100th Birthday for Evelyn

We went "back home" to Tucson in December, always a good decision.  This time it was to celebrate my grandmother's 100th birthday and 23 relatives were flying in from all over to assist us with the festivities!  It's not often you get to celebrate this amazing milestone.

Unfortunately for us, she broke her ball socket and cracked her pelvis 10 days prior to the big day.  And they won't do hip replacements on 99 year olds.  So, sadly, she will now be bedridden for the most part.  Coordination of care took up a big part of our time last week and after much drama we finally got her settled into her new facility after hospital and rehab had a try at her.

Tucson in December is magical.  It's warm and blue skies and chilly nights, just cool enough to light up the gas fireplace.  It's day temps near 70.  It's all the Sonoran favorites to eat, including green corn tamales and Nico's chorizo burritos for breakfast.  It's holly berry Eegee's flavor (like an Italian ice) and lovely walks in the desert landscape.

Birds love it, reptiles are too cold to be out, and we had a wonderful time being serenaded by my talented cousin Barry Riese of the Piper Road Spring Band.   We walked the DeGrazia Gallery in the Sun and drove the Sahuaro National Park East and found my dad's rock cross and scattered ashes in the middle of the desert.  Seems hard to believe he's been gone almost 5 years.

Grandma perked up enough once we changed medications to recognize and receive all the glory on her big day.  Her thought for the day, "I'm not THAT sick"!  Love this woman.  Her 88 year old sister came in from WI to help celebrate and it was great to watch them catch up on the happenings in Arkdale, WI.

Hey, how about we jet out to New Zealand spur of the moment?

My hubs has been in Denver for 20 years.  He's been attending what he refers to as his "Gadget Meeting" the entire time. A friend in his meeting is a retired United pilot and offered a last minute FREE!!!!! trip to New Zealand, all on standby, all with flexi dates.  And we said yes.  So instead of returning to Denver from Syracuse, I flew to San Francisco to hook up with them before the long flight.

All of the pilot's calculations on United's internal site are based on "loads" in each class.  He is an electrical engineer by training, very good with numbers. Anyway, he did his magic and we ended up with the second level of service, Business First, with a reclining bed!  Very nice.  It's quite comparable to domestic first class but with a reclining seat.  International first class is a whole other animal.

But first, we goofed big time, dashed for a quick munch one hour before the flight and left the pilot to schlep all of our bags downstairs to the gate area without us.  Horrible!  We felt so bad.

Day one, we snagged a two room hotel room, and then we took a two hour bus tour of Auckland, NZ's major city.  It was a very nice history and with our Maori driver, we also had the cultural background pointed out to us.  She recommended we go to Te Puia for their tour, a cultural site of the Maori near Rotorua.  We stayed in Auckland next to the spire, but did not dine there, and we had a fantastic Chinese lunch, there are loads of international cuisine choices throughout NZ and many of them are Asian.  For dinner we stayed close to home and dined at the Admiral Nelson next door.  They have Date Toffee Pudding instead of the UK's Sticky Toffee Pudding but we abstained.   Anytime we found Frozen Yogurt we stopped for the pilot, he is a nut about it, as well as all things chocolate:)

Day two we headed to Roturua, a beautiful lakeside area with a lot of geothermal activity nearby.  We stopped first near Hobbiton, but there were no available tours for over two hours.  Make advanced reservations. It was crazy beautiful everywhere, but especially in this countryside. That night the hubs and I did the Polynesian Spa in Rotorua and it was incredible. Our concrete block hotel with three of it's own hot springs pools reminded me of FL in the  60's.  Outside at the Polynesian Spa, the furthest pool is next to the lake and we had dozens of seagulls squawking while we sat in the pool.

The third day we did the Te Puia cultural center, took in the history of the Maori, and watched a cultural dance.  Then we toured the hot mud pit, six to ten meters deep and watched the 30 foot geyser go off.  Our guide then waltzed us through the Kiwi hut and gave us the opportunity to see this endangered, chicken-sized bird.  They burrow, they hate light and it was very dark in the viewing area.  They only allowed photos of the stuffed bird.  After that we did a treetop tour of the NZ American Redwoods, which were planted 110 years ago.  They grow very well in Roturua. The moisture has them grow more than ten times faster than they do in California and they are thriving!  Beautiful grove of gigantic trees, some already nearly three feet across in diameter.

We finished the day at the magical Waitomo Glow Worm caves.  This was a top three ever site for all of us.  Really amazing cave structures, a cathedral like area and then, of course, the glow worms.  It was spectacular.  A quiet hushed boat trip on the river with zero light, powered by a man pulling us along on ropes with the incredible worms phosphorescence above us ended the tour.

Day four was a road trip to the Taupo area on another lovely lake.  We stopped at the Wellesley hotel with "The Lazy Trout" restaurant.  It was a lovely log cabin like building but while our room was expansive with a suite, the pilots' was very, very small.  The next day our clerk suggested we do the Coromandel coast, view their colorful Christmas trees in bloom (which look like a bottlebrush) and visit lovely Sailors Grave Beach.  Listed as one of the top 10 beaches in New Zealand and we were able to walk out onto it where a river flows into the South Pacific Ocean.  We lunched in town and had a lovely view of the bay while eating.

Then it was back to Auckland and a decision on a return date based on loads.  Our driver was spent and catching a cold by then (Hubs). But he also didn't want either of us to drive.  And as it turned out hotels were hard to find.  We were all hunting, but Hubs hit gold with a Best Western near the airport. We stopped downtown so I could get some souvenirs for family and then headed to the hotel.  Dinner was at the Holiday Inn next door but it could not have been any better!  A lovely buffet with all of NZ's best, Lamb, butter, ice creams, several Indian entrees, some delectable shrimp, mussels, oysters on the half shell and fresh fish, along with steamed vegetables including asparagus.  Pilot and I had both traveled a lot and rule of thumb was never eat at a hotel, but this surprised us both.  Thank you New Zealand for a fast and furious North Island trip!

The loads were so good we made it all the way into first class! *sigh*  So good!  Day one of Polaris class and United did it right.  Came home well rested on a coach flight from San Francisco.  Thank you pilot!

New Orleans Conference and Adirondacks in the fall

Another one of those trips that plan you instead of you planning them.  The 2 year old grandson had pneumonia twice in one month while the mother (my daughter) had bronchitis.

This happened while we were in New Orleans for three days for a work conference.  New Orleans and Chicago are the alternating hosts of the annual 10,000 person worldwide WEFTEC conference.  Lots and lots of water and wastewater engineers, environmental engineers and manufacturers of water treatment products, pumps, pipelines, filter systems and chemicals.  It was HUGE.  Ten city blocks of geeks and engineers.  The old joke, "How can you tell an extrovert engineer?  They look at YOUR shoes when they talk to you."  Yep.  Not a lot of eye contact as I wandered with my Lindt truffles and business cards.  Fortunately some sweet Uber drivers and taxi drivers took them off my hands and promised to pass them out to the engineers they were driving to the airport that day.

We had a great time sampling fabulous food all over New Orleans. I got recommendations from everyone we drove with and friends who used to live here.  The patio at Court of the Two Sisters was phenomenal.  Their turtle soup was divine.  Pierre Masparo for BBQ shrimp, which is nothing that you'd expect coming from Memphis, a buttery sauce of deliciousness.  A lovely wine bar out in the Garden District.  We love Deanie's (owned by the fishermen) and had their Charbroiled oysters for lunch.  The Hotel Royal Sonesta for some live jazz and delicious appetizers.  And Gumbo.  Everywhere we went, we split a cup of gumbo:)

It was perfect.  We got home after a lengthy delay due to mechanical issues, but there was live music in the airport and I passed out two more cards to water engineers I met while waiting:)

Home late, leaving six hours later for Syracuse NY to assist with the daughter and grandson.  That was a brutal 48 hours.  Delayed out of Newark to Syracuse for some more waiting, this time on a bus on the tarmac.  We finally got driven back to the terminal after one hour on the tarmac in the un-airconditioned bus.  So I was able to nosh on some fresh oysters while we waited for a new plane.  Mechanical issues all day long for the plane we were assigned to.

Frankly, I am always happy to wait for a mechanically sound aircraft.  That never bothers me.  The lack of communication and the wait on the tarmac is another thing entirely.  United could have done a better job.  Frontier in New Orleans wins that debate.  Syracuse is one hours and 15 minutes south of Carthage/Fort Drum, where my daughter was driving from.  It was important to know when we would arrive, she had the sick two year old coming with her.

After consuming mass quantities of great tasting food, I switched to preparing mass quantities of great tasting food for my daughter and grandson.  I made a big vat of chili, cooking down tomatoes from the garden, then homemade toffee, then two batches of banana bread, some homemade banana pudding, Tortellini Soup and green chili enchiladas.  Shrimp scampi was up next but we never got to it.  Daughter's neighbors are great, they had been feeding her nightly while she was sick, so it was nice to return the favor.  I also got to teach them some family friendly games for the long winter that's almost upon them, Spoons and Mexican Train Dominos.

The area is close to the Finger Lakes and Thousand Islands of upstate New York and it is truly gorgeous with lovely maples, birch and other trees in rainbows of color, but I left before they were at 100% this year.  Very reminiscent of the Poconos that I got to see in October sixteen years ago.  I bought some maple sugar candy in the airport on the way out:)

Fall foliage right here at home in CO!

We had hoped to do a fall foliage train tour in the northeast, but Amtrak has retired the Dome cars from service.  One exception, the Adirondacks picking up in New York City and delivering in Toronto.  But we couldn't make the trip work with our businesses.  So today, we drove an hour and 15 minutes from home and saw some of the best fall foliage in the country, the quaking aspens right here in Colorado!  We picked up a dear friend and headed out at 9AM this morning and we were home by 3.  It was an awesome fall day, just cool enough at 9200 feet of elevation to require a fleece or a sweater.

Fall is my favorite time of year!  Crunchy leafs smelling of earth, and the warmth of pumpkin, cider, fires and the beautiful rainbow display nature puts on.  It's everything I like rolled up into one season, missing the ocean, but all the rest is there!  We went to Eldora ski resort, still locked up but we managed to find the Wundervu Inn to stop and have a late breakfast, located near the town of Nederland, which hosts the annual Frozen Dead Guy Day celebration each year, I kid you not.  http://frozendeadguydays.org/aboutfdgd  Nederland was packed with tourists as was the road up to Eldora.  Everyone was up in the mountains this weekend from the looks of things on Facebook!

The Wundervu is a little southwestern restaurant that also happens to sell amazing chocolate candies and their very own delicious hot fudge sauce with ingredients you can read.  Like cream, butter, cocoa, and powdered sugar.  So good.  And we highly recommend it to you should you pass through on your way to Frozen Dead Guy Day:)

Hope you're getting into the fall spirit!  We're looking forward to "Apple Cider Mimosas with Brown Sugar Rims" for our next Sci Fi bookclub:)

Summer Fun in Colorado

We did some travel within CO this past year, and I neglected to write about any of it!  The hubs had the brilliant idea of a stay-cation in Colorado Springs earlier this year, as he had a Friday morning mediation down there  So we booked a single night in a lovely downtown hotel and drove down together. You must ALWAYS go visit Garden of the Gods city park when going to Colorado Springs.  A vision of Sedona-like red rocks poking up from the ground to amazing heights.

After he completed his day we went up to Pikes Peak on the funicular.  It was a balmy day at the bottom, but up at 14,000 plus feet, it gets a tad chilly!  Drink water at elevation, but not too fast, it's a long ride and there are no bathrooms on the way up.  We arrived at the top to a massive microburst thunder and hail storm and a very rushed de-training to get out of the metal boxes and into the less lightening strike prone visitors center.

We ended up trapped in the center for over 30 minutes, but we were able to rush outside and have this lovely picture taken right before we went back down.

The next day we hung out at the Broadmoor and did the drive to Garden of the Gods.  Lunch at the Broadmoor was exceptional, and then we walked around their little lake, stopping on a bench to enjoy the lovely view.  It's an extraordinary hotel and resort.  We made a few work calls from inside in several empty seating areas while we were there and finished up on the opposite side of the lake in the lakeside lounge for a quick cocktail before driving back to Denver.  

I love our state!

Later in the summer we did our "guest tour" for my hubs brother, girlfriend and a friend of ours who recently moved back to Denver from Switzerland.  First we head to the Stanley Hotel where "The Shining" was filmed.  The Jack Nicholson version.  Their porch looks out at the Rocky Mountain National Park vista and it's an incredible view from Estes Park.  Then we go into the RMNP and drive the jeep trail road up to the top, coming down into Grand Lake Lodge for dinner.  Spectacular views along the way, a short waterfall trail and then a scrumptious dinner with the largest fireplace I have ever seen.  They have a new chef and the food was equal to the views this time.  Our friend bookmarked it as a great place for her husband to come whenever he is homesick for Switzerland.  It's just that pretty of a valley.  

Lastly, we managed to eek out a few camping days at our friends land in Park County, essentially you gaze out over the back side of Breckenridge.  Beautiful panoramas of valleys and mountains, even the rain didn't stop us from having a great time.  We set up a popup gazebo and were able to get a campfire going for those s'mores!  Two of my favorite smells, campfires and pine trees.   Ok, three if you count the s'mores, and we put peanut butter in the cracker first!

Hope you had an enjoyable summer as well:)

Nobama for us:(

My stepson won a "very prestigious award" and the prize was to get to fly to the White House to receive it!  We were all very, very excited.  I'd never been to the White House before, nor had I ever been to the DC area.  I'd been to Pennsylvania, New Jersey and to Maryland, but somehow didn't even drive through DC at the time, which was now 14 years earlier.

Nicholas and his crew of 6th graders were the youngest grant recipients of an almost 100K grant three years ago.  They then used it in 7th grade to install solar panels.  Along the way they were getting lots of local and regional press as well. In 8th grade, their school also refurbished their greenhouse, set up extensive recycling programs and then those remaining (4 classmates) won the Presidential Environmental Youth Award (PEYA) from the EPA.  The EPA sent emails, they let us know bare minimum details, like what location and time to show up.  We registered our ID's and SSN's in advance for the background checks and we all contemplated what it might be like to meet the President.   After all he's a known science geek and it is the Presidential Award.

And then we didn't.  So it was a let down of sorts to be in DC, at the White House and to "only" get to meet the Secretary of Education, the Assistant Director of the EPA and the White House's Science Advisor.  Two of the three took questions.  So while we can now say "we had lunch at the White House", it was really catered by Panera.  Nicholas did get a marvelous plaque.  There were two winners from each of 10 EPA districts, and let me tell you, there are some smart youth out there who are out to literally save the planet.

My daughter with her two year old was able to drive down to meet us.  This enabled us to drive to Baltimore and hook up with Richard's cousin for breakfast, see the National Aquarium, and drive to Philly to see Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell, all in the same day. Our trip to DC happened during the hottest days of the year with heat indexes of over 115 on some days, so we skipped all but the Lincoln  Memorial and chose to focus on the air conditioned museums.  We saw one National Gallery, the Museum of African American Art, the Smithsonian Air and Space and the Smithsonian Natural History museums during our stay.

Our second day we arrived to collect my husband's step dad Ben for a planned lunch, but he didn't feel like going out in the heat so we ended up spending an hour visiting in their home instead.  I'm glad he appears to be in good health again after a lengthy rehab stay earlier in the year.

We had lovely meals!  Great Thai food, Gadsby's Tavern, with terrific Colonial food, and Washington used to eat there. They dress in Colonial clothes as well.  An old family friend took us there and then took the hubs and stepson on a private night tour of the monuments at night.  We kept to our goal of public transit for the most part but on that searing hot day, we used cabs and Ûber to get around.  The Metro stations are oddly like concrete bunkers.  Nothing really pretty about them.  And the trains themselves are really old.  But they are Air Conditioned so no complaints!

We were also blessed to get a great hotel in DC thanks to our friend Jennifer Coken's recommendation.  Our AirBNB choice that looked good on the inside had actually been in the very highest violent crime neighborhood of DC, so she urged us to reconsider.  Avenue Suites was a great choice, and it was across the street from Trader Joe's and had a full kitchen.  We met up with Jennifer for Sunday brunch at Acadania Restaurant, which was a Cajun love affair.  Live Jazz as well!  Plus we got her to autograph her new, funny but sad book about her mother's journey with ovarian cancer, "When I Die, Take my Panties".  Available on Amazon kindle later this week, paperback is available now.  Then we visited Joe Malone's for some perfume and Longchamps for window shopping.

Nicholas couldn't find the bow tie he wanted to wear, so we had agreed to get one for him in DC, and we found a delightful one at the Library of Congress, with red and blue books all over it.  Very patriotic.  We also were able to attend a tour of the Capital Building, which was chock full of interesting facts, but the Rotunda is still behind plywood for the next couple of weeks for repairs.  We definitely enjoyed DC and would love to go back to see all of the memorials, but next time, we'll choose the time.  Spring or Fall please:)