Denver 2018 day 11 Rocky Mountains Won’t Be Spied

August 6, 2018

Waking up on the slightly saner side of Stupid O’clock in the morning, our National Park plans hit some snags.  Anabelle’s altitude headache blossomed to immobilizing levels.  Mine was close behind as well.  Adding to that was her concerns over her penchant for altitude sickness, and my concerns about possibly passing out from a pharmaceutically induced low heart rate and driving my family off a cliff segued this day into local options after headache recovery time.

Once we were all functional, we took a drive to pick up Abuelita’s prescription at Walgreens.  For once, Siri was spot on and took us directly to the destination.  This destination turned out to be a different Walgreens from the one the prescription was at.

A bit of recalculating, and we were at the correct one.  Anabelle went with Rosa and picked up a card game she’d seen at home a bunch of times. Once again, a frivolous no reason purchase becomes completely allowable when it is a souvenir.

We thought a bit about lunch at Chili’s, but shifting appointments made this a better day to visit the Peruvian Restaurant they’d told us about that we wanted to try called Pisco Sour. 

There was a stop at Walmart for some supplies before we brought Silvermist the Fabulous Monkey home to pick up Abuelita.

At Pisco Sour, we learned it was a much higher end and fancier restaurant than we were used to at home.

Frankly, we’ll stick to Sara’s Marino’s in Dover and its sister Cafe from now on.

They were out of Pollo Ala Brasa, which is why we went there to begin with.  Anabelle’s opener was a dish she named, “Spaghetti-o Soup.”  This was also her favorite part of the meal. 

“Uh oh! Spaghetti-O!” indeed!  

While she usually enjoys the fried cow innards used to line Alien eggs (for reasons I have no explanation for) they weren’t up to her usual standards.

The peas and carrots were ice cold and they were out of dessert…like, all of it.  Service was kind of slow as well as our waiter was also the maître d’, bartender, and possibly cook and bottlewasher, leading Anabelle to put on an impromptu puppet show with the silverware and an artistically enhanced cutlery wrap.

The best part of the meal was playing with the magnetized cutlery.

I guess we’re not cut out for high end.

The lack of staff may have been the issue as return visits after we left were successful.

Rosa and Anabelle had played basketball when on a trip out there with just the two of them, and Anabelle wanted to try again. After dropping off Abuelita, Siri took us on a variety of adventures indicating she’d gotten way back into the local herbs. 

We ended up at another delivery dock for a Dollar Store. Once inside, there was no sports equipment, but there were Matey’s, a pirate themed Lucky  Charms knock off…the world is weirder than we can imagine.

The search, as all of our searches with Rosa and Anabelle do, included stops at Joann’s and Michael’s.  Multiple one-eighty degree turns were involved in getting to Big Lots, but we didn't achieve success until we returned to Walmart.

Going back home, we took a typical walk around the lake, stopping at the playground on the far end of the loop to hit the court a bit.  A life of totally sucking at basketball, offset by an occasional "magic juggler reflexes hook shot," balanced out my daughter’s lack of knowledge of any basketball rules and the game of one on one was close while Rosa laughed at both of us.

Then Anabelle set up shop on one of the little play tables and became “Madame Potato of the Fortune Telling Rocks.”  Frankly her instinctive use of both hot and cold reading techniques put many of those charlatan television mediums to shame.

She and Rosa spent some time on the swings together.  Then Anabelle went over to the “weird spinny thing” that made her nervous when she was little.  A girl about the age she was back then was trying it and in a dazzling display of cuteness, Anabelle helped her out.  She also spun alone a bit before we walked home for a late second lunch/ early dinner.

Wildlife greeted us once more on the way back.  Frolicking Bunnies, swimming Loons, and swarming Ants were all on display.

Titi Luzma and Uncle Roy brought some lasagna-ravioli after their new air conditioning unit was installed. It was tasty, and it’s always cute when the Cowboyland stores make Italian food.

They also resupplied the peaches in the house, a vital commodity since Abuelita insisted I eat them regularly.  Letting a Latin grandmother know you like something is almost as dangerous as letting an Italian one know.

Dessert was supposed to be the Thin Mint Girl Scout cookie yogurt we’d picked up.  My guess is it wasn't stored properly as “poop acid” is not the description that should first come to mind when eating a sweetened dairy product.

Our Colorado relatives all turned in while we were still fully awake.  Rosa started packing and Anabelle played “travel” some more.  I played “make a sandwich” because the Peruvian restaurant did not provide anything close to the volume of a meal, and I was good and skimped on the lasagna ravioli.

I tried to read a while, but the new small and crazy bright LED flashlights they have now measure battery life in microseconds. 

That night I had a weird dream, which for me is saying VOLUMES.

For the first time in my life, I had a sound only dream, with no picture. I guess the special effects team in my head shifted gears and took the vacation idea literally.

The whole dream was a deep velvety black.  No doubt inspired by my wife and daughter’s discovery of the Mamma Mia films and insisting their soundtracks were on the driving playlist, “Take a Chance on Me” blared through the void.

The most horrifying part of the dream was I woke up in the middle to use the bathroom and the whole time I was awake and walking around the house, the song continued in my head in full surround sound.

Nice to know the audio techs in my noggin were working overtime to cover for the video folks being away.

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