Archives for September 2014

I’d never had chillies in my breakfast before.  I did think it was perhaps a good thing my body thought it was lunchtime!  The breakfast menu was quite extensive, and a good chance to try some of the things that I’ve heard about on TV (or in country songs) but have absolutely no idea what they taste like.

Breakfast was called 3 little pigs. Ham, bacon and a sausage patty and scrambled egg (or what I would have called omelette) sandwiched in 3 small cheese and garlic biscuits (which turned out to be quite like cheese scones) and a pico sauce which is salsa of chopped tomato, chilli, onion, coriander and lime juice. I had the salsa on the side; very When Harry met Sally. There was also a small mountain of hash browns (potato rosti) and toast or “Breakfast Breads”.  The salsa I loved.  All my favourite ingredients, and almost nothing in there that Stephanie would eat. All followed by French toast with lashings of maple syrup. Yum.

The hot theme continued for the rest of the day. It was a scorcher.  Well over 30 degrees, and driving a left hand drive car for the first time in America didn’t make us chill out much! The condition of the roads is even worse than West Berkshire’s country lanes and it would appear from watching the other drivers that it’s perfectly acceptable to ignore a red light if you’re turning right and there’s nothing coming. I was also pleased that someone had warned us that indicators are red not orange.

We left the hotel for Denver in our rental car in the direction which looked on the map like it would take us to the main road.  However, 10 minutes later we found ourselves in Reunion. Way off the map and guessing that a couple of left turns might be nice, if ever we saw another road.

I was also confused by the frequent signs saying “no double turns”. Still haven’t figured that one out.

An hour later, once we’d got the Samsung tablet out and setup our makeshift GPS (being from Yorkshire there’s no way I was paying to rent a sat nav), we had passed a couple of trailer parks and were admiring the incredibly intricate and individual houses in outer Denver.  And then, up close,  the amazing modern tower blocks which we’d seen from afar against the backdrop of the Rocky Mountains.

Downtown

The waitress at breakfast had recommended the 16th Street Mall as being the place to go in Denver.  So we found an underground carpark, (the only place to park in that heat) at one end and walked down the long pedestrianised street.  It’s novel in that there is a free shuttle bus which runs constantly, and there must be about 20 busses as you’re never more than 1 block (50 yards) away from a bus.  They’re on an endless loop.  The drivers will get off to put the wheelchair ramp down if necessary, and like everywhere so far in America, the service is more helpful, pleasant and extra mile worthy than anywhere in England.

Across the road from the bottom of the Mall is the state Capitol building with its gold leaved roof. Up 2 flights of stairs is the step which marks 1 mile above sea level. Although it was very, very hot, I couldn’t let the opportunity pass, so I climbed the stairs and stood on the 1 mile stone while Stephane stood under a tree at the bottom and took photos with the zoom lens.

We took the shuttle back and were quite surprised at just how far we’d walked.  By the car park was the Cheesecake Factory, as recommended by Caroline. It was indeed excellent.  And just like the breakfast menu, almost all the savoury items contained chillies.  I had the most gorgeous sweetcorn tamales (another thing I’ve never tried before) with more pico sauce and a hot salsa verde. We also shared some deep fried crispy avocado – which I’ve never even heard of let alone eaten, but it was very good.

And then we had to brave the traffic and see if we could find our way home.

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So we’re here!  In the land of my father.  Country at least, if not state.

Overall, the journey wasn’t too bad at all. We really could have done without the delay at Heathrow, especially the time we just sat on the plane on its stand, waiting for clearance to taxi. I’m not sure who was the more nervous, Susie, or myself on her behalf.

I was terribly restrained at Heathrow. I think I only tested two perfumes – and didn’t buy any. In fact, all I bought was a couple of books – and apart from those on my Kindle are the only books I have with me.

I managed to get a window seat on the plane and spent some time gazing out of the window even though it was mainly cloud I could see. The cloud broke a little over Greenland so managed to get a snap of the snow, although not as clear as it could be.

By the time we got to bed it was around 5:30 am to our body clocks, so a pretty long day.  This meant we were up early this morning, 6:00 am Colorado time and down for breakfast by 7:00 am. Breakfast was great.  It’s now lunchtime as I write this and we’re still pretty stuffed. I had the bacon, egg and hash browns with an add on of cinnamon roll french toast with maple syrup.  This was supposed to be just the one slice but as our waiter explained as he delivered it, they had a new chef on who had prepared the full three slices in error so these were “on the house”. We made a valiant effort between us but were beaten by the final slice.

We have now ventured out to collect our rental car. This involved catching the shuttle bus back to the airport, then taking the rental company’s shuttle bus out to their site. We had a bit of a “discussion” about what has or has not been included in our package and will be emailing the travel agent for some clarification. The (literally) small print on our rental voucher came in for close consideration necessitating Susie “my eye sight is perfect” Black fishing out her reading glasses to dissect the details. And then lending said glasses to the guy behind the desk …

The drive back to the hotel was pretty uneventful with Susie in the hot seat and yours truly being the eyes and ears. Which proved their merit as the driver decided to ignore the red lights just because the other guys turning right had a green light!

We’re just having a top up of coffee before tackling the drive into downtown Denver without a sat nav. We have an old fashioned map and downloaded Google maps on the tablet. Of course, little miss “nothing wrong with my eyes” needs the reading glasses to see the paper map, although has decided it’s much easier to read the right way up!

Our most vexing question at the moment is regarding tipping. What Rules do we apply? When, who and how much? This may be a question for Libby and Andrew to come back on.

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