a quick look at the beginning and the end of the visit, which involved some very lucky timing for us.

Flying into Denver Friday morning allowed us to have a nice lunch with the Colorado relatives shown above before we headed up into the mountains.

We met our nephew William (in green above) and his very pregnant wife Mollie for a lunch near their lovely home. Fortunately, our other Denver nephew, Jeff, and adorable little Evie were able to join us. (So sorry mom Katie couldn't make it.) As you can see, it was a beautiful fall day in the Rockies.

(Our scintillating lunchtime conversation wasn't enough to overcome Evie's desire for a nap, but before the photo on the right was snapped, I got to hold her for most of the meal and the first part of the siesta. What a lucky great aunt!)

Fast forward 10 days to our departure, scheduled for Monday evening from the wonderful but remote Denver airport. Thanks to my anxieties about traffic and having time to return the rental car, we ended up back in the Mile High City with time to spare for another visit.

And did we ever have a good reason! While we were in Garfield, the very pregnant Mollie got un-pregnant (and on Thanksgiving Day, isn't that great?!). So we were able to visit our newest great-nephew, Hank, before heading back to the flatlands.

Here's hoping that more of our trips get bookended like this!

Heading west before east

It might seem a little odd to start out a New England vacation in the Rockies, but I never need much arm-twisting to go to Colorado.

And the prospect of seeing a new grand-niece, all 3 of my Denver nephews, and a baseball game at one of my favorite parks (and featuring my second-favorite team)...well, I just couldn't pass it up. No matter how hard it was to explain when I was asked, "Where are you going on your trip?"

And, while Denver isn't my favorite part of the state, it's hard to criticize a town with views down the streets like this one:

Plus, I ended up getting to do all kinds of unexpected fun things. Which I will enumerate for you below.

First off, my sister and I needed to pick up our game tickets ahead of time because we had people planning to join us coming from different directions. Now we could have driven down to Lodo, the rejuvenated historic downtown of Denver, where the stadium is located. But it would be much more fun to ride the train.

The city's light rail system has proven to be wildly popular, and since there was an E line stop near our motel that would take us to within a few blocks of the stadium, and I'd never ridden it, why not?

[Long-time readers should be familiar with my admiration for well-run mass-transit systems. Again, little arm-twisting required to try a new one!]

A smooth, scenic ride, a short walk, and we were at our destination:

And after getting the tickets, we had time to relax at a Lodo coffeeshop before catching our ride back "home."

New experiences:

• riding new light rail
• learning a new (to me) name for neat part of downtown Denver
• and, completely unexpectedly, acquired ownership of new coinage! [I had no idea that these lovelies (see right) were in existence! I'd heard of the Sacajawea coins, but thought they weren't used...and they aren't, in my neck of the woods. (Why not, I can't help but wonder?) But the presidential coins were a complete surprise. I've always rather enjoyed seeing new coins. Who knew you could do that just by paying for your train tickets, and getting this in change from the machine?!]

The next day brought more fun activities.

We got to spend more time with the new little family...

Babies really are better entertainment than TV! Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get an adequately cute, unblurred shot of the little one with my camera. But, as you might guess, there are many photos of the child and I was able to borrow this one taken by her proud Granny:

Isn't she a beauty!?

We also had lunch in a funky part of town where I saw one of these (see left) for the first time. Well, well. Not keeping up to date on this kind of news lately, I was just as surprised to see this as I was the Madison dollar coin.

Another brand-new experience. You never know what you'll run into when you leave Texas.

Then dinner with the aforementioned 3 nephews, where, unconscionably, we had so much fun relaxing and visiting, that no pictures were taken!

The new experience highlight of the next day was seeing X-Men: First Class, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

But the real highlight was the game. What an incredibly beautiful ballpark they have! My "Trip Teasers" post included a sunset shot from our seats. But there was even more to see. They have an open-air concourse with great views of town...


...an imaginative hitters' background with occasional animation...

the curved seating section at the top are their cheap seats, cleverly called the "Rockpile"

...and, then, there are those views...

It was even a really good game. A pitcher's duel, which is not supposed to happen at Coors, that the Rocks ended up winning 3-2. Unfortunately, we weren't there to celebrate the victory. Now, we hardly ever leave a game early. But knowing we had to get up at 5 the next morning to catch our plane to Boston, we gave them until the 11th to win it and then headed for the car.

But before we got back to the motel, we heard the win on the radio in the 13th. Wish we'd stayed a little longer!

My favorite Rocky, Troy Tulowitzki, scored from first on a single!!! [This is why I love these guys! and I'm not his only fan...I thought the father-and-son-Tulo-fans on the right were so cute.]

A good omen for the rest of our trip? It seems that it was.

I will try to get the main part of the journey, the eastern leg, written up soon.