I heard Ziplock's phone ding a couple times, and hoped it wouldn't wake her up. As epic as it would be to go snowboarding in Colorado, when just last week I was a lobster on Venice Beach in California would be; I didn't want to get up. Her alarm went off at 8:30am, and she noticed she had a missed call from Sara. She called her back, and apparently they were only about 10 minutes away from us (coming from Boulder) and were talking about bailing and going to brunch. Brunch sounded amazing, I really could have gone either way, gone skiing, or just went to brunch. ManBear was all about brunch, probably because he wasn't going skiing to begin with. Sara, Aleah (pronounced the same way as my last name which was pretty awesome), and Meredith showed up and stood in the doorway as we were all still in bed. Apparently they were stepping over bodies in the other room as well. The consensus was, brunch. The three girls left before we did to get a table, we followed not too long behind. It was cloudy, cold, and raining; how welcoming Colorado. I drove with ManBear since I would be spending more time with Ziplock and once we parked in front of Root Down in Denver, we quickly realized they weren't open yet. They opened at 10:00am and it was now 9:20am, the girls had gone to a coffee shop a few blocks over so we met them at Black Eye Coffee. It was very cute inside; brick walls, and wooden tables. Most everyone ordered a coffee, Ziplock ordered Chai, and I reframed from a beverage. We stood by the bar for awhile but since there was six of us it was kind of hard, we saw an opening at a large table and began gathering chairs. Once we were all settled, a woman reached across for her sweatshirt; apparently her, her husband, and child had been sitting there but she was rather rude about it. We questioned if they had been sitting there and she gave an attitude and brushed one of the girls with her jacket while grabbing it. There had been plenty of room for us all at the table but she wanted none of it, welcome to Denver. Shortly thereafter we decided to head to Root Down a little early to ensure we got a table (apparently they fill up quick.) We walked to the doorway about 10-15 minutes early and noticed there was already an abundance of people inside, and waiting. How could this be? They're not even open yet, we pushed our way in to wait in line and noticed people already in the bar. A group ahead of us took the big table in there and we then realized the wait for a table was an hour, the booths in the bar were reserved, but the bar, and tables were first come first serve. We quickly went in search of a spot, realizing we would have to split up, Ziplock, ManBear, and I grabbed seats at the bar. The girls grabbed a small table by the bathroom. What a madhouse this place seemed to be, reminding me of the television series Portlandia. Apparently Denver is very; snoody, full of hipsters, and yuppies. If you are not familiar with Portlandia, I have incorporated the link to a clip of the chicken episode:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErRHJlE4PGI.
Or possibly Date Night at Claw:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-xJ2Z98q8U
They were only open from 10:00am until 2:30pm and I had a feeling they were always this busy, it took awhile to order but I got the breakfast burrito. The food was worth the wait, expensive but good. They also made their own hot sauce which was amazing, ManBear and I ended up each buying a bottle. After breakfast, we went over and stood with the girls and Sara's boyfriend who had joined them. We were told to check out the bathrooms from ManBear that they had a unique sink that was attached to the back of the toilet, and when you flushed the sink turned on and circulated the tank water. Very interesting indeed. Shortly after we headed back to the house where Ziplock did some homework, I got a blog entry in, and in reality all we wanted to do was take a nap in this weather. We decided to go to Target to get some plastic bins for her to garden in before I headed to Denver. Originally I was going to stay with Ziplock in Golden, then head to Aroo and Cactus in Denver, and then Shane in Colorado Springs. Aroo unexpectedly got a schedule change and was off tonight, and worked Monday at 3:00pm. This worked perfectly since Tuesday night Aleah taught yoga at 7:00pm and I thought I would be in Denver then. The new plan was to head to spend the night with Cactus and Aroo tonight, and the following night back with Ziplock. I thanked her and told her I'd see her tomorrow afternoon. Denver was only about a 20-25 minute drive, they were in a cute little neighborhood and Aroo greeted me with a big hug at the door. We caught up, she gave me the tour, and we waited for Cactus to come home from the pet store with another gerbil (they had bought one last night and now wanted a friend for him.) He came home with an albino one that Aroo thought was creepy and a few extra add ons for the cage. The house was old, and they were in the process of re-doing a lot of it for Cactus's uncle who they are renting from. There are three bedrooms upstairs, and potentially 3 more downstairs in the basement once they finish it. All of the rooms were in the process of being painted and worked on so I would take the couch tonight which was fine by me. They knew the owners of a Mexican place downtown so we had coupons for free margaritas, we headed there for a drink and dinner. Cactus's two friends met us a little later, and I got a quesadilla with spinach, mushroom, cheese, and carnitas. A conversation arose how his friend's couldn't believe Aroo and Cactus didn't call each other by their real names. They did meet each other on trail, so it's not like they knew each other beforehand as Samantha and John. I think it is just one of those things that people may not ever understand. They have talked about it in the past, working on calling each other by their given names more often for societies sake, but they have not reached that point as of yet. After dinner we headed to another building that on the 27th floor had a restaurant and bar, we figured we would have a drink up there with a view of the city before bowling. The restaurant was fancy, a date night location for sure; but had the weather been nice, it would have been a great view of the city. We sat and had a beer nonetheless and once the city lights came on you could see the beauty of it. The bartender gave us a free desert of our choice since I was traveling and they decided to bring me in for a drink, very accommodating of him we chose the cherry black forrest cake. It was like a giant whoopie pie with cherries, and chocolate cigar filled with mascarpone; very good indeed. Around 7:45-8:00pm we decided to head to the bowling ally; it was a very cool place, they had pool tables, ping pong tables, bowling, a bar, and restaurant. We had about a 10 minute wait until a lane opened and we played 3 games. There were nice couches to sit on, and we had a great time. The thumb hole for my ball was a little too big and was making an indentation on my knuckle, I asked for a bandaid in hopes to not make a blister or open cut. I was surprised that I actually won our last game, probably had to do with the fact that half the game Cactus was working on his spin and not succeeding very well, but either way I'll take it! We got home around 10:30pm and we were all exhausted, we stayed up a little talking and watching the gerbils and then called it a night. The couch was pretty wide so I had no problem falling right asleep after sleeping on the ground in a tent for most of the trip.
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