Chapter 2: It happens.
When I’d researched things to do in Denver, I hadn’t come up with a lot of activities that were both family-friendly (i.e. cheap) and unique. They have their zoo, science museum, history museum, amusement park, etc. But we have those same types of attractions close to home, and nothing here seemed so unique that it was an absolute must-see. Then I stumbled across the
U.S. Mint in Denver. They offered free tours. That sounded pretty interesting. So, I went online about 2 months in advance to try and make a reservation for a tour.
They were already booked solid for the entire summer. It’s probably just as well, since they wouldn’t want me asking why we’re still making pennies when it costs more than 1 cent to produce them.
So, I asked around. I had a co-worker who used to live in Denver, and he recommended taking a drive to Lookout Mountain, just west of the city. It provided a nice view of the city and a small museum dedicated to western folk hero William “Buffalo Bill” Cody.
So, we plugged “Lookout Mountain” into the GPS and headed west. It’s only a few miles west of the city on I-70, but you have to make a somewhat steep climb as you head into the Rocky Mountains. Just a few miles up, there are signs directing you to the proper exit for Lookout Mountain. Going from downtown Denver to the top of the mountain took about 30 minutes.
When we reached the summit, we pulled into the parking lot for the
Lookout Mountain nature center. Not because we had any particular interest, but rather because Scotty announced, “Daddy…I REALLY need to go to the bathroom.” Because, of course, our kids are only able to perceive that particular urge once their bladders are completely full and/or overflowing. So I took Scotty and David inside to take care of business (our boys go in groups, too). While inside, the volunteer on duty noticed my Wrigley Field t-shirt and asked if we were from Chicago. So I explained that it was just my souvenir from our Chicago trip a few years back and we struck up a baseball conversation for a few minutes.
Finally, we walked back to the van in the parking lot. I noticed the side doors were open, and Julie had all sorts of bags and wipes out. The baby was wearing a brand new outfit.
“Good timing, hon,” she said. “You just missed
Poopapalooza 2015.”
Apparently, Drew’s orange juice intake earlier had caused a blowout of such proportions that it had fouled his clothing (including the front of his shirt somehow), his car seat, and the van seat. So, now we’d managed to mess the van with both Cherry Coke and poop in a matter of hours. Honestly, I can't take these people anywhere.
I felt sympathy for Julie, but can’t deny a secret feeling of relief that I’d missed having to deal with it. Don't tell her I said that.
Anyway, we finally got cleaned up as best we could and drove the short distance to the Buffalo Bill Museum. It’s a tiny place and kind of run-down, and we didn’t bother paying the admission for the museum itself. We did wander over the observation deck, where we were treated to a very nice view of the city of Denver.
Baby Drew was happy to be out of his car seat and running around aimlessly.
The other kids seemed happy to be out in the fresh mountain air as well.
A short path up the hill takes you to Buffalo Bill’s grave site. Apparently there was some dispute over where Mr. Cody would be buried upon his death. The town of Cody, Wyoming (which he helped found) felt his body should be laid to rest there. But his family insisted that his wish was to be buried on top of Lookout Mountain in Colorado. They won the argument.
Coming back down the trail, we had the opportunity to bypass the crappy tourist trap gift shop and head straight back to the parking lot. But a) we had time to kill, and b) I felt a profound moral obligation to thoroughly investigate the area, document my travels and report my findings to you, my dear readers. I hope you appreciate extra effort, performed solely on your behalf and certainly not under any morbid fascination with the utterly craptacular treasures we’d find inside.
As always, we have trained models ready to show off the finest in haberdashery:
And this sounds…less than useful:
Apparently Colorado is in need of some good young women. Do any of you meet the qualifications?
The Budget Committee made sure to strike down any requests for funds, and we managed to escape without bringing any of these fine treasures home with us.
Back outside, we took in the view at the other end of the parking lot. Here we see the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. I was fascinated by the fact that there was no gently rolling transition—just an abrupt break between the mountains to the west and the plains to the east.
We couldn’t find anything else to do up there, so we piled into the van again. It was only about 3:30 p.m. and we weren’t hungry for dinner yet. So we decided to drive back to the city and check into our hotel. We would be staying for 2 nights just south of town at the
Best Western Plus Denver Tech Center.
The problem, as it turned out, was getting there. We drove east on Rt. 6 and then took I-25 South…and hit a dead stop. I had thought we’d be fine as we were traveling well before rush hour, but I was soon to learn that on I-25 in Denver, rush hour goes from 7:30 a.m. until about 8:00 p.m. We crawled along, stopping and starting over several miles before we could finally get to our exit.
The hotel turned out to be a fairly nice one, and we’d recommend it to anyone who needed to stay in the area. The rooms were clean, and the breakfast food was above average as far as standard hotel breakfasts go.
Drew was once again happy to be out of the car seat and decided to explore.
In fact, he liked the place so much he decided to climb up on the air conditioner, assume the position, and mark his territory.
Admit it, you were eagerly anticipating the poop stories, weren’t you?
With that unpleasantness settled, we decided to hit the road again and brave the traffic to get to dinner. We had picked out a place in downtown Denver and figured we needed to leave right away if we were going to get there at a decent hour. Traffic on I-25 north was still a nightmare, but the GPS was helpful in taking us on the fastest route possible. It took somewhere between 30-45 minutes to get back to the downtown area.
We chose to eat dinner at
Steuben’s Food Service. We’d seen the place featured once on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives. It was named after a restaurant in Boston and built in an old maintenance garage and featured American Regional classics on the menu.
They kept the old garage doors intact when they re-modeled the garage into the restaurant.
I ordered the fried chicken dinner while Julie went for one of her all-time favorites, the Monte Cristo sandwich.
And while my chicken was decent, the Monte Cristo ended up being the clear winner. In fact, if it’s not too blasphemous to say, Julie and I both liked it better than the one we ate at Café Orleans in
Disneyland last year. It was pure deep-fried bliss.
Speaking of which, it was now time for dessert. We stuck to our family policy of ordering water for everyone at dinner, which tended to save us about $15 a meal. So we felt justified in using a portion of those savings for something sweet at the end. After perusing the menu, I convinced Julie to go for the deep-fried apple pie. You might be detecting a theme here.
As you can see, this was served warm with some vanilla ice cream on a bed of green apple slices and Frosted Flakes.
It.
Was.
Amazing.
So, so good. The pie itself was great, the ice cream went perfectly with it, and we all decided that we never wanted to eat Frosted Flakes with milk instead of ice cream again. So, the moral of the story is if you ever get the chance to eat at Steuben’s, just order the deep-fried stuff on the menu, and you won’t go wrong. Yes, it takes 5 years off your life, but remember: those would probably be 5 years in a nursing home anyway, so that makes it ok.
Right off the bat, we are awarding Steuben’s Food Service one of our coveted Drooling Homer Excellence in Unpretentious Dining Awards.
We crawled along the highway back to our hotel for the night. We needed to be prepared for some extreme changes in temperature and oxygen levels ahead. We made sure everyone had the proper clothing available, including their sneakers.
Ever see that Booking.com commercial where the bedraggled family is walking through the hotel after the Flight-From-H-E-Double Hockey Sticks? The narrator mentions that one kid threw up on the plane and the other “lost his shoe. His SHOE.” And sure enough, the kid is wearing one shoe.
Well, as it turned out, that was Scotty. He had worn his flip-flops on the plane and packed his sneakers into his carry-on bag. When we opened his carry-on bag in the hotel, we could only find one shoe. Somewhere between our house, the Philadelphia airport, the plane, the Denver airport, Lookout Mountain, Steuben’s, and our hotel, he’d lost his shoe. His SHOE.
This was going to be interesting.
Coming Up Next: One of our patented death-defying drives. And mountain-climbing in flip-flops!