Meemo in the Mountains: Wow! What a Busy Week We Had! Part 1

Up in the Skybox for dinner when JJ came to Denver to visit.

The whole gang enjoying the view.

Last week JJ and her neighbors Cathi and Becci came to stay with us in Denver. Since it was the first time Cathi and Becci had been here, we decided to do some "touristy" things. I had checked out a lot of things in the Denver magazine in our motel room so we had a lot to pick from. Becci (who is 17) of course voted to go shopping on the 16th Street Mall and who were we to argue with that! It was pretty hot out and I was accused of "walking them to death", but we had a lot of fun, too.

Our first stop was to see the big blue bear in front of the convention center. Cathi looks tiny.

We saw one side of the rainbow right above Elitches.

*Click on the pictures to make them bigger. Hit the back button to get back to the blog.

JJ had remembered being there a few years ago when she was at a teachers' conference with a group of her friends from Elko. She insisted we had to get a picture of The Purple Martini to send to some friends who had a memorable night there. Part of JJ's memory was that they hunted for hours for it while on a cell phone with the "slightly drunk" friends giving directions. Our shuttle driver thought she knew kind of where it was and gave us directions. We spent some time looking around and, just by chance, looked up when we got to the Tabor Center and saw it's sign on a bridge across Laurence Street! We hurried up 3 flights of stairs and got our cameras ready for pictures only to find that it was closed down! There were beer and vodka bottles strewn all over the floor and it looked like disassembled bar stools lined up behind the locked door! It sort of looked like they had a huge last night party and just walked out with no clean up what so ever. We took some pictures of it anyway. Later that night JJ called the number in the phone book for it and got a recording giving its hours like it was still in business--a new mystery to speculate on!

The sign is still up but there was a big lock on the door.

This is for JJ and Cathi's teacher friends. See, they did visit it.

The shades are pulled and no one was there.

We did some school shopping for Becci and then stopped at Jamba Juice for our lunch health drink. We did a lot of walking, picture taking and browsing. We spent some time at Hard Rock Cafe taking pictures--I guess Cathi and Becci had never been to one before.

We didn't eat here but I took a picture just to document that we had visited it!

Same thing here. I took this for Tory. I saw it while we were sitting drinking our Jamba Juice. I'm sorry we missed checking it out. Maybe next time!

We stopped on the Mall to take pictures of each other playing chess. A man nearby offered to take pictures of us and then introduced us to the boy sitting at the next chess board who was his son. We thanked him and he told us he was a master chess player and had won many tournaments, his latest being at Manitou Springs. He claimed to be Colorado's champion chess player and to check him out on the internet. His name was Brian Wall. Of course JJ did and found out he is the author of some great sounding books for learning to play chess. Now she wishes he had mentioned them so she could have gotten an autographed copy to use when she teaches chess to her second graders! He did offer to let JJ play chess with his young son, but JJ was afraid to. She figured he'd beat her in 3 moves!

Playing chess. Notice the man who took our picture got his son in it too!

I got a picture of 2 games of chess. The man on the back left is the expert, Brian Wall, playing with his son.

We proceeded on, taking some pictures of JJ and Becci playing some of the pianos along the way. We stopped at the Cheesecake Factory for some yummy cheesecake which we shared because the Jamba Juice had filled us up too much. But who can resist Godiva Chocolate Cheesecake?

JJ doing her Stevie Wonder impression on a Cayman Island Piano. (Really it was a Baldwin!)

Becci trying out another piano in Writer's Square.

A side view of that Cayman Island paint job.

MMMMMM!!! Yummy cheesecake!

JJ and I couldn't finish this delicious Godiva Chocolate Cheesecake (With real whipped cream) even with help from the others!

We spent time at the Rockmont Western Wear Store (see my earlier post on it) and The Tattered Cover. I had stubbed my big toe when we first arrived at the Mall and it had been throbbing ever since so I admit that I sat in one of the comfy chairs at the bookstore and could have easily took a nap while the others browsed, but I just people watched instead. My toe hurt for a few days but is now better!

My big sore toe

Have you ever checked out livingsocial.com on the internet? It has a daily deal for different restaurants, spas, electronics, etc. at cities all over the USA (groupon.com is another one). Micah was on his computer and looked up a deal in Denver for us, so we checked it out and got $20 off our dinner at the Blake Street Vault that night. It is situated in an old building in Lodo that has tunnels and an old gold vault underneath it. It also has a ghost, Lydia, that haunts it. You can ask for a tour of the Vault and tunnels but we didn't. They have all kinds of local and other beers, and the food is good. The menu is kind of different. I had buffalo red eye stew, Bob had Rocky Mountain oysters, JJ had green chili, Cathi had crispy panko fried chicken fingers, and Becci had chicken Caesar salad. We had fun and it was a good meal.