Tennessee

Last Wednesday I traveled to Tennessee to be rejoined with all of my family and visit my 96 year old grandpa.  Darren couldn't leave until Thursday night (the poor fella took the red eye and got in Friday morning), so I took two buses all the way from Colorado Springs to the Denver airport.  

The public transportation was quite efficient and it was nice to be able to snooze in my bus seat through Denver morning traffic, but surprisingly it wasn't that great of a monetary deal.  It cost $11 to Denver and then another $12 to the airport one way.  If I had driven to the airport and parked it would have cost $10 a day to park (plus gas), so really it's only cheaper to take public transportation if a single person will be traveling more than four days ($46 if I'd gone by the bus round trip) or two people more than nine days ($92 for two people to take round trip public transport), or, as in my case, two people are traveling at different times.  Sorry for that boring tangent, but I was just shocked at how the U.S. doesn't make environmentally superior public transportation more affordable.  Granted, I do think the tickets are cheaper if you buy multiple tickets.  I believe that is why I saw so many business people actually utilizing the system.

Anyhoo, I made it to my flight with plenty of time.  We took off an hour late because someone had put too much fuel in the plane and they had to actually take out some fuel.  Thankfully I made my connection in Atlanta, but I had to sprint through the airport weaving around children and army folk Amazing Race style in order to get to my gate.

Thirty minutes later I was on native soil and saw my dad ready to greet me outside of airport security.  All I had eaten the entire day was a muffin from The Mate Factor and some cookies and pretzels on the plane, so he, my mother, Sadie and I picked up some pizza on the way home.  The rest of the night my family and I just relaxed, watched television, and the sisters and I got on three different laptops to play mindless computer games together (Frontierville, yes.  We are such nerds.).

On Thursday Brad got in super early from his redeye from California so he and Jess took a three hour nap while I did some scrapbooking consisting of random things from my senior year in high school.  I had to get in one project while I was home; it's sort of a tradition.   

Later in the evening my sisters, Brad, Joel and I went to hang out at Fox and Hound.  We consumed greasy food and played table shuffleboard for a couple hours.  It was extremely fun, but alas our girl/sister team lost its groove and the boys came out triumphant.

No, we are not doing a seance, just a simple sister mind merge for luck!  Don't ask.

We had never played this sort of shuffleboard, but an employee explained how it is done.  There are four  point scoring sections on the board.  If one slides their disc into the closest and largest section, he or she scores one point.  The next sections are two, three and four points respectively as they get further away from the shooter. The disc in the picture below is a four pointer.  Those were my points until one of the boys knocked it off the board.  If that happens, the points don't count.  A player can also earn points if he or she knocks off an opponent's disc and their personal disc stays on the board.  If they knock off two discs they get five points--but supposedly that is extremely difficult to do.

Friday morning Darren also arrived early from a redeye, but there was no chance of a nap for him.  Right after I picked him up from the airport I took him to the famously yummy and SLOW Aretha Frankensteins for breakfast.  My friend David lives close by, so he joined us for our three hour breakfast.  I really didn't think it would take so long on a weekday, but it did.  I felt bad that we took so much time out of David's workday, but we did enjoy good food and conversation.

Soon after we finished our meal, my family was on its way downtown to have lunch and go to the aquarium.  Darren and I killed time at Rock Creek, wandered through Renaissance Park, and picked up loads of free stickers, hats, and even water bottles at the River Rocks booths in Coolidge Park.  I admitted to most vendors that we weren't actually participating in any of the adventure games, but they still let us have the booty.

Mandy and Joel happened to be close by at Good Dog so we joined them, then Mandy, Darren and I met up with Brad, his parents, Jess, and Sadie at the aquarium.  

Otters are my favorite animals!  They are so playfully acrobatic.

Butterfly hitchhikers

Brad trying to get Sadie's attention

Denny would love to mountain bike these obstacles in front of the aquarium

By the time we got back to our van, Olivia was getting off work so we hung out with her at Rembrandts.

That night my grandpa and numerous other family joined us for our family's old tradition of cinnamon rolls and hot chocolate for supper (plus some other food).  Both my sisters and I used to make the rolls with my grandma, so we were nostalgic.

Saturday Darren and I went to church (where I realized I knew only three people...I guess most of my friends have moved on from that area), ate lunch with more heaps of family and then had our photos professionally taken together with my grandpa.  Darren and I then drove downtown to meet up with Dave and Kelli and then more friends at the 3 Sisters Bluegrass Festival.  Although the music was amazing, we spent more time chatting than listening to the music.

Sunday morning Darren and I made the trip out to go climbing at Tennessee Wall.  By the time both of us finished our first route, David joined us.  We were able to enjoy numerous crack climbs, and I had so much fun that I have since decided the crag is my favorite!

Darren and I had to leave on Monday afternoon, but we made quick trips to see my grandpa, father, and were even able to climb two routes at Sunset with Reed (Darren flashed Rusty's Crack faster and more smoothly then I've ever seen anyone climb it).  As normally happens I succeeded at packing in as much as I could during this short trip.  Somehow I've been able to do that all month while traveling out of Colorado three of the four weekends of September.  I guess I should be hermitty for a while--except I think we are going to Wyoming again this weekend.  Oops.