Alissa's Visit (One Amazing Weekend)

I really hope Blogger uploads pictures tonight because boy do I have a lot! We had Alissa here for Labor Day weekend and we kept her very busy. I can already tell that this is going to be a long post, so hold on folks!

I picked Alissa up on Friday afternoon from the airport, slightly afraid that there would be a lot of airport traffic due to the conclusion of the DNC on Thursday night. (By the way, what a speech by Obama! I was truly inspired.) However, I collected her with little problem, other than having to circle the airport twice before I finally figured out which ramp to take to get to her. I even managed to navigate out of the airport without getting lost. I was rather proud of this fact, even though I have been there a couple times now. When we got to the house, we all decided to go to Old Chicago for dinner during happy hour. (Big surprise, right?) We were all pretty tired since all three of us had worked that day and Alissa had traved across the state as well. We decided to rent a movie and make popcorn, which made for a fabulous Friday night.

Saturday morning, we slept in late, then headed to the Coors brewery for a tour. It's not quite the same as our personal Boulevard brewery tours, but it was still fun. The assembly line where they box up all the beer and send it to various parts of the factory was in operation, and I probably could have watched that for hours! It was so cool to see all the boxes moving on conveyor lines in every direction. Unfortunately, my camera battery was dead and that was the one thing I forgot to buy at Wal-Mart that day, so I have no pictures of the brewery tour.

We decided to drive to Breckenridge after that to do some hiking and ride the alpine slide. The drive was interesting in my car. It has a hard time with the long uphill slopes on I-70, with only 4 cylinders. But we got there just fine and I was amazed at how much I remembered from our family vacations. The drive is so beautiful all the way from Denver to Breckenridge. I think I will always be in awe of the mountains, no matter how near or far away I am from them.
We spotted the alpine slide pretty quickly, but were told that it was out of commission because they are building a big resort right at the bottom. I hope this is just a seasonal thing because they just can't close that slide forever! It is so fun and so full of memories.
We ended up driving up Peak 8, where we found a trail to hike. I found this funny because Peak 8 is the mountain my cousins and I hiked once long ago. We didn't follow a trail, we simply walked up a ski slope. All we really wanted was to get to the snow. That was so fun...good memories. Anyway, Matt, Alissa and I hiked on an acutal trail which was really neat. We hiked for about an hour before heading back due to some thunder and dark clouds moving in. It was a good thing, because it started raining right as we got back to the car.
As we drove down, I kept looking for the house we stayed at for the Walter family reunions, but I don't think I would have recognized it if I saw it. I just think it would be so cool to live in Breckenridge. But I love Denver too. When we got home that evening, we had some dinner at home and planned our Sunday.
Wow...was all of that just Saturday? I knew this would be long. :) Sunday, we got up pretty early and went out to Red Rocks. It is so cool how those rocks just come out of nowhere. I still don't think I understand how they are formed and I read a little about it at the park. We were going to try to find some trails out there, but they all just led to parking lots and it was pretty hot so we got some pictures and then took a scenic drive to Golden.

Oops...we weren't supposed to climb on the rocks! We didn't know until after we did it...

Along the way to Golden, we stopped and waded around in Clear Creek. It was SO COLD, but lots of fun. Our feet got numb after being in the water too long. There were a lot of little flecks of gold in the sand, but they were so small it would be impossible to collect them.

We had lunch at Woody's (woodfired pizza) in Golden. It's an all-you-can-eat pizza buffet which was definitely not good for my diet! They make all kinds of different pizzas for the buffet. My favorite is a meaty pizza with barbeque sauce instead of pizza sauce. Yum!

We went home after that and rescued Pongo from the crate. We also had a Fantasy Football draft to complete, so we had to be home and by the computers! How does Matt think his team will do? "I think I have a strong team this year." That's what he says every year. :)

Later, we went out to dinner at a place called 3 Margaritas. This was one of the highlights of my weekend! We just ordered a couple appetizers to eat and of course, margaritas! Alissa and I tried a strawberry banana flavored margarita which I loved! The restaurant also had a mariachi band, which came and serenaded us during dinner. What fun!
Monday was Alissa's last day here. :( We decided to stay in Denver and go downtown. It was pretty amazing to think how many people had just been there at the DNC. We walked along the 16th Street mall. I picked up a few DNC trinkets for my family and almost bought a Rockies t-shirt. (So far, all I have are Royals shirts, which I end up wearing to the Rockies games.) We walked to Larimer square, where all 50 state flags were flying overhead.

Then we walked to Coors Field and bought tickets for the afternoon baseball game. We opted for the cheap tickets called the "Rock Pile." We were meeting our friends Dave and Mary, so we bought all five tickets so we could sit together. Our total for all of the tickets was $20. We thought that the guy hadn't heard us right! But it really was $4 per ticket! We still had some time, so we had a quick lunch at the Breckenridge Brewery Restaurant (where we took Jake). The food is quite good there!

It was very sunny on the "rock pile" so we ended up moving into the shade. The game was pretty uneventful, but the Rockies won! I'm 2-0 now for games I've been to! Maybe I'm good luck. Haha.

Dave, Mary, Matt and Alissa on the rock pile.

The purple seats are only in one row of the stadium and symbolize one mile high (5280 ft in eleveation.) We sat one row above a mile! Thanks for that piece of info, Mary!

I love how you can see the skyline in the background!

After that, it was almost time to take Alissa to the airport. But first, we stopped and bought ski passes at R.E.I.. With as much as they cost, we better do a lot of skiing this winter! But at least we get unlimited skiing in Breckenridge, Keystone and A-Basin (I think). I know it's 3 major resorts, I'm not positive on exactly which ones. I hope I like to ski!
It was sad to say goodbye to Alissa after such a fun weekend. Matt and I both hope she comes out again soon. We miss getting to hang out with her more often.

Hooray for blogger letting me upload photos!