Monday, July 14, 2008

Puttering around the gardens

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Since our flight wasn't supposed to leave Denver until 9:10 last night, we checked out at noon, stored our bags at the hotel, then headed to the Denver Botanic Gardens for the afternoon.

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Although the temperatures had scooted back up into the 90's, we still managed to balance our time between shade and sun enough to avoid bursting into flames. They had a nice variety of plants and water features covering quite a few acres of land on the outskirts of the city.

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Botanical gardens are always a nice way to spend a few hours in any city. Of course, if you're deathly allergic to bees, you might want to have a plan B (or at least have a syringe of antibiotics nearby to have someone thrust into your heart in case one of the gazillion bees nearby decides to pay you an unexpected visit).

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This particular plant sounds like it would be best stored near your manscaping supplies...

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After we were done plant cruising, we headed out into the Cheesman Park area (just outside the gardens). It's a lovely residential area with cool old houses and apartments and a large park (and former cemetary) that looks towards the city.

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We wandered around there for a bit, then, with a few more hours to fill, got a ride to the nearby Wrangler bar where rumor had it they had a famous beer bust and BBQ every Sunday.

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You pay $8 at for a plastic cup and then there are people wandering around with pitchers of beer and they just keep refilling your cup for the next four hours (or until you pass out from all the hurling).

It would seem a shame to miss this "site" on our trip, don't you think?

Since we needed to leave for the airport around 6:30, we didn't get anywhere near as intoxicated as I'm sure most of the Marys (around 800) that were packed into that bar/parking lot did.

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We got back to the Curtis Hotel, grabbed our luggage, said goodbyes and then headed to the airport. Of course, once we got through security and to the gate, it turned out that our flight had been delayed for an hour and a half....so, we ended up not getting back into LA until after midnight.

It's probably just as well that we didn't know about the delay while we were at the bar. I think it would have been very easy for us to have had a few hundred more beers and then found some ridiculous way to justify a reason to stay one more night...cause we're having "SO much fun!" (ie-drunk off of our asses).

Those kinds of "revelations" always make so much more sense when you're drunk, than when you wake up the next morning with a raging headache and an intestinal typhoon sweeping its way through your system.

We were just lucky....this time.

Oh, I also got an email today from Anne, the woman in Scotland that I ended up hiking with up Arthur's Pass in New Zealand. It was so nice to hear from her! She was great fun to hang out with and, with the way she describes Scotland, it only makes me want to go visit that country even more.

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So many places to see, so few winning lotto numbers...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ah, Cheesman Park... (wistful sigh). I've enjoyed many afternoons lying in the sun in that park... watching folks play with their dogs, kite-flying kids, shirtless joggers and volley-ballers. Mmmm, shirtless volley-ballers. I'll bet that park gets less traffic now... what with the proliferation of certain "social networking" websites. Mmmm, "social networking".

Vampire Hours said...

I think we walked across a brown patch of grass with your body outline in it...you must have spent a LOT of time there.

However, their "Joel's Spot" sign wasn't as dynamic as I felt it should have been...the border was a bit bland and I'd never seen a picture of you in Coolots before.