Home Sweet Colorado Pt. 4: Baseball games of all sorts

I've gotta hurry up and get our vacation blogs posted...before they all fade from my memory! That's what happens when you have to get ready for school to begin as soon as you get home (more on that later).

Anyway, while in CO, we did more than visit museums and tacky theme restaurants; we also spent lots of time visiting friends and family. Obviously, we stayed at my parents' home; however, they are the only Nashes currently in Colorado. Nate's family, on the other hand, all still live in the Denver area or nearby--that means lots of aunts, uncles, and cousins to visit!

Like Uncle Evan, shown here holding his newest niece


We stopped by Grant & Molly's house on more than one occasion; they are very generous with their time & very hospitable; it was great to see them. They are also the family with the only other Barrett niece, Heidi. She and Celeste were very cute together, with their curly locks. However, they both got a little territorial over the little play-car:

Several days later, we were able to do something that Nate hasn't done in many years...attend a Little League game! Molly & Grant's oldest, Liam, plays catcher on his Little League team, and we thought it would be fun if we all went to cheer him on...

This was an especially nostalgic trip for Nate, since this was the same ball field he'd played on as a Little Leaguer many years ago!

The kids enjoyed hanging out with their cousins and watching the game...

...or, you know, NOT watching the game and taking a nap in the stroller.

Best of all, Liam had a great game...he scored two runs, ran the bases well (this is according to Nate; I'm afraid I don't know much about Little League or baseball in general), and his team, the Angels, won in extra innings. Go Liam! His parents were very proud and so were we! Here he is running home...

This outing made me wish two things: 1) I wished I had a boy, so I could enter him in Little League, and 2) I wished we lived a little closer to our extended family, so we could see stuff like this more often. I love living in AZ, but Colorado will always have a special place in my heart, and it's always good to see everyone when we visit.

Not long after this, we met up with more family--Ryan, Judy, and their son Cameron. This time, we all participated in a little game of T-ball...

It was lots of fun for all concerned--even if the kids didn't really know what the rules were or what they were supposed to be doing at any given moment.

Plus, Celeste's bat handling was a little unorthodox:

Not sure she'll make any professional leagues unless that stance gets fixed.

More vacation stuff soon (I hope!), including a campout, a Tiny Town, and a trip to Utah.

Home Sweet Colorado Pt. 3: Our Museum-Going Family

Confession time...I am a museum nerd, and have been since childhood. I really like visiting museums--any type, I'm not picky! I love visiting galleries, looking at lots of neat stuff, and learning things I didn't know before. This love of learning is something I hope I can pass down to my children

I've been lucky, in that throughout my life I have lived in cities with many good museums to visit. Tucson, while not as "family-friendly" as other places I've lived, still has several museums/learning centers worth visiting: the Tucson Children's Museum; the Reid Park Zoo; the International Wildlife Museum; The Pima Air & Space Museum; and (my personal favorite) the lovely Arizona/Sonora Desert Museum.

When I visited Colorado last month, I decided to take my girls to a few museums I used to visit as a kid. In so doing, I was reminded just how good the Denver-area museums are; I was a very lucky kid indeed!

The Denver Children's Museum

  I took Lorelai & Celeste here a few days after arriving in Denver, although I hadn't personally visited the Children's Museum since...well, since I was a child myself. I had very fond memories of it, though, and hoped that it would be worth the trip. This museum is also in LoDo (Lower Downtown to you non-Denverites), a very fun, happening part of the city. Some of the museum's "neighbors" include:

Invesco Field at Mile High (or Mile High Stadium II...whatever), home of the greatest football team in America, the Denver Broncos. This picture was taken from the Children's Museum's front lawn looking south.

Six Flags Elitch Gardens is also close by the museum; it lies just to the east, across the Platte River. Further northeast is Coors Field, where the Colorado Rockies play. Just to the north is the City Aquarium; further east yet is the 16th St. Mall, an open-air walking mall with stores for all ages & tastes. In short, LoDo has TONS of fun stuff to do. However, today we were just here to visit the Children's Museum, so in we went!!

The museum turned out to be quite fun--about as good as I remember, although much changed.

We spent some time in one of the activity rooms, where the girls played a "game show" called "Meal or No Meal." They had to try out anonymous samples of different fruits & vegetables, identify them, and decide whether they were good components of a healthy meal or not (hint: they were ALL healthy, so hooray for healthy snacks!).

Later, the girls got to build their own train routes...

And dress up as a ballerina (Celeste) and a Hogwarts student (Lorelai) at the costume area.

Much time, however, was spent in the "Bubble Lab." This place had several stations filled with wet, filmy bubble solution, and lots of ways to create bubbles. Here's Lorelai (in a lab coat & glasses, to prevent from getting completely sticky), with a few of her creations.

At another station, you could create "smoky" bubbles, by wetting the end of a tube emitting steam, then letting the bubble grow from the end of the tube. If your hand was wet, you could grab the bubbles yourself...

...as Celeste is doing here. The most exciting part of these bubbles was popping them in your hand, then watching the "smoke" escape & float away.

After blowing LOTS of bubbles, we headed for the "nature area," an interactive environment where kids could crawl around in mock-ups of various animal habitats or living spaces (a hollow tree, a nest, a big hole in the ground, etc.)

And, much like the Tucson Children's Museum, the fire truck was my girls' most anticipated exhibit, so we saved it for last:

Hooray! There was also a play food store, an outdoor sandbox, and a voice distorter that my girls had a blast with but I didn't have time to photograph. In short, it was a great way to kill a few hours and let their imaginations run wild. I can't wait to bring them back here again next year.

The Denver Museum of Nature & Science

 

 This is the museum I visited more than any other in my youth; my parents have had a membership here for as long as I can remember. I'm glad they have it; the more museums I've visited over my lifetime (and I've seen some pretty prestigious museums by this point), the more I realize that the Denver Museum is a top-tier effort. It has dozens of large, roomy exhibit halls; it attracts big-name traveling exhibits; it's got an IMAX Theater and a Planetarium...and it's all kept very up-to-date and sophisticated. I love it, and hoped Lorelai & Celeste would love it too!

Like many museums, the Denver museum has many life-size wildlife dioramas. These are one of the museum's older attractions (most of them were here when I was a little kid), but our kids enjoyed them anyway:

Look, manatees! (complete with underwater-lighting effects)

The kangaroos were another favorite. Then it was on to the space exhibit, adjacent to the Planetarium. There were LOTS of cool things in this hall, including a Mars Rover simulation for the kids, lots of hands-on physics experiments (not all of which were working, sadly), and this neat globe/screen, on which you could project the topographies of most planets in our solar system:

There was also a "Junior Astronauts" section for little kids, including astronaut gear!

While the girls played dress-up, I enjoyed the multimedia display nearby about current space operations--it included a whiteboard with handwritten, HOURLY status updates of the various explorer modules currently operating in our solar system. Pretty cool for a space geek like myself.

The Denver Museum has definitely improved its exhibits for young children. This large room is called the "Discovery Zone," and it contains just about any crazy learning activity your preschooler could want. There's a piano with its insides on view, to see how the sounds are made; a wind tunnel complete with various objects to throw inside it (it's neat to watch swatches of cloth twist & turn in the wind); blocks; sandboxes; tabletop science experiments; art projects; skeletons; and a life-size anatomically correct dummy, complete with all its internal organs:

Celeste loved it. There was also a small stage for special events; however, even when it wasn't open for business, there was an interactive slide show projected onto the stage, encouraging the kids in the audience to wiggle, dance, & identify colors & shapes:

Then it was on to an old favorite (albeit with a major facelift)--the Hall of Prehistoric Life:

The museum has had these dinosaur skeletons for decades, but due to continuing research, has reassembled them into what scientists believe is more anatomically accurate (ie, tails held out in the air behind them, for balance, not dragging on the ground). In addition, the skeletons used to stand opposite each other across the gallery--BORING! Now we can see them attacking each other--whee!

But the Hall of Prehistoric Life covers the history of ALL life on the planet, not just the dinosaurs. As a result, evolution has to be discussed. The girls loved doing a "breeding simulation" on this computer terminal, in which moths were "naturally selected" for breeding over several generations, and differences in the generations could be compared:

All in all, a great way to spend our morning. There were MANY exhibits available at the Denver Museum of Science & Nature that we skipped or skimmed (we didn't travel to the human health & anatomy section at all, we gave the Native American cultures wing a brief run-through, and we barely gave the mummies a glance). At least half of the animal dioramas were left unseen. We also decided to forgo the IMAX & Planetarium shows, which run several times daily.

So, I guess I'm saying...this is an AWESOME museum! If your kids are a little older than mine (school-age or greater), you could easily blow a whole day inside this museum (I should know; I did it many times as a kid myself!).

But in spite of all the wonders within, one thing amazed my girls more than anything else: the escalators. That's right...the escalators. Apparently I haven't done my duty as a parent, and my kids have been criminally underexposed to moving staircases over the course of their lives. Watching them approach these magical devices, eyes as big as dinner plates (and riding on their butts most of the way down--they were afraid to stand up on the stairs!), made me wonder why I hadn't just taken them to a mall instead...

Success! And the best part? This being a museum, this particular escalator had a Plexiglass wall, so curious visitors could look inside the machine's inner workings, and learn just how those stairs move up, down, and around.

Yeah...I knew we came to the museum for a reason...to learn!

(Okay, City of Denver, I'll take that check now)

Home Sweet Colorado Pt. 2: In Which I Visit "The World's Most Exciting Restaurant"

If you've ever lived in Denver (or heck, anywhere in CO), chances are you've been to Casa Bonita. If not, chances are you've at least HEARD of it...Casa Bonita has been open since 1974 and has become legendary amongst Coloradans. The reason: it's probably the most bizarre, mind-blowing, sensory-overloading Mexican dining experience you will EVER have ANYWHERE.

Of course, "dining experience" may be a misnomer; the LAST thing you visit Casa Bonita for is the food. This hilarious article by Denver-area blogger Joel Warner describes the restaurant thusly: "It's like Disney(land) had sex with Tijuana and left the goofy-looking bastard to fend for itself in a random strip mall on Colfax (Ave)." Truer words were never spoken, my man.

South Park fans (myself not included) may remember Casa Bonita from a season 7 episode, called (wait for it) "Casa Bonita." In this episode, Cartman lies, cheats, & manipulates his way into a birthday party for a kid he hates--all because the party is at Casa Bonita. Given how much real kids love this place, I actually buy that scenario. And while South Park often leans toward the surreal, the Casa Bonita scenes are surprisingly true-to-life; waterfall, puppet shows, sopapillas, mariachi bands & all. It's just that nutty, folks (WARNING: contains 2 profanities--not too bad for South Park, actually).

When I was a young kid, Casa Bonita was pretty much the coolest thing ever. It was THE place to go for food & fun...mostly fun, because who CARED how good the food was when you could see cliff divers and climb around a spooky cave? As I grew into adulthood, however, and my palate became more (ahem) refined, I began to see the restaurant in a different light. I saw Casa Bonita as a poorly lit, slowly decaying beast of a place, located in a somewhat seedy part of town, that always smelled slightly of chlorine and sweat. And the food...good grief, the food...

Despite all this, I'm a mom with kids now...kids who need to be entertained on vacation, darn it!! And what better place to entertain kids than a bizarro theme-park-style Mexican restaurant that gave me hours of endless pleasure as a child? So, despite the protests of my gastrointestinal system (which I knew would regret my decision), I piled my girls (plus Grandma Nash) into the minivan and headed to our date...with destiny.

So...have I sufficiently prepared you? READ ON for your exclusive photographic tour into the belly of the great & terrible Casa Bonita!!

The exterior is kind of nice, actually. Sure, you're in a strip mall, but that pink faux-church tower is sort of neat looking, plus there's this big fountain outside! (Just don't look too closely at what's floating in the water). Then you see the sign that says, "Due to the crapload of fun & games inside, we require EVERYONE who enters here to buy a meal. Sorry, amigos...it's just business." Or something like that.

So then, inside we go--down the long, winding, twisty corridor to the booth where we order our meal:

Believe me, this part goes on forever. Thank goodness we went on a Tuesday at lunchtime; for dinner hour, I've heard the line can snake almost outside the building, with an hour-long wait.

After putting in your order (and waiting in line some more), you get to the tray dispensary, where you pick up your tray. You will slide this tray along...

...and along, and along (this counter goes on for a looooong time), before you finally get to the kitchen, where your food is hand-delivered...to your tray. That's right: at Casa Bonita, you carry your own food to your table, cafeteria style (if you're lucky, one of the wait staff will assist you. Luckily, they saw we had a baby in tow and helped us out).

There it is, folks...the door to the kitchen (note the nearby hot plates with meals waiting for pickup). Who knows what goes on in that kitchen?? If you ask me, it's the most mysterious place in all of Casa Bonita...are there vermin running across the floors, as the restaurant's detractors insist? Are they scooping their enchiladas & burritos out of a can, slapping them on plates, then heating them up quickly in the microwave before sliding them out to the unwitting customers? Anything is possible...

So we were led to our seats, and what luck! Our table was situated mere FEET away from the diving stage (located just stage left of the famous waterfall), so we would have a pretty clear view of the Wild West shows & diving exhibitions. Now, to dive into our meal...ugh...

Here's the thing about the food...it's ALWAYS bad (with one exception I'll get to in a minute). Every time I go to Casa Bonita, I think, "It'll probably be better this time...it can't be as bad as I remember!" Bad news...IT CAN. The taco was flat and saturated with oil, the enchilada was drenched in Velveeta cheese (seriously), the rice was bland & kind of chewy, the beans were flat & rehydrated, etc. (also note the "ice-cream-scoop" of sour cream & guacamole). Celeste got a hamburger & fries, and I sampled it, thinking it might be better...no such luck. The price of this Taco Time-quality meal? $13.00!! Ugh...Anyway, I managed to scarf it down (going to the restaurant hungry might help), and I never had to throw it up. So that's a victory, at least.

Anyway, on with the entertainment!!

(Sorry for the bad picture quality; the main dining area of Casa Bonita is dimly lit & cavernous, not conducive to photography). The "Wild West" show, (sort of) seen here, involves a bunch of teenage Casa Bonita employees putting on some token Old West gear, "getting into character," shooting off air pistols, and shouting a bunch of things like "varmint" & "tarnation" at each other for 10 minutes. Finally, one or more of them (surprise!) falls off the stage during a struggle into the diving pool 15-20 feet below. While we had a good view of the proceedings, the actor's microphones are pretty old, and the sound echoes terribly in the dining area. So it's pretty tough to make out anything they say.

Here's the diving pool the actors fall into. At this point, (staying in character), they often curse the names of their dry comrades above...

...and then they'll wade over to the inevitable group of watching kids and joke around with them a bit, still in character. The same "actors" from the Wild West show would usually appear, 20 minutes later, as "Brazilian-style" cliff divers, who would perform dives from higher platforms along the waterfall--one as high as 30 feet! Lorelai & Celeste, as you can imagine, ate all this up...as did the many other kids watching.

Next, it was on to one of my personal Casa Bonita favorites--Black Bart's Cave! These pictures are all from the exterior; inside the cave, it's too dark to see (or photograph) much of anything. Basically, it's an artificial cave, built with lots of twists, turns, and hiding places (all the better for older kids to hide in, then jump out and scare the pants off of other kids passing through). Black Bart's ghost is yelling at you through tinny speakers throughout the cave, and there's glowing skulls on the walls, giant ape-men in cages, shaking bridges, even a demon's mouth you must pass through to exit, complete with smoke machine!! Kind of like a Disneyland "Haunted Mansion" ride that you walk through, only smellier & more Mexican.

Grandma took the girls through twice. Celeste was a LOT more resistant the second time, and when Lorelai wanted to go through it again, Celeste grumpily refused. Lorelai kept telling me how scary it was, and she was always whining & crying towards the end...and yet she kept wanting to go back through. All told, I think Lorelai went through the cave 5 times. Yeah, she's my daughter all right.

But we're not done yet! There's so much more stuff to see at Casa Bonita! For instance...

There's an arcade...

...a puppet-show theater...

... a caricature artist, who will draw your likeness (for an additional price)...

...multiple Old West-style photo studios (the "jail photo" booth was sadly closed today)...

...and a "wishing well" in the main dining area. This well always freaked me out as a kid, because at the bottom of the well is a sensor-activated television. When you peer into the well, a strange green-faced actor appears on the TV and starts yelling at you. You can never understand what he says, either because the speakers are slowly dying, or because the restaurant is too loud, or both. Anyway, I looked in as an adult, waiting to be freaked out again, but...

Yuck! All that's down there is a bunch of candy wrappers & other junk. The TV still works, but the speakers must be completely dead by now, because I couldn't hear a thing. Maybe they should post a sign saying, "The 'Wishing Well' is not a trash can!!"

Sadly, despite the South Park picture posted above, we did not encounter any roving mariachi bands on this particular trip. It may be because we visited on a weekday, during lunch hour...we'll never know. I know they still exist, though, because we saw several musicians on my LAST trip to Casa Bonita, made when Lorelai was still very young...

Oh, well...maybe next time we can experience some sweet "south of the border" tunes...

Besides all the obvious entertainments, though, just walking around Casa Bonita & exploring can be interesting, too. There are about 3 floors of dining areas, most of them with specific "themes." The main area by the waterfall is intended to be a Spanish-style plaza, but other areas look more like high-class haciendas. Then, in the lower levels, there's a "gold mine" style dining area, complete with mine carts & leaky ceilings (don't worry, buckets catch the water). Behind the waterfall, you get a "wet cave" dining experience, complete with fake bats hanging overhead...

Watch out for the guano!

There's also an entire "Magic Theater" on the ground floor, and it's a pretty nice, QUIET place to eat (though it's often used for special events & so rarely eaten in)...

Last of all, there's a rope bridge that runs directly behind the waterfall! It's a fun place for kids to walk; it gives a neat perspective on the main dining area. It's also a great location to see the cliff divers up close when they perform!

All the exploring made just enough room in our stomachs for...dessert!

Now HERE'S the best part of the Casa Bonita dining experience, hands-down: their sopaipillas! For the uninitiated, sopaipillas are basically a type of pastry dough, fried until puffy. There's a bottle of honey at each table; you break open the sopaipilla, squirt in a bunch of honey, and voila! Delicious. Hard to believe the same kitchen that can so consistently ruin Mexican food can churn out such good sopaipillas. The best part?

You can eat as many as you want!! This little window here lets you see the tasty treats being made, and they'll keep bringing them to your table as long as your "service flag" stays at the top of its pole. I must have eaten five or six sopaipillas; it pays to go easy on your meal, so you can gorge yourself on these babies.

Lorelai & Celeste had about one sopaipilla each, but they weren't as thrilled by them as I was. Instead, Celeste was irresistably drawn to another snack counter--one that featured Sno-Cones. She asked Grandma, myself, AND the vendor for a Sno-Cone probably about 15 times. When we finally refused (I didn't feel like paying $2.50 for a Sno-Cone!), she finally broke down in tears and wept long & loud. That softened the vendor's heart (he seemed like a very sweet elderly man), and he gave Celeste a Sno-Cone for FREE! Well, actually, it was just a cup of shaved ice, without the flavored syrup. That was fine with Celeste, though (and with Lorelai, who got her own "Shaved Ice Cone"); they thanked the vendor and thus became the happiest kids in Casa Bonita.

It was almost time to bid this crazy place farewell. Grandma, being the generous (and indulgent) gal she is, approached one of the toy vendors scattered throughout the restaurant, and got the girls a (ridiculously overpriced) going-home present...

Glowing laser swords of course! What says "Mexico" more than glowing laser swords with hilts shaped like Barbie hairbrushes?

With that, we headed out the door, back into the garish sunlight of a Denver summer afternoon. Our magical(?) afternoon at Casa Bonita had ended. Our stomachs had thankfully survived the trip; however, some of us were a bit emotionally overwrought from the experience...

Beware, parents: after several hours at a place like Casa Bonita, your kids may crash and burn...just like poor Celeste & Lorelai here. Whether the joy they receive from the visit is worth that tearful breakdown, I leave up to you.