Night Out with the Fam

Some of the family, anyway.  I went out last Saturday night with Jenn, Caleb, Jonathan and Cassie (Caleb's sister).  (Caleb's mom offered to watch 5 children so Jennifer and I could hang out together, sans children.  Isn't she great?)  We met up with the steel guitarist (and his wife -- Travis and Courtney) from Caleb's band.

We took the Light Rail.  I rather enjoy the Light Rail, on occasion.  It makes me feel metropolitan.  I like that, on occasion.

Inside our car, announcing the coming station, Union Station.  Woot!

Inside Union Station.  This tunnel goes underground, beneath all the trains.  And not just little trains like the Light Rail.  There are Amtrak trains here, too.  Kind of freaky to think about all that steel above our heads.

Outside Union Station.

Walking to Wynkoop, where we met Travis and Courtney.  Wynkoop is a good place.  There is good food, good beer and pool.  They have a juke box and once Travis got his money into it, there was good music to listen to.  We ate, drank and played pool.  It was a good time.  I would put a picture of Wynkoop's menu here but the less-than-friendly waitress took the menu while I was trying to photograph it.  To be fair, I was taking the picture with my phone so I guess it kind of looked like I was just texting but she was still less-than-friendly.

So instead, here is a picture of the bison burger with extra sharp white cheddar from heaven.  I know it doesn't look like much but it was so delicious. So, so, so delicious.

And here is a picture of my beer.  Or ale, to be precise.  The Rail Yard Ale.  It was also delicious.

A weird pool table.  Caleb, Travis and Courtney played a couple of games here and then we moved to a couple of regular tables.  I'm bad enough at pool; I do not need any funky Ls messing with what little groove I can muster.

A regular table.  Jennifer, Cassie, Courtney and I played teams.  This was the game that would not end.

After we had exhausted our mad pool skillz, Travis declared that we should walk to Herb's.  He said there is always a live band and that it was kind of a dive, but still a great place to hang out.  So walk to Herb's we did.  On the way, we encountered some interesting sights.

Like these massive doors.  I wish I had a picture of someone next to them, to show them to scale but a) I didn't think to do that and b) even if I had, I don't know if anyone in our crew would like for me to post a picture of them on my public blog.  So you'll have to take my word for it.  These doors were in the side of a huge building.  They're at least 30 feet tall.  Insane.

This sign in the window of an empty office building.  It made me laugh so I took a picture of it.  I guess I shouldn't laugh.  I mean, I know I do spend most of my time thinking about ways to excite and elicit new business.  I just didn't know that other people did, too.

Dueling night clubs.  Two places across the street from each other, both playing music as loudly as possible, flashing lights and trying their best to attract people to jam themselves into line so they can wait around for an hour and then pay $7 for a beverage.  We make a point of never going to places like this.  Ugh.

And, finally.  Herb's.  Travis was right -- there was a live band and it was a dive.  But if going to dives means not waiting in line for an hour, I'm okay with that.  The band was pretty great.  Like really, really great.  They had a woman up on stage for a couple of songs and she had a phenomenal voice.  There was another woman playing saxophone who was pretty awesome, too.  By the time we got there it was almost 1:00 so we weren't there long before they had to shut down.  So we headed back to Union Station.

But not before I saw this.  It was taped to the women's bathroom door and I read it while waiting on Jennifer.  In case you can't tell, it's a copy of a diploma from the University of Colorado.  It was awarded to Christopher Ramos this 29th day of May, the year of our Lord 2010 for completion of medical school.  As I was pondering why it was taped to the bathroom door, a guy came by and said, "Who is that asshole anyway?  What kind of guy puts his diploma on a ladies' room door?"  I just looked at him and then he continued, rather cockily, "It's me.  That's mine." I said, "Um, wow.  Desperate?"  And then he walked away.  And I giggled a lot.

This is another shot of the dueling clubs at closing time.  Lots of cops, just to control traffic and drunk people.  Maybe I shouldn't say 'just'.  That's a pretty big job, given the couple of drunk people we crossed.  One dude ripped some leaves from a tree and offered them to me saying, "Want a pretty flower?"  His girlfriend was rather embarrassed.

A van in the parking lot across from Wynkoop.  I had to photograph it because it is advertising what I drank at Wynkoop.  Did I mention that it was delicious?
 

Half way back to Union Station Jennifer remembered that she'd left her credit card in the possession of the waitress at Herb's.  So we walked back for it but they were already locked up. Major bummer.  And then when we got back to Union Station we found out that we'd missed the last train.  (In Jenn's defense, we did not miss the train because of her credit card.  The last one had already departed when we went back for the card but we didn't know it then.)  The next one wouldn't be until 4:22.  Ugh.  One cab and $48 later we were back where we started and I, being the designated driver and having stopped drinking 4 hours prior, took us the rest of the way home.

All in all, a pretty memorable night.