I don't know if anyone's reading these, but it's a good way for me to have the trip account in one place, so I think I'll carry on!

When we returned from Garden of the Gods, we met up with our CT friends who are Mets fans, and went that evening to the Rockies/Mets game. Good thing we did, since the next day was rained out.

Given how rainy and cold Wed. was, it was the perfect day for the Art Museum. I'm from Phila. and also go to NY often, so I admit I entered with a bit of a snobby attitude - but it was a wonderful museum, we all enjoyed it very much. I especially enjoyed the paintings of southwest artists and the Native American exhibit. We then had a fun, late lunch at Pete's Kitchen on Colfax (we'd headed for a little taco place up a little further, but we hadn't realized it was take-out only, and the weather demanded indoor sit-down service). We went back to our place for a bit after that, and then went to the Tattered Cover bookstore - I loved that place! I'm a major book addict, and I loved the high ceilings, wood beams, and spaciousness of the place, along with great book selections. Very rare to find all of that in one place. I wanted to bring it home with me.

Went to a late dinner at Chophouse just down the road; since it was so late we all got salads and sandwiches rather than any of the entrees, but all were good and our waiter was very friendly too.

Thursday, another cold, rainy day, found us at Snooze for a lunchtime breakfast, and afterwards the one negative moment of the whole trip, I'd say. We decided that despite the rain, we'd try to go to the Botannical Gardens, figuring there might be enough indoors to enjoy. Apparently not too many others thought that would be worth the money, since there were only about two other cars in the whole parking lot! We went in and were told that there was some indoors, and they'd lend us umbrellas for the outdoors part. So we were going to go for it, and we asked if there was a Triple A discount. We were told yes, if we showed our cards, we'd get a dollar off. So we were two couples, and three of us had our cards with us, but the fourth said she'd left her purse with her card, back at the condo. So the woman said to the younger girl she was training, "three discounts, then." Our friend said, "are you serious? you're not going to believe her and give her the dollar off too?" And the older woman said, "that's policy, I don't see the card, I can't give the discount." So our friend said, "well, our policy is we're leaving, then." And the older woman then took her turn to say, "are you serious? for one dollar?" And I think one of us said (I hope we did, I don't remember), "it's the principle, not the dollar." It was all a little nuts, but she wasn't budging, and they lost out on $40 for not giving us the $1, and we missed out on seeing it. We truly could not believe that someone would have such poor customer service. And she was training someone! We of course realized that to some extent we were spiting ourselves, missing out on what we'd heard was a great place. But we'd had mixed feelings to begin with, due to the weather, and that was it for us.

We decided to head to the Capitol, where we received excellent customer service by several different people, and enjoyed the view from the top, tho' were out of breath by the time we climbed all those steps! After a partly guided tour and mostly self-guided one, we headed back toward the Art Museum since we were parked there, and received the exact opposite of the Botannical Garden person's lack of hospitality. When we'd come out of the museum the day before, we'd asked our friend if he'd seen the painting called "Release Your Plans," because it made us laugh, as just before we'd been talking about how he hated to change a plan once it was made (I being rather the opposite, almost always wanting to stay open to new possibilities emerging). He'd missed it. He thought maybe they'd let him in to just see that one painting. We weren't so sure, and wouldn't blame them (and he wouldn't either, just thought he'd try) if they didn't want to let him do that, since they might think he was trying to scam them the admission fee. But after asking him the name of the painting, the artist, and where it was located, they let him! Now, that's hospitality!

We took a quick look in the library too. Then back to rest - and by then it had stopped raining and the men decided to walk over and go see the last four innings of the baseball game live rather than watching on tv - and they got in for $1 each! All the downsides of the condo we were staying at faded away at that point, since there wouldn't have been too many other locations they could have spontaneously done that from!