Just Two Nerds

This past weekend we chose to stay in the Denver area, so we went over to the aquarium.  The exhibits range from North American fish, ducks, and otters, to tropical fish, sea turtles, and sharks.  There are also jellyfish (including a baby jellyfish), lobsters, snakes, gekkos, tigers, birds, and turtles.  Check out the pictures here.

We heard that Frisco was holding their annual BBQ festival, and decided to take a Saturday drive into the mountains to go to it.  Just before we reached Eisenhower Tunnel we saw signs saying that an accident had shut down the tunnel.  So we drove over Loveland Pass in order to bypass the tunnel.  Of course, we wound up behind 10 cars which were behind 2 large semis.  The views were great, though no one was very happy with the trucks.  Nevertheless, we got to Frisco before the festival started at 10am, parked, bought our food tickets, and happily wandered around sampling the food.

The main street was shut down and lined with vendors.  There was also some live country music.  We tried the grilled corn with butter (delicious), pulled pork (also very good), brisket, ribs, shrimp and sausage skewers, more grilled corn, bbq pork nachos (delicious), some more pork, and a bit more brisket.  The food was very good, and although we got sunburned, we had a great time.  Check out pictures here.

Tags: BBQ, Frisco, Loveland Pass

A few weeks ago during the middle of the week we started talking about what to do over the weekend.  We decided that we’d never seen the Grand Canyon (the last time we were in Phoenix there were 2 feet of snow in that part of the state), booked the tickets, and left for Phoenix Saturday morning.  We had a nice flight, picked up the rental car, and headed north, out of the city and into the mountains with beautiful evergreens and clean mountain air.  We spent about 5 hours at the Grand Canyon (with breaks for snacks and a few trips to Fazoli’s).

We had lovely weather - about 80 at the canyon, 100+ in Phoenix - and the crowds weren’t too bad.  We found a place to park and spent some time walking along the rim trail, admiring the views into the canyon.  Along the way we decided to go right instead of left, and several moments after that an immature condor flew right over our heads.  The wingspan was maybe 4′, and the bird was beautiful.  Later on we went down to the village section of the park, where we got to see 2 adult condors from a distance of about 30′, as well as several flying through the canyon.  The birds are huge, and very cool to see.

We also had the chance to see the sunset over the canyon; it was hazy inside the canyon but the haze turned different shades of purple as the sun was setting.  After the sunset we drove back to Scottsdale, just outside of Phoenix.

On Sunday we went to Butterfield’s Pancake House for breakfast, and then to the Desert Botanical Gardens in Phoenix.  Many of the cacti were in bloom, and although it was very warm outside we had a great time.  We had a leisurely dinner at NYPD Pizza, where we had incredibly good pizza, yummy garlic knots and fried pizza dough tossed with powdered sugar (called zeppolis) and served with raspberry and chocolate dipping sauces.  (We enjoyed the leftovers for breakfast the next morning before heading to the airport.  After dinner we went to the Tempe Butte over by ASU’s stadium to watch the sunset, then drove by the Arizona Cardinal’s new stadium.

We were awake at 3:30am the next morning to catch our flight back to Denver; the view from the plane was great, we could see many of the snow-covered mountains.  Once we landed, we retrieved our car and went to work.  Officially, it was our longest morning commute.

Photos from the trip:

• Driving to the Grand Canyon
• Exploring the Grand Canyon
• Exploring Phoenix
• Flying Back to Denver

Tags: Grand Canyon, NYPD Pizza

We thought that a Rockies game would be a great way to spend a sunny weekend afternoon.  Our seats were up in the nosebleeds, right behind home plate.  The views of the field were great, though, and the game was very good - if you were a Mets fan, that is.  They had 5 runs in the first inning; we had one (single) home run in the first.  The game was fairly close after that; until the Mets managed to accumulate a few more runs.  We also got another run - our pitcher, that’s right, the pitcher, somehow made it to first; then second; then from second all the way to home.  We also found delicious foot long hot dogs.

We recently celebrated our two year wedding anniversary at the Cheesecake Factory.  We had a great time, good food, and good company.

You can see the pictures here.

Tags: Anniversary, Rockies

We spent the night in Harper’s Ferry, and then got on early start on the day in DC.  We used the all-day metro pass to get around the city; our first stop was at the Washington Monument to get tickets for later in the day.  Then we headed over to the Old Post Office Building; there is an observation deck in the clock tower which is almost as high as the Washington Monument.  After admiring the views of the city, and being somewhat irked by pushy tourists with some book club, we headed down to the basement cafeteria for a croissant breakfast sandwich and a falafel sandwich.  We then walked back to the Washington Monument to go on the elevator ride to the top.  The day was clear, and the views were good.

We decided to do the monument tour next.  The first stop was the WWII Memorial, the reflecting pool and the Lincoln Memorial.  We wandered through the Korean Memorial, forgot where the Vietnam Memorial was, and wandered over to the Jefferson Memorial.  At this point we decided that we were ready for lunch, so we went over to Chinatown for a good lunch in a tiny restaurant.

After lunch, we took a walk past the FBI building, over to the White House, and then went to the Air and Space Museum.  After the museum closed we went down to the mall at the Pentagon stop and had burgers and fries at Jonny Rockets.  We then attempted to go the zoo, which was closed for a “special event.”  So instead we walked by the zoo and kept going through the Woodley Park section, where we then caught the metro and went back to our car.  We drove back to Brownsville, and then up to NY the following day.

Tags: special event, Washington DC, White House