Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Saturday 08.23.08

Day One. Cleveland to Denver.

The original plan was for BOTH Gordons to be on the same flight to Denver on Saturday morning: 11am out of Cleveland; however, at the last minute (as usual) Kimberly was offered a ticket to hang with her nurse anesthesia lobbying cohorts in Minneapolis for the (gasp) Republican National Convention immediately piggybacking the Democrats in Denver. This changed her original GSO-CLE-DEN-GSO to a more circuitous GSO-CLE-DEN-MSP-GSO. The plane fare was cheaper to just cancel the original CLE-DEN leg and go with a new reservation entirely. This left Chris to land at 1:37pm local time, and Kimberly closer to 11:00pm Saturday.

Everyone and their brother was seemingly in Denver getting a rental car. It took Chris close to 90 minutes to stand in line at Advantage Rent-a-Car to pick up our Hyundai Santa Fe, an SUV with nowhere near the power or pickup of the Cherokee. 90 minutes! Ugh.

Finally, behind the wheel, it was the 40 minute trip from the airport over to Boulder to check in to our hotel. A nice little Courtyard by Marriott directly accessible to the freeway, a Safeway, a Whole Foods, and the Buffaloes of Colorado University. Driving into downtown Denver from the hotel took about 30 minutes, even with rush hour traffic. Quite manageable.

So, finally all settled in, what to do before Kimberly lands? Hit the gas pedal and head northward 15 minutes to Lyons, CO and the Oskar Blues Restaurant & Brewery! After all, they make a fine, fine beer with a fine, fine name (sadly the soon-to-be-mentioned India Pale Ale was NOT on tap, but I asked that they serve a different beer in this glass anyway...because I told them the glass was coming home with me.) The mystery beer Oskar Blues brews? Why, it's:

One full belly, one Gordon glass, and one 6-pack of Dale's Pale Ale cans for the hotel room fridge...time to head over and pick up Kimberly. Unfortunately, her connecting plane in Chicago to Denver was delayed due to, ahem, mechanical problems. Delayed close to two hours. Ugh. Finally, pretty close to 2:00am, both Gordons crash in the bed and pass out. A busy week awaits.

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