Just Expressive

Tonight we watched Weird Science and ate Hawaiian pizza for dinner. I feel it’s part of my duty, as his mother, to properly educate him on the movies of my childhood and so we have been working our way through for many years now. Sometimes we are able to catch them at the midnight movies or on the cable networks, other times we watch them on DVD; it really doesn’t matter how, the which is far more important.

So far he has seen:

The Dark Crystal
Labyrinth
Sixteen Candles
Breakfast Club
The Goonies
Lost Boys
Big Trouble in Little China
Karate Kid
The Outsiders
Better Off Dead
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
Adventures In Babysitting
This Is Spinal Tap
Teen Wolf
Top Gun
Back To The Future
Short Circuit
Beetlejuice
Caddyshack
A Christmas Story
Spaceballs
The Princess Bride

Of course he has seen the Die Hard, Indiana Jones, Star Wars and Ghostbusters movies from that era as well. In the future I have planned: Pump Up The Volume (as in tomorrow), Heathers, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Summer School, Gleaming The Cube, Real Genius, The Last Starfighter, Once Bitten, Raising Arizona, Streets of Fire, Overboard….I swear I could go on and on and on! What are some of your fave cheesy movies from the 80′s and 90′s?

After all that running around, hiking hither and yon and running the river rapids like a pro, a girl gets hungry! This girl, in particular, likes to try and eat places that she can’t eat back home, when she’s on vacation, whenever possible; fortunately for us, Colorado provided great places to eat, no matter where we happened to be.

Westminster
This was the location of our main hotel

The Westin Westminster, located @ The Promenade, we were within walking distance of many restaurants, an ice skating rink, bowling (had it not poured down rain), Dave & Buster’s and the movie theater. It also happened to be the location of our first eatery, Rock Bottom Brewery.

The initial plan for Friday night called for Casa Bonita (what you don’t plan your meals?) but we were so worn out from almost missing our flight to Denver and all the assorted flying stress, that we opted to stay close to our hotel the first night and find something else instead. This Brewery turned out to be a great option, the food was much better than that other Brew chain (Bj’s) and Will’s enjoyed the beer as well.

When we weren’t eating breakfast in Boulder, we sought out a donut place in our vicinity on Wills handy dandy iPhone and were rewarded with La Mar’s.

Would you look at the size of those donuts? They are freaking HUGE! Mmmmm donut.

Boulder
The one and only place we ate in Boulder

is so good, we ate there twice! Thankfully, our hotel was only 14 miles away so I could coerce the boys to go back there more than once.

We did get snack items from the farmer’s market (Raw, organic, granola and truffles, as well as dried apples) and on our second run into Boulder we hit up Tee & Cakes for after hiking snacks

where I got the hostess cupcake; it was heavenly, everything you wish a hostess cupcake COULD be.

Salida
The only picture I have of this place is on my cell, I haven’t gotten it synced with the desk top and the laptop is still DOA, so you are just going to have to check out their website: Amica’s in Salida CO was quite the pleasant surprise.

In Texas, when you are in a small town, you are lucky to eat at a Dairy Queen after 5 pm on a Sunday-imagine our surprise when we rolled into town at 8:30 pm and were still able to get such fantastic food!

Our breakfast for this town was supplied by our hotel: The Days Inn Salida, this wasn’t a super fancy place by any means, but it was super clean, the beds were major comfy and the continental breakfast was nice.

Cañon City
On the advice of our river guide, Julie (STILL LOVE HER), we ate in Cañon instead of looking for food back in Colorado Springs after our Royal Gorge railroad ride. She recommended

and what a good call that was! I had a pasta dish that included fried potatoes OMFG, it was HEAVEN! Wills had the gnocchi.

and last but certainly not least

Denver
Before leaving for our trip, I caught an episode of Man vs Food where he mentioned The Cherry Cricket. Of course, I didn’t actually see the bit about The Cherry Cricket, I only caught the part about The Buckhorn Exchange with all the dead things on the walls and some other place with a 7lb burrito but the name stuck in my head regardless and when friends of Wills heard that we were coming to Denver, they said we had to go there, so, done.

It’s a cool pub type place and sorta reminds me of The Gingerman here in Houston. I ate the fried mac n cheese and probably would’ve enjoyed this place more had I been partaking in a beverage. The doorman was a riot.

The myth, the legend, the crazy ass shit

CASA BONITA!!!! Dudes. I have no words to describe how weird this place is, you place your order and then wait in what is surely the longest line for food that has ever been. Wills said it felt like we were at Astroworld waiting for a ride. Once you get your food, you are escorted over hills and ramps to your table, while your mouth gapes open at the shear enormity of the place and Christmas lights and tackiness jump out at you at every corner. There are BRIDGES! There are ROCK OUTCROPPINGS! There are WATERFALLS! There are PALM TREES!

There are indeed cliff divers and cheesy little shows. There was a pinata. I was overwhelmed by it all. Sprog was in kid HEAVEN and these little girls at the table next to us were SO EXCITED about the puppet show, I thought their wee little heads might just explode.

I declare that everyone must experience this once in their lives. It’s that insane. More pics here

Colorado provides a wealth of things to do, at any given time, for free. It was awesome being able to just walk out of the door to our hotel with so many options available to us.

One of the first places we visited was Boulder, CO. After breakfast (more on that tomorrow) we headed over to explore the farmer’s market. The farmer’s market is awesome! The booths are plentiful and loaded with a variety of different items. People bring their dogs; in fact, I noticed people with dogs pretty much everywhere we went, this made me a happy camper. They offer something called market bucks where you can use your credit cards to get money that is good at the market instead of having to have cash. Everything is organic or free trade, in short-awesome! We purchased dried apples and some organic, raw, blueberry granola for all the hiking we would be doing on the rest of our time in CO.

While wandering around the market, I couldn’t help but notice this gorgeous tea house

located in a rose garden. We didn’t get the chance to check it out, but I have it on my list for when we go back.

After the market, we headed out to Chatauqua Park to hike around the Flatirons.

I don’t know what is in the soil there but they have the biggest dandelions, I have ever seen!

Unfortunately it started to rain, pretty heavily, so we didn’t get as much time to hang out, as I would’ve liked; we did have a nice little hike up the main trail and then over Bluebell Mesa and back down. More pictures here.

After that, we decided to drive up to Estes (this would be why we arrived so late the first day) and happened across a kayak competition in Lyons.

We pulled off to watch them for quite a while and were all enthralled by their flips and tricks in the water. I think we were all really impressed that you could just happen across something like that on the side of the road! That sort of thing doesn’t happen here, you know?

I already mentioned the free bit of Royal Gorge and Rocky Mountain National Park. There is a wealth of hiking, rivers, lakes and parks available to you in Colorado. There are also so many cute little towns, I wished we had time to explore: Manitou Springs (base of Pike’s Peak), Estes Park, Co (base of Rocky Mountain National Park) and even more of Boulder with their pedestrian mall.

Food (one of my favorite things!) and Lodging tomorrow!

From Cotopaxi (the location of our base camp for rafting) it’s a short jaunt up the road to Cañon City to hop the Royal Gorge railroad, for the afternoon portion of our raft and rail excursion. I recommend that if you are going to do the mixed trip you opt for rafting in the morning and the rail in the afternoon, sitting on the train for 2 hours is a nice way to come down from the exertion of the rafting and you get to enjoy the picnic lunch in between without any rush. In addition, if you encounter the weather we did while we were in CO (raining just about every afternoon) you will be in enclosed comfort during any inclement weather.

Now, if you have an awesome guide like we did (SO LOVE HER) she might tell you that you can stop on your way to the train depot @ Royal Gorge park but just park in the parking lot outside the park and hike down to a fenced area. By doing so, you avoid paying a $20 fee and can still get some really nice pictures.

After taking our pictures and collecting some rocks for our niece and nephew we headed over to the train depot and boarded our train (I got myself another collectible smashed penny, does anyone else do this?) and made our way to our cushy seats next to the windows. The Vista Car has a domed ceiling and sides so you have an excellent view the entire time

and you have full beverage and meal service, they even have a wine tasting or fancy dinner depending on when you have booked your train.

At any time you can walk outside to the open air car

and on the way back, they stop underneath the bridge for pictures.

(Note: taken while moving, where they stopped was LOUSY for pictures because of all the wires)

The rest of the pictures are here and the website for the train is here. The website for the park can be found here.

I almost hesitate to include this next thing in a cost listing because it’s seriously not expensive, $20 for 7 day access, but as we did have to pay to get in, it does qualify. Rocky Mountain National Park in Estes Park, CO is one of the other places we visited during our stay in CO. In fact, we visited it twice.

The first day, we got there very late so the ranger at the visitor station informed us that we could hit Lumpy Ridge for free and we got right on that; unfortunately for us, it rained about halfway through our hike and we had to turn back.

This is a view from that trail.

The next time we went to the park we actually were blessed with great weather and spent the whole afternoon hiking. On the advice of another ranger, we started at Bear Lake

and then hiked over and across to Bierstadt Lake. Doing this meant that we did a crap ton of switchbacks, going down instead of going up. THANK ZOD. As it stood, I had to hit my inhaler several times on this hike and we were deep in the woods.

Remember when I said there was nerdy info we learned on the Pike’s Peak Cog Railway that we would use later on our trip?

Did you know that after 80 years a Ponderosa Pine turns cinnamon colored? At that point, if you smell the bark of the tree, it’s going to smell one of two ways depending on your genetics: Butterscotch or Vanilla. Sprog and I are Butterscotch and Wills is Vanilla. Oddly awesome!

After all the hard work of hiking your reward is this view

That picture doesn’t even begin to do it justice! Be sure to check out the rest of the pictures for our run-ins with wild animals, how to properly handle snow and lots of cheeseball pics, here.

Tomorrow will be stuff we did for FREE!

I figured that a day by day recount of our vacation might lose me the ten or so readers that I have left or possibly turn you into brain eating zombies, and I really couldn’t have that on my conscience, so I have what I hope is a better alternative.

I’m going to split the re-cap into 3 sections; adventures that we paid for, adventures that were free and food & lodging, hopefully that will cover everything nicely and yet get y’all in and out in fewer posts time-brains intact.

Without further ado, the adventures we paid for!

First on the list, Pike’s Peak.

Sprog was VERY against this idea and was fighting me every step of the way about this situation, he is HUGELY afraid of heights and no matter what I said or what I explained, he was having none of it. Fortunately for him, he has an evil mother that believes in pushing some of his boundaries for the sake of experience and who knew that a Cog Railway planted firmly (so to speak, teeth in a cog is firmly enough) on the ground would be something he could handle.

Our tour guide informed us that they had never had a fatality on the Cog Railway in their many years of operation and that seemed to quell some of the Sprog’s nerves as well.

Here are some pics from that trip:

At the lower elevations the vegetation is lush and green, and you are treated to a couple of waterfalls, one of which is higher than Niagara.

As you go higher on the mountain, you start to notice this strange white stuff packed along the sides of your windows,

floating about in the sky and the trees become much more sparse.

If that white stuff dies down enough, you might be treated to this sort of view as you pass one of the other trains, on your route to the summit, it happens a few times on the 3 hour round trip.

Here we are at our destination, 14, 110 ft and freezing our asses off! You are only allowed 30-40 min at the top (to help prevent altitude sickness) and they have a lovely gift shop which provides hot coffee, hot chocolate and DONUTS!

Our tour guides were both awesome, they take your tickets on the way up and back which was kitschy and cute, they give a crap ton of nerdy cool info that we used later in our trip and Sprog had a blast. Verdict: highly recommended. See the rest of the photos here

Next up, Whitewater Rafting on the Arkansas River.

This was the showstopper excursion of our trip. We did a raft and rail through Arkansas River Tours and did the Vista Rail upgrade on the train through the Royal Gorge. Because we had Sprog, I was told that we would be on Class II and III rapids in Bighorn Sheep Canyon and we booked a secondary hotel in Salida, so as not to make the 3 hour drive at the buttcrack of dawn on the morning of our rafting.

When we arrived to check in, they were in process of changing the board from 1740 cfs (cubic feet per second) to 1860 cfs and the temp of the water DOWN to 41 degrees. WOOHOO. Holy crap. After deciding on the spot to rent wetsuits for the bargain price of $5 (an AMAZING DEAL) we went outside to meet our guide, Julie. Folks, I can not say enough how awesome Julie was. I LOVE her.

We got all suited up into our gear and then went through the horrifying safety lecture, which includes things like what to do when you get thrown from the boat and can’t find it again, what to do if you come up from the water into the “blue room” (that means you are under the boat), what to do if someone is in the water, what to do with the throwbag, what to do if the boat wraps a rock, how to have a defensive swim posture and so on. OMG SO SCARY. Then she tells us that we are doing III’s and IV’s today and ushers us into the van to be on our way. Sprog’s eyes were very saucer like at that revelation. Haha.

At the put in (where you drop the boat) we see another rafting company all suited up with their little helmets that match their boats and the rest of their gear…and as we load our sunscreen and water bottles, I notice there are no helmets on this raft, no one is pulling helmets from the van, there were helmets at the base, where the eff are the helmets? So I ask Julie, trying to be nonchalant about it, “We don’t need helmets?” She just shrugs and says “Nah” and we start putting the boat in the water. It felt like a Badges? We don’t need no stinking badges!” moment and I just tried to feed off of her confidence.

Once in the water, you have so many directions you are trying to remember, proper form you are trying to accomplish (and largely failing, out of shape-who?) and trying to drink in as much of the experience as possible that truly you don’t have time to be afraid. The only time I was the least bit worried, was when we were gabbing away and then suddenly a huge rock was coming straight for me. A few BACKWARD strokes and we were past it, no worse for the wear.

We never once had to execute a turn, we never flipped the boat and no one ever entered the water. The only person who left his seat was Willy and he just fell into me a bit because he shifted his weight at the wrong time.

The van driver takes pics for you during the trip and you can buy your CD at the end.

This is at the Class IV which is called 3 Rocks. The guide tells you the name of all the areas that you are passing through as you go.

Here we all are paddling together

Check out the air we are getting!

During a calmer section, Julie had Sprog do a bull ride, that’s where you sit on the bow of the boat and just hold on to the ropes. She made sure to dunk him in as many waves as she could get him in and give him a good ride for his belated b-day gift. Like I said, she’s awesome. Once the ride was over, we were served a fabulous picnic lunch on the river (steak for Wills, chicken for Sprog and a Veggie spread for me; hummus, avocado, carrots and ranch dip, apples and peanut butter, crackers, red bell peppers, chocolate chip cookies and oranges) it was fabulous and all included! More pictures here

Sprog loved whitewater rafting so much that every time we passed a river after that, he would look at it and say “Ooh, that looks like fun!” or “Ooh, that one looks easy!” or “What do you think mom, about a II?” it was pretty awesome to see that reaction in him; he also wants to buy a kayak.

Tomorrow, Royal Gorge Railway and Rocky Mountain National Park!

Once again, we are in Houston. I am no longer going to say “home” though. This place, is not my home, it’s where I live until Sprog graduates from high school and that’s that.

I am steadily working through the pictures and if you are watching flickr, or are on my facebook, you have probably witnessed them going up. I will have picture and commentary posts out the wazoo, I’m sure, so I hope everyone is prepared for that this week

In the meantime, lessons learned:

Me:
1) Short shorts get you honked at, even on steep winding mountain roads (PAY ATTENTION TO THE ROAD, CRAZY ASS).
2) I am in HORRIBLE SHAPE. Size means nothing, conditioning is EVERYTHING.
3) I need to see a mountain or be on one to be truly at peace.

Sprog:
1) Whitewater rafting is SUPER CRAZY FUNTIMES!
2) Pike’s Peak wasn’t near as bad as expected.
3) Hoodie pockets are an easy way for your phone to meet an untimely end in a park toilet. RIP phone, Rocky Mountain National Park 6/16/09.

Wills:
1) Hitting a wave of water is not a good time to shift your weight.
2) ALWAYS pack a hoodie.
3) Snoring is annoying as hell, when you aren’t the one doing it.

We had a WONDERFUL trip and it was over far too quickly. I have been complaining all morning about being back here…as much as I missed the doggies, I would rather still be in the cool weather with something going on every moment and the beautiful vistas stretched out before me.

A teaser pic

What you are seeing there is us on a Class IV (I KNOW!) rapid known as 3 Rocks on the Arkansas River during our whitewater rafting trip. I’ll go on to the point of annoyance about this trip to anyone that will listen but, let me just say that it was THE thing that the kid and the husband listed as their #1 fave thing we did this trip. I recommend anyone that is going to CO do this trip. Arkansas River Tours is the company we used and Julie was our guide. Again, more on this later.

We received Sprog’s final report card in the mail yesterday and being who I am, I held it in my hands with a creepy grin on my face for a good couple of minutes while asking him how he thought he did, talking about how I sometimes smile before the hammer falls, reminding him of my promise to go to school with him EVEN IN HIGH SCHOOL, before I let him stop spinning on the proverbial hook.

My child got all A’s and B’s on his report card!

His 25? A 96 with a final exam grade of 100!!

He actually pulled out 2 perfect scores and 3 other A’s and 2 B’s in the final exams.

Evil Mother=1, Obstinate Teenager=0, Obstinate Teenager’s Future=1

I am wicked proud of the little shit! I knew he had it in him!

In other sprog news: we got into an argument yesterday (before the report card came) because he was mad that I wasn’t going to pay for extra luggage on this trip. You want to know why he wants to have his own luggage? He wants to be able to bring 5 pairs of shoes. 5! That’s more than I even wanted to bring. We are spending our time hiking and white water rafting…not theme parking or hanging out like we did in Orlando. He stated that he wanted to make a “good impression” on the people of Colorado. I asked if he intended on “pulling a Casanova” while we were there and he said it could happen. OY! Hahah!

In unrelated news: today is my 4 year anniversary, please to expect a sappy about hubby post later.

Help!

I have tried on no less than 15 pairs of shorts today and I need your help.

Pair one

These are in a bright blue color, (sorry for the shitty photog-the bedroom is still in ruins from the bathroom issue and I am in no mood to try and deal) and are a twill fabric.

Pair two

These are obvs a plaid that have a very thin pin stripe of the green from the tank running through them along with gray, black and bright royal blue.

I got both pairs and the tanks @ New York & Co during their buy one get one half off sale on tanks and shorts.

Do I keep the shorts? Do they look like shit on me? Are the short ones too short?

I seriously think I have BDD because I HATED every single thing I tried on today and the shorts I currently own make me feel like I am in mom jeans. Also how do I try on one pair and they are too tight so I go a size up and they are too big?

UGH.

My weight hasn’t changed but I feel like my body has? WHAT IS THIS?

OMG. I hate hormones. I seriously do.

or so they tell me.

Things around here are a wee bit on the stressful side. I planned on going back to work in September to fund the Sprog’s forced upon him college aspirations, hey I’m realistic here, but it seems that time table might need to move up and FAST, which pretty much sucks given the economy right now; truly not the best time to be job hunting. If you’ve got any tips, lines or ins anywhere that you might want to share, please don’t hesitate. I am going to be updating my resume upon return from our vaca and have already talked to the company I quit a year ago. Caveat: I MUST have insurance. Daily meds are the only thing keeping me standing.

Maw-maw had a problem with her latest round of chemo and they had to cut it off. Unfortunately, it seems that in addition to her reactions to it, it was also doing a fat lot of nothing to her disease and her cancer has grown. They are starting her on another chemo drug tomorrow, prayers and mojo are appreciated.

Husband gave two of our dogs VERY unhappy tummies by using my tomato watering pitcher to give them water. Dogs and Miracle-gro do not mix, FYI. Of course this has sent me into a major panic, not only for the health of my dogs (it was just a bit of residue-no real harm just some gastro-intestinal irritation) but also because my sister is supposed to be watching them for 6 days starting on Friday. Last time she watched them, they got a stomach bug 2 days in and she dealt with diarrhea for 5 days straight with 3 dogs. UGH.

Did you know that a tornado hit a shopping mall in Aurora, CO? Hey, did you also know that we are going to CO? Good times!

I am a walking, talking, somewhat functioning zombie on a good day and a migraine suffering shut in on a bad day.

Not sure what the future is going to hold for us and not really dealing well with a bunch of unknowns. There are a couple of you that I owe e-mails to, rest assured, they will be there shortly.

Babysitting Gozer The Destructor today so I only have a minute, but I wondered if anyone had seen the most recent Anthropologie catalog?

One of the featured groups in the “as worn by” section is Honey Honey. We caught this band when they opened for Rocco De Lucca when he was here solo @ The House of Blues and I fell in love with them. Now that they are in the Anthropologie catalog? It might be a little bit of *squee* too!

I must admit, I nerded out big time for the Austin references and down homeyness of it all. I may not consider myself a Texan but Austin can claim me any time it wants.