Happiness and laughter in Denver

What should I be doing?

With Dr. T planning Folfori chemo for this week, we decided to plan a mini-vacation as a preemptive strike against our worries and fears for a few days.

We picked Denver, for it's good airfare sale price from St. Louis, for all of it's outdoorsy Fall goodness in October and for the fact that neither of us had ever been there.

And it didn't disappoint. We arrived to the most beautiful, sunny, 80 degree days of awesomeness.

One quiet day was spent walking around the Denver Botanic Gardens (Botanic? Yes.) and another was spent watching a Liverpool game with the local supporters' club at a great Irish pub called The Abbey Tavern. We did try to stay busy, we took a tram to the top of Pikes Peak, we walked around the Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs, we went to a Major League Soccer game to see the Colorado Rapids play the San Jose Earthquakes, we hit up the Museum of Nature and Science to look at some mummies and we walked the steps of Red Rock Amphitheater. My highlight was when we drove to Estes Park and managed to take a short hike in Rocky Mountain National Park, where Hector captured this moment. I don't know why, but it's one of my favorites.

Rocky Mountain National Park

This picture is pretty great too, the little lake was the turnaround point of our hike. We climbed up nearly 1,000 feet from the trailhead to be approximately 8,850 feet above sea level.

Can you find Hector?

While we were in Denver, we also got to have dinner with some friends of mine who moved there about 6 years ago. It was great to catch up, share Hector with them and laugh about old memories (even if we did somehow forget to take a picture together!) My friend M shared that one of her sisters was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. And that sucks. I hate to think of anybody else I know (even by two degrees of separation) going through any of this. I tried to reinforce that every cancer patient's experience is unique, especially with her sister right at the beginning of it.

So now I'm writing this as we fly back home and return to the real world. The flight attendant says we are beginning our initial decent into St. Louis, ending our escape. Queue the ominous turbulence...

I still don't know what I should be doing, but I'm going to continue to try and enjoy whatever it is as much as I can.