Courtney was one of those unfortunate thousands who had their flights cancelled at Christmas, but she was finally able to make it to Denver for a long-belated multi-holiday celebration. It might seem strange to be opening Christmas presents in March, but it was really kind of fun, because we'd all forgotten what we asked for. I think the weirdest part of our celebration was eating corned beef, cabbage, and dumplings for dinner rather than ham or turkey, but when you show up the day after St Patrick's Day that's what you're going to get.
The next day we did a pre-Easter celebration by coloring eggs. I wasn't sure if this was going to work, because I've had a devil of a time figuring out how to hard-boil an egg at the high altitude in Denver without it exploding. One of my neighbors recommended using a kitchen tool that pierces a tiny hole in the bottom of the eggs. I think it's supposed to relieve the pressure, but I tried it and it worked (no cracks). The only trouble with this technique is that the dye leaked through in the coloring process and when we peeled the eggs, they were the color of the shell. It didn't taste any different, but Bruce refuses to eat a purple egg.
Courtney hasn't skied in years, so she wanted to test out the bunny slope for her first run. She said it was kind of strange, because rather than going up a chair lift or rope tow, there was a conveyor belt that you stepped on.
The next day was the first day of spring, so Courtney and I headed downtown to high tea at the Brown Palace Hotel. It's an atrium-style hotel meaning we could look up from our seats and see all 8 floors of guest rooms ringing the center section. We each got a little pot of tea - I had the Earl Grey lavender tea and Courtney had the peach blossom. They brought out a 3-tiered serving platter with scones on the bottom, finger sandwiches in the middle, and desserts on the top. There were also dishes of clotted cream and lemon curd on the table. Yum!
The Brown Palace was built in the shape of a triangle by one of Denver's founding homesteaders, so the streets in that area come together in a weird configuration (ie. not your normal north/south grid). I've been down there before with friends and it's frustrating trying to figure out how to maneuver around. So rather than driving, we decided to take the train downtown. It really turned out to be quite easy to use the light rail - I bought tickets from the app on my phone, and the train dropped us off just a couple blocks from the hotel. But on the way back, I wasn't really paying attention, because I was trying to get pictures of Courtney at the station, so we ended up getting on the wrong train. Luckily, it was in a section where the lines overlap, so we hopped off at the next station and waited for the correct train to show up. If we wouldn't have realized what we'd done, who knows were we would have ended up.
