Days 54-59: Denver - In Memory of Pooh Bear

Well dear readers, the time has come. My last individual blog post other than the grand finale! You can't see this but a single tear is rolling down my cheek.

Our last official destination on the road trip was Denver, Colorado, the home of the incomprehensible and adorable Katie McGuckin, her sister Kelly, and her parents, Pat and Margaret McGuckin.

We drove north from Telluride (see Telluride blog post) to Denver and it took us a little over 6 hours. I always forget how far East Denver is within the state of Colorado. It should also be mentioned that I forget where certain states are entirely, so my geography is not stellar. We wanted to arrive in Denver in late afternoon so that we could meet up with our good friends Meghan Wons, Curtis Franklin (brother of Mike Franklin of Grand Canyon post fame), and Collin Hoffman, most of whom worked with us in Madison before moving to Colorado.

Notables on the drive:
1. We stopped at Cindy Bread at the foot of Mountain Village on the way out of Telluride for some delicious breakfast sandwiches and I forced everyone to listen to Allison Krauss for the first part of the drive because she is awesome.
2. We kept lamenting that Colorado was our last official road trip destination and were extremely dramatic  (e.g. "Guys, this is the last time we will play the lonely island single "IJHS"on the way to an official road trip destination in Snoop....waaaa!)
3. We were really bad about taking pictures, so I have no official documentation of this day whatsoever other than the evening portion.

When we arrived we were greeted by Mr. and Mrs McGuckin (sorry Parm, I can't call them by their first names, it just feels wrong now) who had made us some lovely appetizers. We are no strangers to the McGuckin household. Katie has brought huge groups of people to the casa de McGuckin over the last three years or so for numerous group trips camping or skiing in the Rockies. In fact, we used about half of Mr. M's camping gear for this trip. Thank you!! The McGuckins always cook the most wonderful food and are such thoughtful hosts, so it was no surprise that they had a delicious appetizer spread laid out for us. We also had our own rooms which was especially amazing since more than one of us was still fighting the cold that had lingered since San Diego.

Around 7PM we headed to Madison Street to see the house where Katie will be living at the conclusion of the road trip with ND grads Meghan Wons and Sarah Glatt. Katie hadn't seen her future diggs yet, so we took a brief tour. The house is adorable, has a great backyard and is at a great location. Katie was just thrilled until we found out that...BUM BUM BUUUUUUMMMMMM...she does not have a closet. Katie reaction was stone-faced exclaiming "I don't have a CLOSET" in the same tone and with the same amount of incredulousness as "You slept with my BOYFRIEND!" Parm and I found it slightly humorous because Katie has a lot of clothes... we'll just leave it at that :) We agreed that this necessitated an IKEA excursion for a standing closet.

Then we headed down the street to Madison's for a dinner with Meghan Wons. It was a reunion long time in coming, and we got to catch up with Meghan about her new job, future plans, and of course dish all the gossip and juicy details we couldn't post or completely down played on this blog. Toward the end of the dinner, Curtis joined us and we regaled him with additional road trip stories. We ended the night at  Katie and Meghan's, Collin and Sara joined us, and we spent time just catching up with one another. It was a really good night seeing old friends.

Madison girls reunion! If only Pohl, Canavan and Wons 1.0 were here

Meghan, Collin and Curtis were headed off the next day to go on a two week white water rafting trip through the grand canyon (I know badass right?) so we would not see them for the rest of our time in Denver.

Day 2
I'm going to keep the next day brief simply because there isn't a lot to stay. We did the following in this order:
1. Roused ourselves sometime between 10AM and 12PM. Did laundry.
2. We sat on our butts watching approximately 6 episodes of KUWK (Keeping Up With the Kardashians) In case you are wondering, there is a growing rift between Kourtney and her brother Rob because Rob does not like Kourtney's live in boyfriend, but when Rob gets appendicitis, they realize that they need to come together as a family. #rottingmybrain (that was for you Parm)
3. We made brownie batter and ate it...and never cooked actual brownies. I don't know whether I am sad or proud to report that this was a common occurrence at the Renaissance apartments in Madison.
4. We blogged because people were yelling at us for being about 4 entries behind.
5. We had a delicious dinner with Mr. and Mrs. McGuckin and Sarah that evening. My favorite part of the dinner were the artichokes steamed to perfection with delicious dipping sauce, followed at a close second by the delicious steak. Yesssssssss.

Sarah (the new roommate), Mr. and Mrs. M, Parm and me. Please note the delicious appetizer plate and tasty wine...McGuckin staples! 

But the best part of the whole day was undoubtedly when we took these pictures in the traditional tribal hats that Katie's mom has on the table for decoration:

They are as heavy as they look. Princesses Parm and Emmie...Parm is holding up her arms like an egyptian although they are being blocked by flowers. I had to hold my crown because it was too small for my head.

One of my favorite pictures of Katie to date. Queen Margaret and Princess Katie. If only we'd put one on Mr. McGuckin.

Day 3
I have been complaining this entire trip that we do not go to nearly enough amusement parks so on day three I talked the ladies into going to Water World, which is a water park near downtown Colorado where Katie spent some of her childhood. We packed ourselves some nice lunches and got there a little after noon. Lessons learned about water parks:

1. The demographics are very different than we remembered. The park was filled with teenagers and their friends on summer break who are attempting to flirt while simultaneously looking incredibly insecure and self conscious in their bathings suits OR couples on a date OR mothers/baby-sitters with children. There was almost no in between. Seeing as how we were three twenty-somethings alone trying to scope out sweet innertubes to use on rides, we did not exactly blend in. We received looks from several groups that translated to "What are you doing here, you must be losers without jobs..." To which we had no rebuttal.
2. Pavement is hot. Wear sandals or you burn your feet.
3. Wave pools waves are way less intense than we remembered, especially after spending the summer in a real ocean. But the level of physical danger is much higher than we remembered- the pool is so packed that there are bodies in tubes flying everywhere, drowning small children, smacking people in the face.
3. Speed slides are just as fun as I remembered, if not FUNNER (I am aware that is not a real word)
4. Do not go on the ride "Screaming Mimi" or you end up like this

The first aid station at Water World, manned by a 17-year-old who clearly had very little first aid training.

That's right ladies and gentleman, our prediction that Katie would be the first to be seriously injured was accurate. Katie and I took a topple on "Screaming Mimi" (which we obviously renamed to "Screaming Katie")where you are supposed to glide across the water on a water sled into a large pool after speeding down a big hill. Katie scraped her right leg along the bottom of the pool as we fell. It was bleeding quite a bit and she had some major scarring on her knee! We all felt very bad for her because it looked painful :( but once we knew she was ok, we were amused that our prediction came true. She was a trooper.

After Katie got bandaged up, we headed out to dinner with the McGuckins at one of their favorite Italian restaurants. We especially loved the truffle that was sprinkled on several of the dishes. Delicioso!

Dinner crew!

We also did a preliminary celebration of Mrs. McGuckin's birthday! Happy Birthday round 1!

To close out the night we headed to downtown Colorado to the new rooftop bar in the Hilton which had a beautiful view of the city as well as the mountains and had a draaaank. We attempted to take some pictures, but they are very dark. We did get a nice one of Katie and our lovely hosts though!

Day 4
The next day was Saturday and we went on a great bike ride with Mr. and Mrs. McGuckin downtown along the riverwalk...without Katie due to her knee :( The scenery was beautiful and we stopped at the ginormous REI downtown which amazed us- we are in Colorado after all! Then we headed back and stopped at Whole Foods for delicious brunch supplies which Mr. McGuckin expertly carried/toted while biking. We ate like kings once again! Here is a snapshot of the delicious breakfast cooked by the McGuckins!

Fruit salad, delicious eggs

Candid shot of the biker gang

That afternoon, we did some shopping for necessities with Mrs. McGuckin very close to where Katie grew up in Denver, and then we went to mass at their parish. After mass, we went to dinner at a local burger joint per Mrs. McGuckin's request that was absolutely delicious and many of us got milkshakes. More good food!! One of the servers had gone to school with Katie, so that was a cool coincidence. The capstone on the day was when we went to blockbuster and actually rented HomeWard Bound, the movie we have been non-stop referencing throughout the blog. We actually watched it on Sunday, but it was as good as I remembered and I'm pretty sure I saw both Parm and Katie crying at the end when Shadow comes limping through the backyard to Peter! Oh wait, that was me...

Happy Birthday to Mrs. M!

We also had a brief celebration for Mrs. McGuckins birthday that evening. Parm baked some scrumptious angel food cake and we sang Happy Birthday. We need to take a moment to recognize that Katie's family dog, Pooh Bear is in this picture, because when we arrived back in Madison we received word from the McGuckins that he passed away :( Rest in peace Pooh Bear. I'm glad this happy family moment is captured on the blog.


Day 5
We chilled, we watched Homeward Bound, we gave Mrs. McGuckin some birthday gifts which were lovely, and then we got ready to head to Jazz in the Park to meet up with Katie's high school friends in the evening, more specifically Tim of Glacier post fame! In preparation Mrs. McGuckin helped us make some chicken salad among other  items to take for dinner...which we left in the fridge. Luckily, we were able to eat from other people's picnic supplies, and we had brought some "beverages" as well. We couldn't really hear any jazz from where we were sitting, but it was fun to hang out and see all the "Colorado chicks" (uniform: no make-up or very little make-up, sandals, pants or capri's made out of cargo or other linen, non name brand tank-top, chocos (sp?) optional) and we made note that there were a lot of dudes around. Always nice.

Chicks in the park. Note the lack of chicken salad

Tim whose birthday is soon approaching!!

Afterwards we headed to a bar and played some Connect Four which Katie and Parm won. It should be mentioned that they got into a fight while trying to figure out which move to make. Competiparm! They took this victory shot which Tim and I hijacked being the sore losers that we are (we're #1!!)

That's Tim's hand indicating that WE are #1 and I cut Parm out of the picture. Muahahahaha

The most important development of the night, however, was that we decided we weren't ready to be done with the BBRT. We just weren't! The road trip had been so fun and we wanted to go out with a bang. So we decided with the help of Tim and Katie's other friend "Scram" (yeah I don't know how that name came about) that we should take a last minute trip somewhere tomorrow. Anywhere. Yeah. Are we serious? people kept asking. We quit our jobs and went on a two month road trip, hell yeah we're serious! We're CRAZY b*tches (censoring for you mom). So we started listing locations on a paper plate and we came up with the following.

Good idea, whoever decided to take a picture of this plate (wasn't me)

Of course price is a factor. So, which did we choose? Are you dying to know? Only the next blog post will tell! Or, spoiler alert, you can look at our facebook pictures. But don't! We dropped off Tim and woke up the next day to get ready for the last leg of the trip!

To end this post, a huge shout-out and thank you to the McGuckins! You are always the most thoughtful and wonderful hosts. Particularly in that when we are at your home you don't treat us as visitors, you makes us feel like we are at home! Thank you thank you thank you for everything you do for us from food, to trips, to beds/humidifiers, to great company. Oh and for Katie too. She's pretty great :)

Till the finale blog readers, and our mysterious and truly FINAL road trip stop!