Buca Di Beppo’s

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ROAD TRIP!!!

Wendy, Suzanna, and I headed west this past Wednesday morning. We picked up Taylor in Des Moines. Clayton and his younger brother, Spence, followed us on I-80 westbound and we made the long trek to Colorado. Clayton jumped in the car with us at Fort Morgan while Spencer headed to Fort Collins to meet up with their brother, Ty. We arrived in Denver in the early evening and dropped Suzanna off at sister, Becky’s, house. Wendy, Taylor, Clayton, and I headed south to Colorado Springs and arrived around 8:00 p.m. Madison was working at P.F. Chang’s that night so after checking into the hotel we dropped in for a later dinner. It was so good to see Madison and to meet her friend, Aubrey, who is a hostess at Chang’s. We were wiped out after a long day of travel and sacked out early.

Wendy and I spent Thanksgiving morning getting a little work done in the hotel room while Taylor helped Madison make Thanksgiving dinner at her friend, Mike’s, house. We grabbed Clayton and headed to Mike’s about 11:00 a.m. It was a relaxing Thanksgiving dinner as we watched football, chatted, and admired the feast being prepared. Mike prepared what was, hand’s down, the BEST Thanksgiving turkey any of us had ever eaten. It was an incredible feast along with a buffalo cranberry stew that Madison made. Wow! We ate well. So well, in fact, that we decided to let things settle and make dessert our evening meal. Wendy’s peanut butter chocolate cheesecake and dark chocolate cupcakes with salted caramel frosting were more than enough to satisfy us. We watched football, Anchorman, and chatted the evening away. It was late by the time we made our way back to the hotel.

Friday morning dawned. We enjoyed incredibly wonderful weather the entire weekend. Madison and Wendy headed for a coffee date. Taylor, Clayton and I decided we had to get out into the sunshine. So we headed Garden of the Gods and enjoyed a leisurely hike. We headed to Denver mid-day, picked up Suzanna, and headed to Broomfield to enjoy a late lunch at Buca Di Beppo’s with Clayton’s family. Every Buca’s has a “Pope Room” which is adorned with various papal pictures and includes a giant table with lazy susan adorned by a bust of the pope. We all had an amazing meal and a lot of laughter as we feasted for the second straight day. Clayton’s family (along with Taylor) headed to the Denver Nuggets’ game, Mike and Madison headed back to the Springs, and Wendy, Suzanna and I headed back to Becky and Court’s house.

Friday evening was spent at Becky and Courtney’s house. We all felt fat and lazy as we lounged and enjoyed catching up with Wendy’s sister and her husband. Clayton had to head back to Des Moines with his family to work, but Taylor joined us for the remainder of the weekend.

On Saturday we all headed to the Denver Art Museum and enjoyed a exhibition of French artwork and paintings of nature by the Impressionists. Madison drove up from Colorado Springs and joined us mid-afternoon. We dined together at Cap City pub and talked about the artwork we enjoyed before Madison headed back to the springs and the rest of us headed back to Court and Becky’s.

It was an early start this morning (5:00 a.m. MST) but we made good time and arrive home late in the afternoon. It was a WONDERFUL Thanksgiving weekend and we returned home with a full Rocky Mountain High.

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Wendy and I had a fun weekend in the Twin Cities as we made our annual pilgrimage to a Minnesota Vikings game. It was a perfect fall weekend with lots of warm sunshine during the day while the evenings and mornings were crisp with cool fall air. The drive up on Saturday afforded us time to catch up on some much needed conversation. Road construction in Minnesota was awful and gave us more time in the car together than we really wanted, but what do you expect from Minnesota (nine months of winter – three months of road construction)?

We arrived at our hotel which was just blocks from Mall of America field. We checked in and freshened up before heading to our favorite Twin Cities’ haunt, the original Buca Di Beppo’s (literally translated from Italian thats “Joe’s Basement”). Wonderful meal. We headed back to the hotel to watch Zero Dark Thirty which we’ve had from Netflix and have been trying to watch forever. We cuddled into bed and pulled it up on the ol’ laptop. Fascinating movie. Definitely kept us awake.

Sunday morning dawned and we walked the mile or so from our hotel to Al’s Breakfast in Dinkytown by the University of Minnesota. Al’s is a hole-in-the-wall greasy spoon that has been in operation since the area populated with rail workers back in the old days. Al’s has thirteen bar stools. That’s it. People line up behind the bar stools, out the door, and down the sidewalk to wait for a chance at breakfast made on the grill right behind the bar. It’s a unique experience for sure. We enjoyed a big breakfast and then walked back to the hotel to get ready for the game.

It was another mile or so walk to the stadium, but with all of the feasting we were happy for the exercise and the weather was so beautiful we didn’t care. The Vikings are building a new stadium next year so this is likely our last visit to the old Metrodome. We had great seats in the seventh row on one of the end zones. I got a chance to catch some great shots with my camera. Being the home opener, it was packed with fans expecting the Vikes to take it to the hapless Cleveland Browns. On the way to the game Wendy said, “I hope it’s not a blowout. I hope it’s a close game and the crowd is into it the whole time.” She got her wish as the lead went back and forth. Unfortunately, the Vikes gave up a winning touchdown with 51 seconds left in the fourth quarter and it happened right in front of us. Bummer. As one fellow fan put it, when you lose to the worst team in the NFL, that pretty much makes your team the worst team in the NFL. It’s going to be a long season.

We walked back to the hotel and enjoyed a drink on the patio of the neighboring micro-brew while we waited for traffic to thin out. We then headed to the suburbs where I had client meetings scheduled on Monday and Tuesday. Sunday evening was spent enjoying pizza on the bed while we watched Sunday night football.

Monday evening we went to Mall of America and did a little shopping. Wendy found some great stuff and we both bought hats at a cool little hat shop I don’t ever remember seeing there before. We grabbed a bite at Buffalo Wild Wings before heading back to the hotel. After client meetings on Tuesday we headed home.

On the way home Wendy mentioned how refreshed she felt by our weekend getaway. I was grateful for that. We got home at 6:40 and had just enough time to change our clothes ant be at the community center for a 7:00 rehearsal. Talk about an abrupt re-entry. Nevertheless, it was a great weekend together.