I Was Stunned and Amazed; My Childhood Memories Slowly Swirled Past

Well, I didn't make it to Ohio. With such short notice, a flight out of Denver on Thanksgiving weekend was a bit hard to come by. I did find single seats available, but I was advised that those single seats didn't actually exist and that if I actually showed up to claim said seat that I would find out that the airline had actually overbooked, leaving me hanging out at the airport for some unknown length of time. Or, even worse, I could have gotten a flight out of Denver but then stuck in who-knows-where trying to get a connection to Ohio. There was no way I was driving. That would be a two-day drive by myself just to get there and then turn around and drive two days back. My parents didn't want me to even attempt a trip by any means of travel. After several conversations going back and forth, we decided that it was best in reality to just stay put in Colorado. Personally, I had no problem trying to get out. I was worried about getting back. Reading in the news today that Denver International Airport saw the highest amount of traffic in its history on Sunday at least lets me think in some way that my final decision to stay was the wise choice. My family understood.

So, I stayed in Colorado and despite the obvious being on my mind, it actually turned out to be a fairly nice Thanksgiving. I had a day off alone with the girls on Wednesday, which was fun, and on Thursday we totally chowed down on some turkey and other traditional dishes. The weather was nice over the whole holiday weekend, so we took a short hike on Friday up to the Fort Collins "A." For those of you unfamiliar with the beautiful city of Fort Collins, there is a giant letter "A" painted on one of the foothills to the west of town. The "A" has been there since Colorado State University was Colorado A&M and stands for "Aggies" as students were previously known prior to becoming Rams. Here is a swell article about the painting of the A. Anyway, we hiked it. Here are some pics:

Approaching the "A." This picture does not do the actual climb justice. Trust me, it is a lot more steep than it looks here...

Sonny Lubick Field at Hughes Stadium, as seen from the "A"

On Saturday we decided to relax and take in a movie. However, since there was slim pickings between what we had already seen and what we could realistically take the girls to, we ended up seeing a movie so dreadful that I am embarrassed to even mention the title here. I had low expectations going into it, and even that bar was set too high. A half-hour into it and I was looking at my watch to see how long towards the end. But, the girls seemed entertained by it and hopefully being exposed to it didn’t permanently lower their IQ levels.

Sunday was another down day pretty much spent getting ready for another full week of fun at work and school. Somehow those long weekends never seem long enough. Oh well, only a couple of more weeks until we get days off for xmas and New Year's. At least I've got that going for me. After that, it's the long, hard slog towards Memorial Day...