Day Five from the Mile High City

Wednesday, June 30th

Today was our last full day in the very cosmopolitan city of Denver. I had several workshops to do this morning so Michelle and the kids didn't leave the hotel until I got done about 2:30. As a side note, the workshops I attended were the best of the entire conference.

When we did leave the hotel, we drove over on Federal Blvd. to find a good place to eat. Of course, Michelle had done some scouting ahead of time and we settled on Jack-N-Grill at 24th and Federal. Its reputed to have the best Green Chile' in Denver and has been voted as such for many of the past 10 years. They also have some terrific burgers and JC and I can attest to that fact.

We (and when I say we I mean @mishelleyb) ordered more food than we could have eaten in a day. Yay for leftovers! We started with the standard of chips and salsa. Their salsa was very american (tomatoey, just how I like it!) with some extra cilantro.

Jessica opted for a Green Chile' burrito. According to her, "it was really, really, really, really, really good!"

Michelle chose a half bowl of Green Chile' with beans (the bowl was as big as my head, I'd hate to see a full bowl) and a taco sampler. Her sampler included a barbecue pork type taco, shrimp with guacamole, a special pork style taco (Carne Adobada), and a shredded beef taco. While maybe not up to par with last night's taco fiesta, she did say "they were all good".

JC chose the "you'd better be hungry" aka "The Dez", named after one of the owner's children. It was about a pound and a half of meat with cheese with bacon. For the side order, he and I both chose "frings". JC said of his burger, "It was good."

I got "the Juarez", which is a burger with green chiles, 10 oz. of beef, a hot dog, ham, bacon, guacamole, and cheese. Oh my! It was fantastic. The spice of the chiles with the creamy guacamole made for a burger which was so delicious. Coupled with the "frings" (onion rings and fries) I could only finish half of it. That may also be due in part to the fact that we had enough food on our table to feed a small country in Europe for at least a week.

We also got an appetizer with zucchini, squash, corn, and cheese called calabasitas. Somewhat spicy, but very tasty. I've included a picture of all of the food on our table. The picture doesn't really show just how much is there!

We decided on this little dive because we had seen Adam from Man vs. Food on the Travel Channel taking their "7 lb. breakfast burrito challenge". After our experience here, its not hard to see why he didn't finish it. In Adam's defense, that burrito does have a dozen eggs in it.

As we sat waiting on our food (it took a while because they cook everything fresh), we talked about ideas for the "someday" version of Red Dirt BBQ and the kids tried to come up with ideas for a challenge which would attract Adam to our imaginary establishment. These are the best times of my life; just sitting with my favorite people enjoying their company and light conversation.

After a great meal, we did the usual "pick a street and drive". We drove west on Hwy. 40 (Colfax Blvd.) until we were nearly in Golden, CO (home of the Coors brewery). It was insightful to see the many faces of Denver. We passed through parts of town in which most people would double check that their doors were locked. A mile later, the Colorado Mills mall pops into view and the buildings get decidedly newer.

Just past the intersection of I-70, we turned around and headed back to the hotel. At this point in the trip, I must mention the things for which I am thankful:

• a great wife who likes to go new places
• two fantastic kids who are truly a joy with which to travel
• a very dependable vehicle (we'll turn 100,000 miles before we get home) with great air conditioning and only one rattle
• a job which allows me to travel to conferences such as ISTE

We are off on Thursday morning to Estes Park for part of the day and then down to Colorado Springs for Royal Gorge and the Garden of the Gods for the rest of our trip. (Oh and before I forget, Michelle and the kids went to the Eclipse premiere on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning.)

Day Four in Denver

Now I know all of the Oklahoma Peeps love Big Truck Tacos. Honestly, I've never been there and I'm almost ashamed to admit it. However, we did get some absolutely fantastic tacos and flautas at a little place in Denver called Tacos y Salsas. Michelle did some research and found the place (as usual) through a food blog. She's great at finding little out of the way places that are NOT chain restaurants. These are our favorite kinds of places and fit the mission of our travels, which is to sample local fare along the way and make it about the journey, not the destination!

I opted for Barbacoa Tacos at $1.55 each. I decided to have four of them since I wasn't sure I would be able to fill up without the pre-requisite Tex-Mex Chips and Salsa we have grown so accustomed to in our "mexican food joints". Michelle had a couple of Tacos Al Pastor. She really like them and I thought they were delicious, as well. Jess decided on a chicken flauta dinner (rice and beans included) and JC stuck with some of his favorite, chicken Tacos. He also got four of them, as we were famished by this time of the day!

The salsa bar was filled with delicious semi-liquid creations. They were very fresh. There was a standard tomato based salsa, full of cilantro, but good, nonetheless. Michelle really liked the one that was basically ground jalepeno and cilantro but she broke out in a bit of sweat after tasting it. I guess it was a bit on the hot side! There was one salsa that was super tasty (and a little hot) that was avocado based. Its that really pale green type and Michelle said that all salsas were "really yummy!" She had read there would be roasted jalapenos, but after seeing what was there, figured that might have been overkill, anyway (it ended up NOT having that).

The drink selection was minimal. It consisted of water and soft drinks in glass bottles. I was thankful for the water at times (when I hit a hot spot) but the kids enjoyed their Sprite and orange Fanta.

The restaurant was down on South Federal St. Its in an interesting mix of hispanic and asian markets and restaurants; there are quite a few (new) medical marijuana places mixed in, too. We opted for the good food, but stayed out of the "You won't give a crap about being sick when you are high" stores. I suspect they recently passed a law allowing medical marijuana in the state, but that's only because most of those stores looked new.

When we left that part of town, we drive back north toward downtown. As usual, we just enjoyed driving around through town. We drove past Invesco Field, home of the Denver Broncos. Apparently, Denver is the only major metro area with an amusement park in the middle of town; we got to see that, too. It was nice just to drive in town and look west to see the mountains with the sun getting low behind them and clouds blowing in from the other side. We have seen some really gorgeous skies in our time here.

We drove out Speer Blvd. from downtown to where it turns into Irving Blvd. between Highland and West Highland. There were some nice old houses and it was cool just to get away from the tall buildings and see where the "normal people" live.