A Colorado Adventure

Our adventure began with a very rough start. I don't mean rough as in bad, I mean actually rough. It was the worst plane ride I had ever been on. I have never gotten sick before on a plane and I rarely ever get motion sickness in cars, sometimes in elevators, but generally I am fine with every means of movement. After this plane ride however, I was so sick that Jordan said I was green. Of course, part of it was my fault for trying to finish that whole crossword puzzle, which I finally cheated on and looked at the answer for the word I just could not come up with, and still cannot remember now. Something about the thing that salmon and egg yolks have in common. Hmmm.... anyway, back to the plane ride. It was only partly my fault. I did make a bad choice in doing the crossword puzzle on a turbulent ride, but it was the roughest ride I had ever been on. 

So, we finally landed at the Denver airport, where my brother picked us up. We stuffed all our bags in the backseat of his tiny Jeep Wrangler with me. Or maybe on top of me... it sure felt like it. Anyway, we got lost several times on the way there, but finally, we made it to our little flat in the River Run Village of Keystone. 

The next day was to be a full day of skiing. We woke up to cinnamon rolls and a lovely day for skiing. We walked out the door and onto the slopes and started our day. 

It was beautiful there.... not as much snow as we have here, but somehow has a totally different grandness than the mountains in Tahoe. 

It was a good day of skiing, until Jordan had a bit of a fall, on the ice, and was done for the day and most likely the whole weekend. This ended up being ok, since, after Robert and I finished up skiing, I took my own fall in the coffee shop. I slipped in my ski boots and fell hard on my hip. I didn't spill my coffee though! Anyway, we returned tired and sore to our room and relaxed for the rest of the day. But what to do the next day? If skiing was out of the picture.... maybe snowshoeing... maybe walking around Denver? We started by walking around the little Keystone village...

And trying on hats... that was Robert's favorite. I should have gotten him one for an early birthday gift. 

But what to do next? We talked it through and decided that snowshoeing was out of the picture. How about the Denver Zoo? The zoo it was... 

We arrived, parked and walked up to the ticket counter. We looked at the prices. Thirteen dollars for adults... Robert walked up first. 

"Do you have a military discount?"

"Yes we do. Do you have your ID?"

"Yep..."

"Ok, that will be thirteen dollars."

He got a quirky smile, chuckled and looked at us... Wasn't that the general admission price? We all sorta laughed and looked confused.

"Ok." He handed her the card.

"Oh, I am so sorry, I forgot the discount!"

What felt like 10 minutes later, the two dollar discount was finally given. It was only two dollars... it probably didn't matter that much, but it was so funny! 

Anyway, we walked into the Zoo. It looked dead and brown and small. Hmm... I was thinking at that point that we should have gone snowshoeing. Robert looked at us and said that if we got bored he would pay for us to go over to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. I think we all underestimated the Zoo. Four hours later, we still hadn't seen everything and were not ready to go yet! Although the San Francisco Zoo is more attractive, the animals at the Denver Zoo were all active and interesting to watch. 

These are Robert's "Eat Me's." Another man walked up while we were watching them and exclaimed, "Hey look at the ham sandwich." I suppose they do look fat and helpless....

The "bug toss" consisted of tossing meal worms to the birds in the open habitat. Unfortunately, only the boring ones, like the ducks, were interested in eating the worms. 

The little bird wearing the tux, who moved every time I tried to take a picture and below are the "baby reindeer," according to the little girl who came to the habitat at the same time we did. Next to these little deer were the African Porcupines and the Mongooses, which some older ladies were quite firmly declaring were baby porcupines. Jordan and I were trying not to laugh as we listened to their conversation.

Robert and his goose... unfortunately I caught the picture as the goose was about to jump away. 

And so our adventure was over. Mostly... we did spend about five hours at the Denver airport, watching the snow swirl outside the windows, and three hours on the plane and a couple getting home... but it was worth being able to see Robert.