“I Am The One Who Buys That!”
Even though we went to bed a little earlier last night we were still pretty tired. We slept in until 10ish and then packed up our stuff. We had skipped breakfast so when we left the hotel around 11:30 A.M. we decided to go and get lunch. We again headed downtown on the lookout for a brewery. We were trying to go to the Flying Dog but evidently it is out of business. Instead we ended up at the Breakenridge.
Breakenridge Brewery was a super cool place. One of the best surprises was when we walked in the door they were showing the Prefontaine Classic on a 100” screen. I had forgotten I was missing the meet while we were in Denver so this was a super welcomed surprise. The pulled pork sandwich I had was fantastic. I tasted Amanda’s beers and not surprisingly I wasn’t a huge fan. She liked them though and we both liked the pint glasses. We ended up getting four glasses for ten bucks, which we thought was a pretty good deal.
After a long and leisurely lunch we decided to spend our remaining two hours or so exploring more of downtown Denver. We went to see the classic “Denver” sign located on the 16th street mall. We browsed around a few shops on the promenade and then wandered into a big festival that had been causing us traffic detours for days. The event turned out to be the “People’s Fair of Denver”. It was actually kind of cool. There were tons of food and arts and crafts booths. The people watching was fantastic. Two highlights included a large man roller blading in spandex and full pads and a girl who appeared to be wearing a thin terry-cloth tube dress that was not hiding ANYTHING from the imagination. I also enjoyed one of the amusement rides. It looked like a large jumpy chair for adults. I’ve always wanted one of those. When I make my version of Neverland Ranch, I am going to have one. I’ll post a picture of it at the bottom of this post.
Our trip out to the airport was quick and efficient. Denver has a nicely located gas station right by the airport so filling up the rental car’s tank was no problem. We loaded the Avis bus and were in the terminal an hour and half before our flight was scheduled to leave. On the way out we had a little trouble with the location of the seats, so I decided to head straight for an agent this time. I was hoping to upgrade us with e-coupons, so I decided to get in the 1K/First Class line. This was not technically correct but the agent was super cool about it. She couldn’t confirm any upgrades for us but she did put us on the waitlist. She thought the odds of us getting one upgrade was good but two was unlikely. Again it sucked that we were on separate itineraries because if we were on one, this would have all been easy.
My first stop once getting through security was Wolfgang Puck’s. On our way to the restaurant my phone rang. That is never a good sign when one is in an airport. It was United calling to tell us our flight was a half hour delayed. It could have been worse I guess. We continued on our way to find my secret treat for Mandy. The Wolfgang’s in the Denver airport has the most incredible vanilla pudding with berries on it. Just typing this makes me hungry. I heard about it from my friend Joel and now I get it every time I am in Denver. Amanda is now a huge fan too.
The departure time boards within all of terminal B were malfunctioning. This obviously prevented us from knowing the status of our flight, which was pretty annoying. We decided it best to just go out and hang at the gate. When our flight was finally posted on the board I decided to go and ask the agent about the possibilities of upgrades. While I was in the line she paged me to the counter. I cut the line, told her my name and she said I had been upgraded. I told her I was also traveling with a friend and I asked her if Amanda was likely to get upgraded as well. She said no, there were going to be two more names called and her’s was the third on the list. I decided to take my upgrade anyway. Amanda had never flown first class and seemed as though she really wanted to try it. I didn’t mind sitting in coach by myself, so I took the one seat and went back to Mandy. Within a few minutes we boarded the plane with the first batch of passengers.
I was seated in 10C which is two rows behind First Class. I could see Amanda climb into 6A. A few minutes later I saw Amanda move to 1D. It looked like a gentleman had asked her to move so he could sit next to his wife. The plane continued to fill but the two seats next to me were remaining empty. One of the last few people on board sat in the middle seat next to me. Her husband sat in the middle seat across the isle. She seemed to me like the type of old lady who was on her way home from a lifetime of smoking in Vegas. She was whining in her raspy voice about all of her delays and yada, yada, yada. In an attempt to lift her spirits I told her that I had upgraded my friend to First Class, so the window seat was likely to stay empty and her husband could probably move into that seat. She liked this idea and asked the flight attendant if he could move yet. The flight attendant wanted to make sure no one else boarded before allowing the shift. She also wanted to know why I upgraded my friend and if I would be willing to upgrade her. I laughed a bit and said I would but I couldn’t because there wasn’t even a seat for me to upgrade myself. At this point the flight attendant told the old guy he could move over. I got out of my seat to make it easier on him. His wife got up too and he shuffled across the aisle. I sat down again and started to get comfortable. At this point the gate agent came on the plane with the passenger manifest and said something to the flight attendant that I couldn’t hear. She then came over to my seat and asked me if I “wanted to ride upfront”. I said, “Why yes thank you, I do.” I stood up and grabbed my backpack from under my feet. The old lady said, “where are you going now?” I said, “I’m going up front.”
The flight attendant told me to grab “the empty seat”. Both 3C and 3D were empty. I set my backpack under 3D and then went to grab Amanda out of 1D. I figured if 3C was empty also she might as well sit with me. So after three moves for Amanda and two for me we were both comfortably seated together in First Class. Not a bad deal.
One nice thing about going First Class from DEN to PDX is that they serve you dinner. Amanda had the ravioli and I had the roast beef. I enjoyed mine and believe she enjoyed hers. I also believe she enjoyed her wine, bloody mary, vodka and cranberry, and whatever else I missed in between.
After dinner I worked on the blog and Amanda read the “Skymall” catalog. Every so often she would tap me and show me a crazy item. The first, fittingly, was a floating pool bar. She thought we needed it for the yard. I can’t really disagree with that. I would enjoy a Diet Dr. P. while swimming. The next item was a traction device for a person’s neck. It had a hilarious picture of a guy hanging in a doorway. Even better was the sumo looking doll table. I should have taken a picture of this. It looked like a sumo wrestler sculpture hunched over with glass on top. When Mandy showed me this I had to ask her. “Who buys these things?” We pontificated that for a while and got a good laugh out of it. Another ten minutes or so passed and she tapped me again. This time she pointed to an item in the lower right hand corner of the catalog. When I saw it my eyes lit up. I said, “I am the one who buys that!”. It was an air gun that shoots marshmallows and yes I am in fact the proud owner of such a gun. We both started laughing hysterically.
Before we knew it we were on the ground in Portland. Chris was waiting directly outside the doors of baggage claim for us. I wasn’t sure when we left Denver if I wanted to sleep at Chris and Amanda’s or drive back to Eugene. We ended up getting back to their place by 9 P.M. so I decided to drive home.
It’s now late and I’m tired from a super fun action packed three days. I wouldn’t have expected anything less from a weekend with Mandy Moore, OAR and Red Rocks. Until the next adventure…
Katy
I’ve always wanted an adult jumpy chair.
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