Undead in Denver

We arrived in downtown Denver this afternoon just in time to stroll down the 16th Street Mall alongside the world's largest gathering of zombies. Not kidding. Really. It was quite a way to kickstart our mini-break, let me tell you. At first, we used the stroller sunshade to shield poor, innocent Sarah from the sight of thousands of men, women, and children (but mostly teens) splattered in fake blood and lurching around holding (or chewing on) fake body parts - but after a while, I noticed that she was hunched down, peeking out from under it anyway... she didn't seem at all fazed by the sight - if she has "issues" later on in life, we'll all know why...

When we'd seen our fill of undead brides, businessmen, hookers, farmers, and celebrities (there was even a Michael Jackson), we took the unofficial driving tour of the downtown area to scope out the sights and make our plans for the next day and half before P's conference begins. Denver is a pretty neat city, we were somewhat surprised to discover, with a very "walkable" downtown (except for the zombies), several museums and interesting sights, and lots of impressive sculpture. I was eager to see the Occupy Denver crowd as well, but after the Zombie Crawl, it was hard to be impressed by a smattering of twenty-somethings in desperate need of a shower and shave.

We had dinner at Pasquini's pizzeria. It was really good. Eat-the-whole-pizza-even-after-salads-and-breadsticks good. Granted, we'd missed breakfast in our rush to make it to the airport this morning, so we were behind a meal, but still. Put it on your list.

Speaking of airport, Sarah did really well on her first flight - easily charming everyone on the plane, of course. She's been working on two new tricks - blowing raspberries and cooing at a really high pitch. It cracks me up to see how serious she is when she practices...

I personally enjoyed the flight tremendously because I discovered - for the first time - SkyMall!!! That thing is hilarious! I hope I don't offend anyone by sharing this gem:

Lest you worry about Luke missing out on the fun, let me assure you that he's doing fine. He's staying with Gram and Paps (and Bobo and Uncle JC), and they've already been to the zoo and to a Halloween festival at church. He and Bobo made quite the pair in their pirate costumes!