More from Denver!

What a day, what a day....

We awoke to the best hotel breakfast we've seen thus far. It was a buffet of real food rather than just crappy donuts and muffins. After eating and hanging out in the hotel room for a bit we made our way to Cherry Creek and the bike trail. After renting Jody a bike (the smallest one they had which was only slightly too big) and making our way through the mall parking lot, we headed east on the trail towards the resivoir.

It was a BEAUTIFUL day. Not too hot, not too cold, with a beautiful blue sky. Leaves had fallen along the trail, but the beautiful colors were still present in the trees along the creek. I hadn't realized just how much I missed the bike trail. I just love it so much. It's a mix of a little bit of everything...cyclists and triathletes out training, people in business clothes on their way to or from work, random people commuting, friends going for walks, people walking their dogs, etc. etc. Everyone out being active and enjoying the outdoors. It's a beautiful thing. :)

And I gotta say, I really enjoyed watching Jody ride. Every time I looked back she was grinning from ear to ear (except on the steep hills when the focus was solely on breathing our thin mountain air). She just looked happy to be out biking with me, and I was so happy to have the chance to take her out there. (Mom, remember you're "biking in Cape Cod" smile? Yeah, like that.) We had a really great time and managed to cover 8 miles before it was all said and done, with only a few quick breaks.

At one of our break points we decided to sit in the grass next to the trail by a hotel. Apparently the hotel was testing its sprinkler system because just as we were really getting comfy the sprinklers came on all around us. Luckily, they went off right away, so we went back to chatting and hydrating. Next thing we knew they came on again so we figured we'd best get back to riding. As we started to get back on our bikes, another one came on that was stuck pointing directly across the trail. Hey at least I got my shower in, right?

After biking it was time to take Jody to the surprise I'd planned out for her. Indoor skydiving. Jody isn't quite the adrenaline junky I am, so I figured moving the craziness indoors would be a good compromise for the two of us. And I had to get Jody to do at least a little something wild and crazy with me!

Unfortunately, it wasn't quite what I expected to be. I knew it was in an air tunnel, but I just expected something bigger. I tried to still be excited....it kind of looked like an astronaut zero-gravity chamber thing, so I figured it'd still be fun.

We went through a short classroom session where we learned about proper flying position and each had to go up and do it on this funny shaped bench thing. We then got dressed in the most hilariously amazing one-piece flight suits I had ever seen! Unfortunately they'd made me leave my camera so I didn't get pictures, but they were awesome. They were mostly black with colored hilights (red for me and purple for Jody) along the legs and shoulders. They also had padded handles for the instructors to grab us by in case we got lost or started to float away.

Next we had to put in ear plugs, and then our instructor jammed a way too small set of helmet and goggles on my head. He seemed convinced that my head was a whole lot smaller than it actually is, and when I told him it was crushing my head he tried to explain that this was a lot of wind and it had to be tight. I talked him in to changing it just soon enough...I was already getting a pounding headache.

The "flight" itself was interesting. When I first got into the air chamber I felt like I was getting bombarded and beaten to shreds by the wind. It turns out that once there's 100 mph wind underneath you it's really hard to get in to that nice little position they taught us. I could barely figure out which way was up, I couldn't really understand what the instructor was telling me to do, and it felt much more chaotic than fun. Jody, however, jumped in and looked like a natural. Maybe she was a skydiver in another life!

My second try wasn't much better. The instructor kept telling me over and over to bend my knees and not my hips, but because of the position I was in I couldn't figure out how to do it. I was getting frustrated, which made it harder, and the instructor was keeping me close to the ground until I got it so I never really got to fly. The sessions were each only a minute long, so there was never really time to get the feel of it. I had expected it to just be fun and playful.....I never expected it to be hard. Add to that the flight suit was very warm so I was getting a bit claustrophobic.

So yeah, indoor skydiving is definitely a been there, done that, kind of thing for me. But Jody liked it and did amazingly well so I can still be very happy with the fact that my plan was a complete success. Being the water person that she is, she said she was thinking it was just like swimming in the air. Ironically, she kind of looked like she was swimming, but she looked really good. Maybe she should consider a career in skydiving! :)

After our flight experience we made a quick stop at the hotel and then went to Ted's Montana Grill for dinner. I think in the back of my mind I always knew Ted's was a chain, but living in Ted's Montana I'd always sorta wanted to think that ours was the only one. Who knew it's all over the country and was started in Ohio of all places! Even though I now know it's a chain though, it didn't feel chain-like to me. It actually gave me a feeling of being at home away from home. And, since Ted's is somewhere my family goes often when we're all together, it was like being able to show Jody a bit of my hometown and my family without actually being able to take her there.

They had a newly added spinach artichoke dip on the menu, which was beyond amazing! As much as I hate to say it, it knocked the "usual" sliders right out of the water! It came with parmesan bread which was also amazing. I got my usual burger for dinner, and it too was wonderful and amazing, as expected. We both stuffed ourselves and enjoyed wonderful, sugary, fruity, strawberry margaritas.

And then, after leaving the restaurant, we went for a looooooooong walk to walk off our drunkeness. Here's some exciting and oh so shocking news. I've found someone who is even more of a lightweight than I am!!! Yay! Jody and I each had a single drink, and while I was merely happily buzzed, Jody was stumbling. She was kind of an adorable drunk though, even when someone almost ran us over after "pretending" to stop for us at a crosswalk. It was a lot of fun and probably a really good thing to keep us from the stress of our future travel plans.

********Jody, don't read this next part, it might make you sad! At least wait 'till after you get home. Really, I mean it! **************

Jody is flying home tomorrow morning. It's going to be hard for us to separate....it's been one hell of a trip! We covered 8 different states, saw the Louisville Slugger factory, saw Churchill Downs, went up inside the St. Louis Arch, camped in the freezing cold, toured downtown Denver, and wandered through heaps of random Lacey nostalgia. When thinking back to St. Louis, it feels like it was months ago! It's hard to believe that was just last week.

This was Jody and my first time spending so much time together just the two of us and we got along really well. Surprisingly well. Almost scary well. We've pretty much talked non-stop the entire time we've been together (except times like now when we're both busy blogging) and we haven't run out of stuff to say. We were both worried about having too many awkward quiet times stuck in the car together, but instead we keep coming up with more and more stories to tell. On top of that, we both bring this amazing silliness out in each other. We both have laughed so, so hard this week! We really just get each other.

It's been so great for me after spending so much time solo to have such a great companion. It's been a really really great end to my road trip.

Of course, it's not really the end of my trip as it's not November yet. So I'm still working on my exact plan. It's looking like I'm going to be spending a day or two more in Denver getting organized and hanging out with people, and then heading to home home in MT. From there I'll probably head to Park City, unless I end up needing to go back to Denver to deal with storage or something like that. I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to take all my PC stuff home home with me. I mean of course I can, but that will require adding a lot more stuff, and I hate to have to travel with all that extra crap (mainly the stinky hockey bag which is not fun to share space with). But logically it's probably better to minimize the driving as much as possible. Maybe I'll go to PC first to drop stuff off, and then to the Bozone. We'll see. I'm sure I'll keep you all updated!