Colorado has been such a relaxing time! The weather has been great (sunny, which does wonders in making 3 degrees seem much more hospitable), we have been able to relax, enjoy some home cooked meals, really given us a chance to recharge our batteries before making yet another dash!
With that in mind, the last couple of days may seem a little slow passed, but really, they were just about right! After the Colorado springs day we really had a quite one. We had made reservations at a restaurant called Gabriel’s which is one of the best restaurants in the city, so we were pretty much using that as a guide for what to do with the rest of the day. Megan had to have a look at a brides maid dress and perhaps get to the apple store to change her nano skin over, so they were the two big things on the plan! Megan, Teri and I set off with the plan of having lunch, getting the dress sorted out and then seeing what else we had time for. We knocked lunch off our list of things to do first, and went to a Mexican place called “Chama”. It was a new restaurant in a new district called “Belmar”. Its in Lakewood, and its pretty much like… park street or oxford street. Its a district of shops of all kinds. The type of place you could go there all the time and live there and work there and then never see another out of the area. Only, it’s the US, and there are more people, so instead of being one street like oxford or park, it’s a whole district type area. Have a look at its website and you may get the idea. Its all very modern and clean and new. Its private security group have their Segway Scooters and Hybrid cars and drive around keeping the peace – not that they really needed to be there! Its such a novel way of setting up a district like that. Little oasis where you can get everything and don’t really need to go anywhere but there.
Anyways, the food was Mexican, and it was pretty nice, but VERY filling! There was allot to eat. For the future – you can share a meal there! I had… enchiladas I think they were! Megan always has them and I’m normally having Tacos, so I figured time to see what all the fuss is about! I like them! Spicy chicken and cheese wrapped in the Torrita thingo, with refried beans, sauce, cheese and rice on the side. Nice way to have it! Australia really does need to lift its game in the old Mexican stakes I think! We just don’t have it! Chinese and Thai – that stuff we have plenty of! I can’t think for my life of a Mexican restaurant in Brisbane though! Any one care to help me on that one?!
After that we knocked the dress fitting of the list of things to do, and then decided that some shopping was in order! So we headed over to a totally cool place called Park Meadows. Its such a classy shopping centre! All timber, with fireplaces and lounge chairs. According to the site: “Shopping mall in unincorporated Douglas County, serving the Denver metropolitan area. A retail resort designed to resemble a four-star ski lodge”. It succeeds to! Megan did some shopping in Anthropologie and Armani Exchange. I also had a look around Armani Exchange to see if there were some things I could get to use my gift card, but was unable to find anything that jumped out at me as a “must buy” item. So I figured there was no point settling for 8/10 until I had seen the store in Newport, which I’m told is much bigger. It’s a shame that I didn’t see anything there though, as their sale was on. Then again, one item I love is going to be better then two I’m just “thrilled” about! J that’s my thinking anyway. Its Colorado, there was allot oh long sleeved and sweater/jumper type stuff which isn’t really going to be oh much use to me back home really, with any luck Newport will have a better selection for Brisbane climate. After shopping we headed on home and had a small break to unwind and get ready for dinner! It was a nice chance to get all dressed up as well! Party of 4 headed off for Gabriel’s. Its an Italian restaurant that does things a little different. Mainly because you are served a 4 course meal with every main ordered. So it started out with a Scallop which had a delicious sauce with roasted red peppers. Then there was Soup, Salad THEN your main course.
I had: Beef Rofas and Scampi which was “Medallions of Tenderloin sautéed in a marsala wine and mushroom sauce, embellished with artichoke hearts and melted gorgonzola cheese, and paired to Scampi (prawns and a small taster of lobster). Served with potato rosette and grilled asparagus”. Megan had a Chicken Parmigiana being “Boneless Breast of Chicken sautéed in a marinara sauce, blanketed by melted mozzarella and parmesan cheeses, complimented with pasta and fresh vegetables”. Charles had Cold Water Australian Lobster Tail sautéed in white wine and cream, topped lightly with gorgonzola cheese and artichoke hearts, complimented with pasta and fresh vegetables. And Teri had a veal picatta.
Charles, Megan and I had desert as well. Megan and I shared a Mango Sorbet and Charles had a Spumoni Ice Cream. The food really was just beautiful. The feel of the restaurant was very homely, it was a converted house that was richly appointed and had reasonably intimate setting, minus the fact our table was just to big, and Megan and I ended up sitting a little aways from not only each other but her parents. Its pretty easy ti see why it’s a much raved restaurant though, there’s no rush, each table is pretty much to itself and while there is some noise in the room you really don’t ever feel like its getting to you. They had Nut Cracker men for ornaments. This are tin soldier looking things which you can apparently use to crack nuts open! You stick the nut in the things mouth and push down on one of its arms and it jams the nut in and then bobs your uncle. It looked as odd as it sounds! Something from a Stephen King novel! The nut cracker comes alive and starts chomping on things! I was worried about having nightmares for the rest of the night!
So yes, that was Gabriel’s. much enjoyed by all, we kept ordering courses so that it would stretch the evening out a little more, as we were all having fun telling stories. OH, and there were candy canes at the door instead of mints! Well, there were mints as well but they were butter minds and if it comes down to having a candy cane or a butter mint it was pretty unanimous which one would win that stoush!
Now, I can’t tell for sure what day that it was, but one of these nights we had some REAL fun. We were by the fire, Charles and I had been looking at some Australia stuff and the photos of the house reservations etc, and Megan had been by the fire with Teri looking at her old school annual. Both Charles and I joined them by the fire, and Charles had the fantastic idea of looking at some old photos to see if we could find any of Megan in the marching band. Megan was not much in the mood for it, but well, that doesn’t stop a good idea from happening! We ended up finding some photos and they look really cool! The bands are HUGE, and they have all these routines on a football field that they do. Looking at all the photos that were of Charles trying to take photos of Megan reminded me of the photos from dancing once that dad took. I think it was dad – all the photos of gabs doing dancing and then when we had them developed it turned our they were photos of another girl! Haha, it was funny, and the bands looked really cool, although we didn’t get to see many until feet were put down and it was clear we wouldn’t be allowed to see anymore! Soooo we got while the getting was good!
Wednesday came along soon enough after, and we didn’t really have anything huge on the menu for the day. It was one of our go slow days! We had some errands to run, and we both wanted to make a better crack at the blogs and get some more writing done, as well as perhaps read a book or watch a movie, just something to ‘chill’ so to speak. Errands had us to apple to get a new cover Megan’s nano. It’s a tough gig to choice what type of case to get! But we got there in the end! BUT, before we got there we went and got a bagel from Einstein’s! man… bagels…. I’m going to need to source some bagels back in Brisbane! They are just the best thing to have for breakfast or a snack! They are so filling! And they taste lovely! Much better then plain bread! Don’t’ know what they do to them but the dough is more chewy and yet just as fresh as soft fluffy bread which feels like your not even eating it. This I must confess isn’t the first time that we have got bagels whilst in Colorado, although I think it may be the first time I’ve mentioned it! On the day we went to Colorado springs we stopped of and got a bagel from eistiens as well as coffee from the adjacent starbucks. I had a honey and wheat bagel with smoked salmon crème cheese and Megan had a Cinnamon bagel with plan crème cheese as well! They really just are so good! And they only cots 1.99 each! With a shmear! I was totally sold! So when a couple of days later Megan had to go and get the apple stuff and I was tossing up if I should stay back at the house and use the time to do some blog writing, I was bribed with bagels! I mean what’s a guy to do! I was tempted with bagels! It’s a weakness! That and head massages! So the second time around I went more adventurous cheese and jalapeño with plain crème and Megan had a simply delicious chocolate chip bagel with strawberry crème cheese. The chocolate… man that was a beauty I tell you! It was practically a desert in itself! Sooooooo good! Anyway, that was the whole bagel thing! I’m a fan of the bagels.
We headed then over to apple, had some issue about using gift cards and exchanging, and went through around 4 servers before everything turned out the way we were expecting it to! Which was us with the new cover! From there we shot over to Barnes and Noble! We didn’t buy any books or DVD’s this time round but rather had the insight that perhaps if we were out of the house we would right more blogs! So we went to the starbucks inside and got ourselves a couple of venti Italian sodas (its like crème soda but with allot less fizz) and had them as we did some typing! As it turned out by 2 pages each we were weren’t just that into it as we thought we would be given that we had thought we would be able to knock it all over pretty easily. So we just headed home! We headed home and decided if we had a movie on we would end up doing more work with the movie going in the back ground! This two isn’t a very effective method for getting blogs written! We ended up making grilled cheese sandwiches, which were a success! And then we put the movie on and sat by the fire, Megan half watching the movie half staring off, me half watching the movie and half falling asleep! So the blog thing just didn’t happen as well as we had anticipated that it would, which really is a shame! Cause we do want to get them done! That night for dinner we went for simply and yet still delicious! Yes, you guessed it, it was Pizza! I’m such a pizza fan! I’m always eating it so it would seem. This time round I think Megan mentioned this fact to her mother and thus we ended up having it! To get the pizza we went to Papa Murphy’s pizza place which makes you a pizza you can take home and bake yourself. We got a “family” and this thing was HUGE. You all know how big the dash board in the beetle right?! You can have a picnic on it virtually – well, it could only JUST hold the pizza! Took two people to carry nearly! Defiantly two arms, or else it would just flop on wither side and your done for. Its essentially two large pizzas in one. So with that in mind we got half-and-half. Half papa Murphy special and half plain cheese. The pap Murphy special was like our super supreme. No guesses for how that was divided amongst the people really is there! Teri also made a lovely salad. Actually, I haven’t had a bad salad in Colorado yet! Not at least eating in! they are all so lovely. Props to the roasted almonds! They are really nice. I’ve started to incorrectly get the idea that American salads are just lettuce, cheese and dressing! At it turns out that’s just they way they come when you go out to a restaurant. Eating in though – that’s where the real ones come from. They rate superior to the ones in Newport at restaurants as well. Newport being Newport, where people live on a diet of things like salads need variety, but they really weren’t as nice. Good, but not the best. I could make do one them though. The lettuce and dressing ones – even rabbits would feel rather under whelmed.
While we were out getting our pizza we also dropped into King Soopers (a coles/Woolworths) and got ourself rodeo tickets (a steal at 28 dollars for both), as well as some graham crackers, mash mellows and heresy’s chocolate slabs (chocolate looks like the wonka bar form willy wonka and the chocolate factory but with the Cadbury divides in the chocolate to break it apart). What were we getting all these things from you may ask?! Well its to make none other then SMORES!!!! SMORES! Yes indeed! It’s a camp fire staple I’m told! The Graham crackers are rectangular like those things we used to eat with peanut butter on them. Savoury and made of wheat with some salt on them. It goes like this: you get your Mellow, and you pur tour mellow into the fire and you roast it as you have to do. Then you get a square chunk of chocolate from the bar, put it on top of a graham cracker you break in half so it’s a square, and then you put the mellow on to of the chocolate and then you put the other half of the graham cracker on that! And you have sandwich type thing happening that is called a smore! We didn’t have a fire obviously… the fire place in the house is a gas one (if you had all of Denver using wood fires you’d have even more serious pollution issues then what they already have). And it was a little chilly out to try and MAKE a fire…. This is assuming that there was a fire pit somewhere around the place, which I’m thinking there wouldn’t have been. And Megan gave up on her plan to roast them over the gas hot plates when her mother gave a look which made it very clear she wasn’t interesting in attempting to try and clean the thing when we were done, SO we popped them into the oven! Melted the chocolate perhaps more then it was meant to, but you still got the overall smore thing happening! It was yummy! SO, pizza and smores for dinner! Very sophisticated in general I’d say, but I approve wholly. We classed it all up a bit having a bottle of 2000 St. Henri shiraz by penfolds. A bottle of wine worth perhaps around 3 times the meal that feed four of us! A totally sublime drop that’s for sure. So many flavours and a silky smooth finish on it that had you feeling like you hadn’t had anything to drink. Over the pizza salad wine and smores we watched the Denis Quaid classic “the rookie”. You know the one – the baseball one, always wanted to be a baseballer, never did it, finally goes back and does it, realises family is what counts the most and over a couple of seasons gives it up. Its based on a true story. Down in Texas it happened. Looks like it was all filmed there as well. Amazing country side and a good movie all round. I liked it as well. Megan and I naturally hid by the fire as we watched! Megan though was playing with her new digital camera while we were watching as well, unsurprisingly! It’s a Kodak, 5MP, and it’s a beauty! The colours are just so amazing! From now on all the photos will be taken on it first and foremost I think, and we will use mine as a back up.
Thursday bought around the last day before we headed off for yampa and the last leg of the trip on the continental united states. Megan had a sleep in after playing with her camera all evening, and I got up and did some blog writing as well as finishing of my other book, which was called paranoia, and the writer isn’t paranoid about thinking people are going to kill him – people who paid money for the book REALLY ARE trying to kill him. It was pathetically bad in the end. Laughably bad. We gave it to good will for the poor. And I’m feeling rather bad about that – what type of message does that sent the poor?! That I hate them?! I want them to suffer the same as I did?! I’m thinking we should have bought it with us and used it for kinderling in the first that we have going here in the cabin! That would have been a more fitting end! Put the dam thing to its first good use! We had lunch planned for 12 with Megan’s grandparents (Pill and Pamp). This I was informed about by megan at around 11.30am. she was showered and all ready to go, and yet no one bothered to come down and tell me that it was going to be at 12. So there we had it, I’m the one that wasn’t ready and they were waiting on! First for everything eh *ducks*. Nah, in all honesty I jumped in the shower, got myself cleaned up and ready to go pretty quickly. Lunch was going to be at a café I think was called “red rocks café” which is a rather apt name because it was part of the red rock formation in the mountains around 15 minutes from the Steckly abode. The rocks that come out of the mountain are very similar to the ones that we saw at the gardens of the gods down near Colorado springs (which are up in the pictures). The formation has a vein that runs right up the mountain range to where we were. Your on the side of a mountain over looking the greater Denver area, from the city high rises to the suburbs and all in between and around. It was a beautiful view. And the mountains themselves were something as well! Amongst the rocks in an amphitheatre which has been around for decades. People from the beetles and Willie nelson to the Denver symphony and then San Francisco ballet have performed there since around 1949. The theatre is cut into the side of the mountain and looks pretty cool in itself. I imagine that at night at a concert you have all the lights of the city and the ‘burbs glowing behind the stage which would make it a pretty cool spot to be! Its an odd spot though, I’m not sure how it works as in winter its just to dam cold and in the summer there are rattlesnakes in the mountains.
It looked great though. The café had great food as well. Megan had a Fajita, Pamp had halibut with rice and vegetables. Pill, Teri and I had a BBQ Stack which was a BBQ’d shredded meat on a ‘biscuit’ type thing which is a dry muffin with cheese and bacon in it. There was a side of potato salad that came with it. BBQ is typical American I’m always told so I’ve been meaning to try and this was a try! It taste nice! When we were at the place in the wine country I had the pork which seemed to have a smoky bbq flavour as well so I’m guessing that’s pretty much the whole BBQ thing. I’m liking it though. Have to try it at a few different places to really get the feel for it though!
We had lunch and made our way home, and then the final pack had to happen. It was a little time consuming, Megan takes a while to start to get into the whole packing thing, and while I’m good off the line, I slow near the end when it looks like its not going to fit, while it is then with the end in sight that Megan gets a moving and starts throwing things in bags and making it work! So in our odd way we manage to get it done! It starts of with me leading the team strongly, and then I look at some that’s left out going “its never going to fit we are doomed, all this stuff is going to have to stay, there is no way we can get it to work, were all going to DIIIEEEEE” and then Megan comes on in and wham-bam its in bags to around 95% done when I go “he look it will fit” and then finish it all off! We make a Formidable team when we are up and going! J
We had the pack done (or at least all that was happening that night), and then it was time for the Rodeo! Rodeo was at the Denver Colosseum, which is underneath the I-70 which is around 16 lanes in total. It’s a huge spanning freeway which is built above the area below. WE had an interesting time near then end when off the freeway trying to figure out where we were meant to be going to park etc, but then all of a sudden we were park of a stream of F150, Dodge Rams, Chevy Silverado’s, EVERY type of pickup that you can imagine including some international trucks converted to be HUGE pick up trucks that could seat around 7 people in them and tow around 40 horses all at once! That my friends is the best way to get yourself to the rodeo! Just follow the cowboys! EVERYONE had their cowboy hats on, they were all ready for a night out!! We found ourselves, had a cowboy take our parking money, parked and walked the colosseum. The funny thing is no one tells you where to go, where the entrance is, where your seating, it’s a cowboy mentality thing, they don’t like being treated like they are slow or anything, they can find themselves to their seat, they know when the ticket says gate 17, you go to gate 17. its so refreshing! They just rip your ticket and let you go! We headed in, and as it turns out we didn’t have the cowboy thing happening as we went ot the wrong seats, but we found it out when I was looking over going “um… see those seats over there, their ours!”. We moved over and got ourselves set up. Megan was a class act for the evening. She had her boots on, plus her cowboy hat and Harley Davison leather riding jacket. PLUS a very classy cowgirl shirt that her father gave her for Xmas. So she was all set up and ready to go for the night! I tried to blend with boots, jeans, jacket and a top that looked denimish J.
The Rodeo was an awesome night! They had all sorts of different events going! From bareback buck riding, the thing where you have to lasso the cow and then flip it and tie its feet, the one where you lasso the cow and your mate has to lasso its rear feet, Bull riding, barrel racing, plus a heap of special events like showing off horse and carriages that are made as replicates and a high speed display troop which had around 50 horses flying around the place doing all sorts of cool things, like propellers, passing by one another at high speed, some really cool stunts happening. Some of the highlights would have to be the announcers, who were a totally odd bod bunch that must have been using the same jokes for the last 15 years of announcing. Not to mention all of a sudden they would break into advertising speels for the sponsor – Dodge. As in “how, didn’t her ride that horse well! Make it look like there was nothing to it, kinda like fitting your family into the new dodge megacab! Its got a full 20inches more room inside then the quad cab, the rear seats RECLINE!” they also at several stages during the night did memorials to soldiers of the US army. The men that keep us free, that save our lives and protect our freedom and all that stands for America that others seem intent on taking from us and attempting to squash us blah blah blah, it was a HUGE rant! I was totally surprised to hear it ! Megan was telling me that it’s a new thing they have to do that the Bush government has instigated to try and boost moral and support for the troops – just randomly go on about hoe evil some parts of the world our and how the soldiers are protecting all American stands for and all these other people seem to want to destroy! Doesn’t sound surprising in that light does it! It was an odd thing to see! Not in a bad way I guess, it just didn’t seem anything at all like what I’ve come to know the US for… its not a nation of declamatory people, this… this was very declamatory, blunt, in your face. Just not the style I’ve come to know. Not good or bad… just totally unexpected. Sort of like I expected things like that to happen in places like Afghanistan against the US, but not the US to use it as well. Don’t get me wrong, they weren’t trying to brainwash with over the top sentiment, but it was still pretty in your face. So there you have it!
Rodeo was allot of fun, all the funky horse work and cow catching, and then they had the mutten rustling, which was where they strap a 6 year old onto the sheep and make them hold on for as long as they can when they give the sheep a good whack on the arse and make it run. They normally hold on for a bit then just hit the ground with the thud! Like the announcers commented – you can’t smack your kid in public without getting the DCS on your back as a bad parent, yet you can strap them to a wild animal and watch them go! God bless America! Hahaha, it was funny. First couple I was sitting going “are you for real?!” After that it’s a great laugh. Some of the little kids just didn’t get it and really didn’t want to let go, so they are falling off the side of this poor bloody sheep and still holding on like there is a pot of gold at the end of the track. So they get lower and lower, practically sliding along the ground still trying to pull the ears off this thing, and then it can’t balance any longer and just falls over on top of them! THEN they leg go and the sheep runs off! Others leg go pretty much as soon as the sheep starts running. There are people everywhere watching them, they have pads and helmets on and the likes, so they are pretty safe. funny as all hell really! They all got trophies bigger them themselves as well, so that will make them feel proud.
After that we went to iHOP for dinner, Burger for me and chicken strips for Megan. iHOP stands for the International House of Pancakes. Its like a Denny’s or Earls. Dinner type food, but a little better. After that it was the end of the day and the realisation we were off again.
Today – Friday.
We had to finish the final pack! I am borrowing a back from the steckly arsenal as with the DVD’s that I now have as well as my xmas presents I just can’t fit it all in one bag anymore. With the other bag though it works pretty well. Then it was off for the drive to our next destination (which is where we are now and where I am writing from). It’s a small down called Yampa. Megan’s Aunt and Uncle (Rick and Cindy) have their ranch just up from here, not to far away. It’s around 3 hours from Littleton. Your back up in the mountains around the ski areas, so the drive in had the potential of being bad as there would have been snow and ice on the roads. However all the roads we went on were really clean. Some ice and snow in spots. Some slush on the roads from melting snow on the traffic islands, but nothing to slow us down in the least. So we just cruised on up making really good time. Not a hassle in the world. Drive was over before we knew it, and it was a really lovely drive as well! The countryside is just so totally beautiful its not funny! All the snow covered mountains, then the fields which have dead grass, but some evergreen trees manage to survive, so it’s the most beautiful blend. The Colorado Rockies are some of the most beautiful mountains I’ve ever seen before. There are a sit of mountains that you can see from around here – the flat tops, which are just that, you look at them and then have totally flat tops. Look so distinctive on the horizon. You pass so many different ranges and mountains, and there are some amazing rock veins that run through them as well. Would be interesting to find out how they got there, as in here they created in ice ages or what… these mountains are some of the oldest and biggest in the world, so I wouldn’t be surprised at all in the least. It was a beautiful drive though.
Now we are up in Yampa and we are staying at the Van Camp Cabins. They are log cabins, with just a fire place in the corner. Everything is timber, as in the bed, roofs, floors – it’s a totally log cabin. There is the showers and toilets in the block in the middle and we have an antler light fixture, which is a little … its very country! We have been here enjoying the warmth of the fire, keeping it going so that we don’t freeze – its cold out and there is a wind with quite some chill to it. We had some time in the hot tub as well, but it was just so hot and the air is so thin here it took all the energy from us, just totally zapped to a shocking degree! So we showered, and then went up to a local place called Antlers for dinner. The town is around 100 metres long on the main street, so it wasn’t far to walk to get to it! Its at the far end but still not far. It’s a museum to animals that used to be alive pretty much! Stuffed heads and bodies of all types of animals that once were alive! Deer, Moose, Wild Cats, Fish, Eagles, someone clearly went nuts with a gun up here and got themselves a good selection! Dinner was a burger for me and an Burrito for Megan. We shared some fried ice cream for desert as well. It really was a pretty decent meal for the 24 bucks that it cost us. Fire thing here is really causing some trouble I tell you! Its either to hot, or its to dam cold! You need a climate control system to increase and decrease the amount of flames. AND it keeps going out in the middle of the night! So every 3 hours you have to wake up and put more bloody wood in there and relight it, and then its to dam hot all over again! But its just so much fun to listen to it crackling away and slowing burning the logs. I think we both have sat in front of it for an hour each watching it! Like the Giant poodle that used to live across the road that set its head on fire constantly watching fire! We should get a fire place in the new house I’ve decided! Just have a heating system that will come on in the middle of the night to keep me warm when it goes out!
An Aussie In Japan 