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Road and Travel

Always an Adventure

Old Fashioned

Never can it be just a get away, it always turns into an adventure with this portion of the Kinney family. So wanna Hear the Story?

Probably not, but I am going to tell it anyway. Kick back this is a long one! March 18th – 20th

A Couple weeks ago my bride, Merideth, started to plan a getaway for our older kid for spring break. She set him and his gf up with a hotel and some spending cash, and his gf provided the itinerary.

Around the same time, one of our former customers (we owned a web design business) posted online that she had a gift certificate worth $400.00 for a swanky hotel in Denver that needed to be used by the end of March. We bought it from her at a very discounted rate. In looking at the hotel online, we saw that they had a spa onsite that offered couple massages. Wow!! I really needed a massage! No, really I do – My wife called and booked the couples massage over the phone, explaining that we were staying at the hotel, etc.

We decided to make a weekend out of it and go to Denver the day before our scheduled massage and do some other stuff. Since the weather was going to be touch and go, we let our son and his gf take our SUV to Denver. They left on Thursday and headed up during the snow. My wife and I rented an SUV from AVIS. Since we are thinking of buying a new SUV or CrossOver, we were excited to find that our rental was a 2016 Ford Escape.

This is Where the Fun kinda begins.

We picked up our rental car at 9:00a.m. Come to find out the gentlemen working the service counter at Avis was an old friend of mine from High School. It was nice to catch up with him and talk about some memories.

We were supposed to leave on our little trip at 2:00 p.m on Friday, but needed the closing on our home to be completed before we left. We had signed our papers on Monday, and the bank was planning to release the funds to us on Friday after the previous owner signed the paperwork. He was supposed to go in on Friday morning. We eagerly checked our account Friday morning and noticed there was no deposit. We waited a few hours and nothing happened. Come to find out there was an issue with him getting to the bank to do his part, so My bride called him and we went and picked him up. He is an older gentleman and very nice. We did our business at the bank and discovered it was his birthday! He turned 83 years old that day. To celebrate, we decided to take him out to lunch for a good ol’ fashion burger at Dairy Queen.

THE travel and Marriott Courtyard
Marriott Courtyard, Colorado BoulevardWe left work a little after 2 p.m. and went to the house to finish packing and hit the road. The travel was uneventful until we hit Denver. I-25 was closed both north and south bound due to a nasty accident. Traffic was diverted off the highway and we got to see a lot of Denver we have never seen before. Finally we made it to the Hotel, the Courtyard Marriott off Colorado Boulevard. From the outside it didn’t look to fancy. Actually, it looked quite a bit like a Comfort Inn, which we aren’t really fans of. Over the years we have had the opportunity to stay at many different hotels, and found that we prefer Marriot’s, Hyatt’s, DoubleTrees, etc. Mer says “If this place is a dive were going somewhere else, we will go to the Hyatt.” Fortunately for them it was a very nice place inside. With a gym, pool and all the amenities. we checked in and proceeded to the Starbucks before heading to our room. It was a pretty nice room I think just a little bit better than your standard Holiday Inn or Best Western. We were supposed to meet up with the kids for dinner at 6:30, so we took a little nap and relaxed for a few moments, Mer actually fell asleep and I watch an episode of friends. This was probably the most uneventful event.

THE Meetup

The kids were down on the 16th street mall most of the day and we wanted to meet them for dinner, so we decided on PF Chang’s on 15th street. While always great to see my son, it was a kinda different seeing him this time. We visited with him and his gf as adults. It was a new experience for all of us and very cool. The kids looked pretty happy and they seemed to be having fun. They went to the Aquarium and to VooDoo Donuts. We had a good spread at dinner, there were fried dumplings and lettuce wraps for appetizer, I had wanton soup, which is my favorite, then there was Pad Thai, Orange Peel Chicken, Sesame Chicken and Lobster Stuffed Rice. All was completely amazing.

After Dinner we Decided to go get dessert at The Cheesecake Factory. Mer had never been there before and the kids were more than happy to indulge in more sweets. We stopped at Rocket Fizz on the way. This is a big ol candy store. and one the kids like to visit when they are at home in Laramie. Made it to The Cheesecake factory, Mer had a Hot Chocolate and a Lemon Raspberry cheese cake, the kids had a snickers cheesecake and a double godiva chocolate cheesecake. Since I am not big on dessert, I had a cocktail instead, Bourbon & Honey (Four Roses Bourbon, Orange Blossom Honey, Fresh Lemon and a Sprig of Thyme.) It was pretty fantastic. After that we tried to visit the Tattered Cover Bookstore, but it was closed. Made it back to the car and dropped the kids off at the Hyatt Regency downtown parking garage where they had parked the car.

After our lovely evening out, we were pretty tuckered out. Got back to the hotel about 10:45 so we adjourned to our comfy bed. A great start to a lovely weekend getaway!

03/19/2016

Mer and I woke up the next morning to about an inch and half of snow, went down to the Gym and had a good 20 minute workout before breakfast. Got all cleaned up and ready for the day, went down to the hotel restaurant and had breakfast. We each had an omelet, toast, cottage cheese and fruit. We gathered up our things and headed out to the Cherry Creek Mall for a bit of shopping.

We actually got there before it opened so we walked around the whole mall and didn’t really see anything that we were interested in so we decided that we were going to go to the Park Meadows Mall. Mer has been on the prowl to pick the older kid up some new shirts at American Eagle. Macy’s is always a great place to shop as well, and we were able to pick up some new frying pans and a baking sheet. Then we headed out to Best Buy. Of course we are cheap asses and didn’t want to spend a lot of money on the things we were looking at so we didn’t buy anything.

Went to Rock Bottom Brewery for lunch, Mer had a great cobb salad and I had a mediocre burger, but the Beer was OK, which is the most important part.

So we head to the main event.

We drove down to the JW Marriott hotel in the Cherry Creek area. Looks like an awesome hotel from the outside (for being in the downtown area). This is like a 4.5 star hotel. We check in, have valet parking take our vehicle to the covered parking. Our couples massage is scheduled for 3:30 pm, so we have time to clean up first. Our room is upscale with a large bathroom and king sized bed. We shower quickly and change into comfortable clothing and flip flops.

We get to the spa and there is a sign that says “We are away from the desk please follow the hallway back through the double doors to the back desk”. We get to the counter and tell the lady we are here for our massage. The lady says “we have no reservation for you”….. We ask “are you sure?” she checks the computer again “Oh! You’re booked at our other location 10 miles away”…. “um No… we booked here at the JW” well that’s not what the computer says. Unfortunately, there were no other appointments available or other services they could offer us. They didn’t seem to care so Mer told them just to cancel our reservation.

We got back to our room, pretty upset, this was the whole reason we made this trip. We were fuming and trying to figure out what else to do, I wrote a long disgruntled email to the spa company while Mer continued to fume. We decided we would just go to the pool and sit in the hot tub for a while before dinner. Check out the hotel literature to find out where the pool is… No pool… No Hot tub. #$%@@$!!!! While we are sitting in our room fuming, there is a little kid in the room next to us just screaming and crying. His dad is yelling at him in frustration, the mom is trying to calm them both down. Mer says she can’t handle this noise and she is not relaxed. Says she is going to check us into a different hotel. She booked us a room at Hyatt Regency in LODO by phone, asking first if they had a pool and a hot tub and ensuring that our room would be FAR away from any children.

We pack up our stuff and head down to the front desk. “Hi, we checked in about an hour ago, and we would like to check out…” We explain the situation to the lady at the front desk and let her know how disappointed we were and that we would like our gift certificate back. She goes into the office and a manager comes out. “Not going so well so far?” he said. We then explained the situation to him. He explained to us that the gift certificate is like cash and they dropped it in the safe right away. But that they would get it back on Monday and mail it to us, or re-issue a new one.

Off we head to our next hotel!

I like cityscapes they are pretty awesome, this one is cool with the mountains in the background. This is a view from our room at the Hyatt.

View from the roomWe got to the Hyatt and checked in with no problem, did the valet parking so we didn’t have to worry about meters and stuff, then headed up to our room on the 26th floor. Man those elevators were fast, the kind that make you lose your balance when you stop.

After the past couple of hours Mer had a headache so she wanted to lay down for a few, I told her to go ahead and take a little nap for 20 min or so and that I was going to check out the lounge on the 27th floor.

Old FashionedThe bar, Peaks Lounge, was upper class style and pretty amazing overall. I looked at the drink menu and ordered the Stranahan’s Old Fashioned. Man that was the best Old Fashioned I have ever had, the bourbon is made by a local distiller. I sat there and looked at the news and the cityscape for about 25 min. Enjoying my cocktail and just relaxing. Headed back to the room and woke up Mer to get the evening started.

16th Street Mall

We decided to venture outside and walk downtown. Our shopping trip goal was to find our younger son a long board. Our son was hanging out with his cousin while we were gone and they did some long boarding. So naturally the boy wanted his own long board. We walked about a half dozen blocks but to no avail. During our walk, we thought about what we wanted to do for dinner, and decided we would go to one of our favorite places on the mall, Rialto’s Cafe.

We ordered a couple of cocktails, Mer had a Red Sangria and I of course had an Old Fashioned. For an appetizer, we ordered the Calamari. Not one of my wife’s favorites but she knew I liked calamari a lot so that’s what we got. We then ordered steaks and potatoes, steamed veggies. Mer chose loaded mashed and I thought I’d try the bleu cheese au gratin. As always, the conversation flowed easily and we found ourselves unwinding and enjoying each others company.

Back to the Hotel

Cityscape, Denver CO.Cake and CannoliWe headed back to the Hotel and decided to visit Peak’s lounge on the 27th floor. On our way, we stopped on the 5th floor to take a look at the gym, pool and hot tub. The gym was quite large, with several ellipticals and treadmills, weights and room to workout. The pool was a little odd – as it was a lap pool, not a family pool. That lead us to thinking that this is more of a business exec catering hotel. The hot tub was actually outside on a wide balcony that ran the length of the floor.

Once we reached the lounge, we sat in front of the big windows that looked over the city. My wife had two chocolate Martinis called the 27th floor and I of course had a couple of Old Fashions ( seems to be my cocktail of choice for this trip). We also ordered a dessert that I had noticed a young man enjoying at my earlier trip to the lounge. It was a small round chocolate cake with frosting in the middle, and a chocolate cannoli. Probably more sugar than I needed to have, but it was delicious!

We then retired to our room for some relaxing sleep and a little TV watching. Despite the issues we had with our massage appointment, the day ended on a high note and we got to spend some much needed alone time

03/20/2016

What a fabulous day to be alive, got some very good rest and once again got to wake up next to the most beautiful woman in the world! Yay me!!!

We woke early, excited for another great day. Our plan was to find the perfect long board for our son, but of course, breakfast was calling. While packing up our stuff we tried to find some skate shops online and found one we wanted to check out. We decided on bagels for breakfast, headed down to the lobby and got a Starbucks coffee, paying cash so we could get some change for the valet. While driving we decided that bagels weren’t going to give us the start we needed, so my wife got online and searched for best breakfast in downtown Denver. One of the first listings was for a small place called Syrup.

SYRUP

Syrup is located in downtown Denver so we had to park under the building it was in. We got out of our car and proceeded to the stairwell next to us. We went up a couple flights of stairs and tried to open the door. It was locked. I went back down to the door we came in, and it too was also locked… Oh #$%*! We were locked in the stairwell. I searched my pockets to see if there was anything I could try to shimmy the lock with but I decided to go up a couple more flights of stairs. I found a door that said street access and luckily it opened! Whew!!!!! I thought we might have to call 911 there for a min.

We got to the restaurant and were seated right away. We looked at the drink menu and my wife says “look honey the have a breakfast Old Fashioned.” so once again I ordered one of those. It was a little different, it had soda water in it but it was still pretty good.

Wisconsin Benedict Croissant Breakfast SandwhichThey had an amazing menu, several different kinds of breakfast to choose from. I had the Wisconsin Benedict and my wife had a croissant breakfast sandwich. My benedict had two round beds of crushed up tater tots topped with crab cakes, poached eggs and hollandaise sauce with an arugula salad. My wife’s sandwich was a croissant with fried eggs, bacon, cheese and, avocado. Suffice it to say, this is a great breakfast destination, and is on my list of recommendations!

After breakfast we went to go find the skate shop we wanted to look at but it was no longer there. We did a new search on Google and found 303 boards, which opened at noon. That gave us over an hour to kill. Merideth found a tile store nearby and we decided to go look since we were in the market for more tile. Found some really good stuff and got some fresh ideas of what we were looking for. The prices at the tile store were much higher than we were looking to pay at upwards of $6.50 per square foot. We decided to head to Home Depot to see what they had. We found some tile we liked and knew that they would have the same thing at home (without the Colorado high taxes!).

303 boards is on Colfax close to the VooDoo Donuts mentioned earlier in this post. I think VooDoo does really good business because they are located right next to a pot shop, and the line was quite long.

Mer and I know nothing about longboards. We entered the shop and saw that it was pretty small, but had quite a few boards long the walls. We looked at a couple of boards and found a few we thought our son would be interested in. A guy came over to help us out and explained the different board styles and the benefits of each. He laid a few out on the floor and we hooked up hangout with the boy on the phone so he could see them. He picked one out and asked if we were going to buy it, we told him we had to talk about it when we got home. But of course we bought it for him! We also purchased a tool to tighten up the wheels, etc. The staff there was very nice and they warranty their boards and provide maintenance on them as well.

Time to head home. We stopped at American Furniture Warehouse in Thornton to see if they had any patio furniture to compare to the a set we were considering at Menards, but nothing stood out to us, and everything was overpriced.

Home YAY!

New Patio FurnitureAfter we got home we went to Menards, purchased the patio furniture and deck box we wanted and got it all set up, fire pit and all!

Well folks thank for taking the time to read about our weekend adventure! Hope you all have a great day, take some Adventures and Enjoy Life!!!

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