9/5/2016
Body proved itself to maintain a stupid internal alarm clock despite being a time zone over and on vacation. I woke up, pretty close to wide awake, at 3:30am.
It sucked. But I was able to force myself to roll over and get back to sleep, though it wasn’t quite restful. Needless to say, I didn’t feel too rested come morning side and when it was time to actually rise and shine.
Nicole and I went downstairs and grabbed the continental breakfast, complete with made-to-order omelets. The breakfast was tasty and filling and, ultimately, I had too much of it. We retreated back to the room to prepare for the rest of the day. After refreshing in the shower, we made a quick stop over at Target to grab a koosh and some other toiletries.
Afterward, we returned to the room and repacked our bag, double checked the room, and checked out of the hotel. We spent a couple hours looking into some bookstores in the Lakewood/Denver area before returning to Lakewood and hitting up Casa Bonito (which was just as cheesy and delightful as South Park made it out to be). While the food was overpriced, the amusing cliff dives and cheesily acted skits made up for it.
Nicole and I took a few photos in “Ye Olde Western Costumes” and had a few laughs with the proprietor of the photo booth before exploring the rest of the restaurant. Including a quick wandering trip through “Black Bart’s Cave.” The area was a pseudo “haunted house” sans the live actors to actively scare the bejesus out of kiddos wandering the dark corridors.
Do have to say that I did have a creepy moment happen. We had walked through roughly halfway through the attraction when we came to a Plexiglas window with a lizard-like thing behind it with glowing, yellow eyes and a note next to it saying “Don’t look into its eyes” or some such thing.
Being the ornery little… person… I am, I immediately did what the note said not to, and continued on my merry way after Nicole. We’d just rounded the next corner and I thought I heard some shuffling steps behind me, as though someone were trying to sneak up on us to give the haunted house “jump scare.”
I stopped and looked over my shoulder at the corner just in time to watch someone with sunken eyes and a black and white bandana on swiftly slip back behind the corner. I continued on after Nicole without saying anything. I suppose if I had truly wanted to settle the weird happening, I’d have charged back around the corner.
I prefer the mystery (even though I thoroughly suspect it was a kid or someone following us through and a trick of the low light to make them seem ghastly).
We finished our jaunt through Casa Bonita and returned to the car. We got under way to the resort.
The drive from Denver/Lakewood was nothing less than stunning. I don’t think I can express how much I thoroughly enjoy mountains in words. They are majestic pieces of natural art that are nothing short of awe-inspiring. Our road-trip took us winding through foothills and the lower portions of the mountains. Areas that I’m going to have Nicole drive back through so I can better enjoy the gorgeous natural scenery.
We made it to the resort without incident, despite my distinct temptation to stop my driving and stare at the Rockies around us.
We got checked in, marveled at the massive room and view from its porch. It’s not mountainside, but it’s still pretty good. Want to throw a shout out to our friends Jen and Will who had chocolate covered strawberries (a delight for me) and a bottle of bubbly waiting for us when we arrived.
We unpacked everything we brought and organized it in the dresser before studying the map of the area and heading out to explore the resort and investigate dinner options.
We quickly found that there’s an arcade (overpriced), bar and grill (touch pricey), and pool table (though the 10-ball was chipped and a couple of the other balls seemed to have significant cracks in them) as well as Jacuzzis and an extensive workout room. We wandered the village area between the resorts and found that a lot of the places to eat were also quite pricey and settled on the “Blue Moose Pizza” as their non-pizza options were quite reasonably priced. Especially when compared to the other options in the area.
Moments after our food was delivered (chicken alfredo for Nicole, Stromboli calzone with chicken for me) a little yellow-jacket wasp decided that it was incredibly interested in my wife. Despite my attempts to gently shoo it away, the ornery thing continued to zip around Nicole until we requested to be moved indoors. It was a mild annoyance, but nothing enough to spoil our meal.
We returned our leftovers to the fridge in our room and zipped downstairs to collect the kits for making “gourmet S’Mores.” I put that in questionable air quotes not because they weren’t s’mores cooked over an open fire. Those two criteria were met by acquiring a kit with graham crackers, Hershey’s milk chocolate, and homemade marshmallows, a stick and a convenient fire pit for us to properly roast (or slightly scorch, as I prefer) the marshmallows over.
I’m still pondering where the “gourmet” portion comes in… Maybe I can ask for some specialty chocolate or at least some dark chocolate in the coming evenings.
I will say that the atmosphere of the fire pit combined with the quiet evening and the setting sun certainly made the event very enjoyable, and the mundane s’mores were very tasty.
Even if Nicole criticized my expertise in putting just the right amount of scorch on my marshmallows.
Some people just don’t appreciate a good roastin’.
Love you honey.
We retreated back inside following our roasting experience and did a minute bit of exploration (where we found the arcade, Jacuzzis and got a glimpse of the workout room), and returned to our room to drink our bubbly, catch Pokemon, and write into the evening.
Tomorrow. Hiking.
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