Moving Back to Colorado

I met SFO777Jr just outside Door 612 on the departures level, and then headed out down Pena and E-470 south to Parker. While I had hoped to see four homes today, the Denver real estate market is as hot as if not hotter than Orange County as three of the four on our list were under contract by the time I landed. Yikes.

Nevertheless, it was good to see an area of the metro that we were not very famiiar with.

There are some beautiful homes here but just not sure about the massive amount of ongoing construction.  Some of the homes we liked, all under contract, but willing to take back up offers.  Seriously?

After a few hours of exploring, we decided to stop for lunch.  OK, now we're talking.

OMG, the smells were amazing.

And back home at Jr's place, our crazy platter.

At around 4:30pm, we headed out for the 25 minute drive to DIA where I made the mistake of heading for the North Security Checkpoint.  Ugh. 

After security, time for a quick stop at the Delta Sky Club.

The Sky Club has a much better selection of food than typical Admirals Clubs offerings.

While the main areas of the SkyClub were crowded, the room to the right of the main entrance was pleasantly empty.

The adjacent Admirals Club... not even open.

At T-45, I headed down to our gate.

While United has the earliest LAX-DEN flight, Delta offered the best option on my return, reasonably priced and seat blocking gets me an empty seat next to me.

Ancient 738 means actual padded seats, unlike the newer slim line seats.

But with small seat back video screens.  But Good Morning??  LOL.

I sincerely hope not.

And the ridiculous new DL safety video with full frontal masking.  Sheesh.

Beautiful night in Denver.

Delta's pathetic First Class domestic service consists of a back of water, Goldfish and Clif Bar, the same baggie handed out to all passengers .  Fortunately, I was not hungry after my BBQ feast.

Delta doesn't even serve soft drinks on board, so I took an extra can from the SkyClub to enjoy in flight in my DIY tumbler.  And the ice was a special order from the galley as DL doesn't even offer ice to passengers.    

With an on time arrival, I was home in South County by 9pm.  Great to see SFO777Jr and family but not a very productive house-hunting trip today.

JW Marroitt Denver Cherry Creek

Late Saturday and fortunately not much traffic on I-70 to the Colorado Blvd. exit.

We (or rather Mrs. SFO777) decided that we should stay at the JW Cherry Creek instead of my Cherry Creek favorite, the Jacquard.  Once a really nice hotel, The JW now just an OK hotel in a good location.  But at least we were able to use our Bonvoy free night certificates so our only cost was the $49 a day valet parking fee.

Our room 521 was nice enough but that's where it ended, with the JW and Marriott taking full advantage of Covid B.S. excuses to provide no amenities or service.  And housekeeping was on request only with a minimum 24 hour notice.  No glasses, no robes, no slippers, no coffee cups, no water pitcher for the water station down the hall.  And no sign of our pre-requested humdifier.  Oh yeah, and no Do Not Disturb sign... I guess because housekeeping is on demand only.  Sheesh. It only took 30 minutes for housekeeping to deliver all of the above while I walked around the corner to Whole Foods to save $100 on bottled water for the weekend.  

The only redeeming feature about the JW is Richard Sandoval's Toro Latin Kitchen.  His Denver-based chain has 50+ restaurants around the world including the fabulous Toro Toro at the Grosvenor House in Dubai.

We met SFO777Jr and Mrs. SFO777Jr in the lobby for our 7:15pm reservation.

The Sweet Corn Empanada was wonderful.

Blackened Tuna Tacos. Yummy.

Octopus Anticucho.  Really good.

The Salmon was spectacular, with achiote marinade, dashi braised bok choy, bacon morita bacon jam and achiote ponzu.

The Lomo Saltado, beef filet with creamy jasmine rice and sweet and sour heirloom tomatoes, was outstanding.

And some great sides.

For dessert, OMG... La Bomba was to die for.   A chocolate sphere with cooke crumbles, seasonal berries, assorted sorbets and ice creams.  And what a show.  Our server smashed La Bomba onto a plastic sheet, and we had at it.

Yeah, we did a number on it.

When we sat down at our table, we had been told that we had 90 minutes time limit.  LOL.  Well, nearly four hours later we were still there, apparently having ordered enough food and wine to justiify our squatting. 

Back to our room, not surpisingly the same trash from five hours earlier was still by the elevators.  It was also there the next morning.  The carpets in the hall were filthy and looked like they hadn't been vacuumed in a week.  When I mentioned it to the front desk manager, he apologized and said he would have housekeeping vaccum the hall.  Nothing came of that and the carpet had still not been vacuumed by the time we left two days later.

 Back to Southern California...

After yesterday's mere 3" snowfall, this morning was brilliantly sunny with warming temps that quickly melted the snow.

One more JW service failure.  This water was here 12 hours ago.

On our way to DIA...

We pulled into the Avis lot and asked for Curbside Delivery.  For $35, an Avis rep will hop in your vehicle and drive you directly to the terminal.  PreCheck moved quickly and we were thru and on the train 5 minutes later.

Since we had an hour before departure, we decided to eat in the terminal rather than having to suffer thru United's horrific wraps or infamous snackbox.  Elway's had a 20 minute wait, so we headed to Wolfgang Puck.

OK, now Wolfgang's pepperoni pizza was really good.

At around T-40, we headed to our nearby Gate B42.

Boarding began at T-35.

United gourmet options today.  LOL.

Mrs. SFO777 wisely passed while I took the carb-box mostly for the photo op.

Back at LAX, we trekked over to the T-6 garage and our car for the hour drive south to South Orange County.

Thanks for following along so far.   We rented one of the apartments we saw and we'll be back in Denver in a month.

First stop this morning was to fuel up both cars.  How can I pass up a name like this and gas prices $1 a gallon less than the PRC.

Back on I-15 thru downtown Las Vegas...

Into Arizona, where the scenery starts to get nice.

...and spectacular at times.

Lunch and refuel stop in Beaver, Utah

Yikes, there was a reason there was no line at Carl's Jr.

Now on I-70 for the next four hours or so... across some beautiful parts of Utah.

We pulled off for a short break at the scenic view area.

OMG... seriously?

The exit to Moab and iconic Arches National Park which we visited a few years ago.

Wow, I hope they got a good deal on that color.

And finally Colorado.

And Grand Junction, our stop for the night.

And Summerhill Suites Downtown Grand Junction.  Clean and pleasant.

With a nice-ish view.

Cute downtown with lots of restaurants.

We opted for Rouge Restaurant, a French restaurant owned by a couple from Avignon.  

Outdoor seating on a perfect 75 degree evening.

Mrs. SFO777's onion soup was authentic and delicious.  All of our dishes were excellent.

What a treat to find this gem tonight.