Botanical Gardens

After a quick water break, we headed to the Botanical Gardens.  They were beautiful and definitely worth a visit.  Jer was patient with my sore feet and we took breaks to let me feet rest occasionally.  There were 4 different weddings going on in the different sections of the garden, so it was like we were playing tag. We'd walk through one section of the garden and get ushered into a different section after a while.  Then we would see wedding guest leave one area and we'd go through after they left. 

One of my favorite things was that this baby bunny was not afraid of visitors at all.  Just sat there eating clover and letting us coo over it.

The bonsai tree collection was the biggest one I've ever seen.  It was very neat and individual.

We got to sneak in after a bride left to see this Chihuly statue next to a beautiful manor home.  I think this was my favorite flower garden.  It was beautifully laid out.

 

Molly Brown house

Saturday, we tried to go to an art museum next to our hotel, but it was closed for the weekend.  We ended up having lunch at La Loma and walking to one of the churches close by.  Then we got our car (they misplaced it and it took a while to get from the valet). Then we went to visit the Molly Brown Museum and drive down Pennsylvania Ave.  It was not much bigger than our home, but it was definitely more opulent.  Some of the notable features are the entrance, the third floor and the china.  I loved learning more of her real history.  That was fun.  I love that she was very charitable and helped people that were saved from another sinking ship.  She helped women get the vote in Colorado and she worked hard.  I didn't know that she had children and also that she often had nieces and nephews staying with them.  My favorite piece of history that I saw was her clothing bill. It was $27,000.  Some of the things were pretty normal. Shirts, undergarments, a gown. Then there was 30 crates of something to be donated to the local museum.

Trying not to laugh.

 

Downtown

Friday night we decided to have sushi in downtown.  There was one that was on 16th street, so we found some scooters and made our way over.  It was okay sushi, but it was fun to see the downtown culture.  We couldn't find scooters for the way home, so we just walked the mile back to the hotel.  It was a nice cool night after a really hot day.  

 

Colorado train museum

After the Georgetown loop, we stopped in at the Colorado train museum.  I love the history part and Jer loves the engineering part, so win-win. It was neat.  We got there during the train engineer's break and he offered to let Jer have a close up look at some of the trains that were off limits.  YES! 

I really liked these car ones....

 

Georgetown loop

Friday morning, we got tickets to ride the Georgetown loop railroad.  I didn't realize two things about Colorado. I didn't realize that they had such a good/silver rush.  I also didn't realize that they had such close dealings with South America.  A lot of the train equipment went back and forth between Colorado and Argentina.  The steam train that we rode was 103 years old and has been in constant use the whole time.  I was joking with Jer that it was a very useful engine. It was a higher elevation, so I took my blood pressure meds in my pocket.  I got a little nauseous, but not too bad....but the pills fell out of my pocket and got lost. Whoops. 

The bridge was rebuilt three times.  The first time, they had built it backwards!

 

Dinner and Breakfast

For dinner, we tried one of the restaurants in the hotel.  It was a ship theme and ended up having model ships throughout the entire place.  That was a fun surprise.  I had a very yummy french onion soup and Jer had a chimichurri steak that he still talks about.... so it must have been delicious.  None of these restaurants have a waiting time really so we were able to get in right away every time.

For breakfast we went to the Ellyington.  It was based on Duke Ellington I believe.  Jazz was playing the whole time and the server offered me a shrimp omelet that wasn't on the menu.  Shrimp is my favorite so I took it.  It was very good.  Jer had biscuits and gravy.  It wasn't southern gravy, so it was a surprise but very good.

 

The Brown Palace Hotel

The hotel we stayed in was built 130 years ago and was definitely built to be a 5 star hotel of the time.  Architecturally it was beautiful. I would say that the beauty of it is still 5 star.  A few things I would rate lower.  The beds weren't bad, just very firm. The first room they gave us was in a moldy hallway, so I would have to hold my breath and run down the hall, so I didn't have a hard time breathing later.  The shower wall was also broken so it swung out like a door instead of a wall.  We didn't want to break it completely, so we asked if they had any other rooms.  They switched us to another room that was very similar, but the tub had a clog in it.  It definitely didn't drain.  And the streaming services never were connected to our account, so we weren't able to watch movies or anything.  They have an amazing spa in the hotel and great food.  Jer and I got a pedicure and massage Friday afternoon.  It was very relaxing and very professional space for the spa.  They apparently keep bees on the roof too and make things like honey lotion from them. We'd never used a valet service before either, but it's required for the patrons.  The head valet was amazing and took good care of us.  The helper misplaced our car and we had to wait for it for a while.... and a separate time, he tried to give us the wrong key with our car.  There was often live music and teatime in the hotel lobby was a lot of fun to watch.  One family with little kids dressed up to the nines with hats, matching dress and gloves.  It was so cute. Overall, it was a fun experience, but not entirely 5 star anymore.

 

17th wedding anniversary

So, we've had weird anniversaries.... not terrible, just weird.  Our first anniversary was a trip to New York City.  It was a fun trip but it was the week that we'd been told that we would probably never be able to have children.  It was a more emotionally painful trip as that goes... since then we've had the flu, kids births, the pandemic, foot surgery, etc.... all get in the way of our plans.  We usually end up just going out to eat.  This year, Jer planned a trip to Denver, Colorado for us.  It was fun and we didn't really care about money this time around which felt freeing.  We drove out on Thursday last week.  My parents took the kids (bless their hearts!).  We drove over miles of crickets and I tried out my new glasses.