Most Awesome Road Trip Ever – Blog 9, Fortunately / Unfortunately and the Sweet Elephant

We returned to the lodge a bit later than planned from USAFA and had to change quickly to go out for Mother’s Day dinner. The guys were treating us to a nice dinner out; this would be our one ‘fancy’ meal during the trip. Laura had chosen the restaurant and it looked really nice. Unfortunately it looked crowded, and when Craig went inside to scope it out the news was not good. They were booked with at least a 1 hour wait. Small kids, hungry moms and a 1 hour wait do not mix so we tried another place. Unfortunately they had a policy of not seating parties of 6. (Seriously? Or was it just us ….)

At this point Laura and I decided we were fine with take out. It wouldn’t be ‘seated and served’, but we had a lovely lodge table at which to eat. We drove to a trendy downtown section of the city which boasted the best Italian food around and managed to find a place to park Big Truck. The guys went in to order and I took the girls to find a place they could use the restroom. Unfortunately our restaurant was not that place, but fortunately we found a place two blocks down the street that allowed us in for that purpose. It was quite the high-end restaurant. I felt completely out of place in the upscale eatery, dressed in a hastily donned summer dress waiting for my granddaughters to come out of the restroom so we could get the heck out of there. But fancy restrooms are fun for kids, and they were not in a hurry.

We walked back to Italian where the guys said the restaurant was really busy but our order had been taken. Laura and I wandered off in the other direction, where fortunately she spotted a charming little wine tasterey called “Sweet Elephant.” The young lady inside was about to close up but when she saw our faces she gladly offered us a glass of their best wine. Which was indeed excellent. So much so that when the guys caught up to us with our food we persuaded Grandpa to get takeout from there too 🙂

Big Truck took us back to the lodge where we unpacked our Mother’s Day meal. Unfortunately, two of the meal orders were wrong, and worse than that the lodge kitchen had no corkscrew. Fortunately we were able to borrow one from the manager of the lodge, who fortunately had not finished closing up the office for the evening. And fortunately, the food was as excellent as the wine. After dinner my daughter and I sat on the porch in the cool Colorado evening with a final glass of said wine, enjoying just sitting and knowing the guys were taking care of clean up. Sipping companionably, we agreed that it had indeed been a most memorable Mother’s Day.