Leavin' On a Jet Plane...

Here's a recap of Day 1 since we last left you in the airport in Richmond. If you're following us on twitter (Joshtate26 or kelsey_tate) we arrived in Denver safely at 12pm mountain time. Fortunately for Dad and I, it was in time to watch the second half of the Uruguay/Germany game (congrats Germany by the way, impressive stuff) as you can see we have our priorities for this trip aligned such that our travel plans revolve around soccer.

Anyways, we caught all of our flights on time, first from Richmond to Chicago and saw the sun rise from lake Michigan onto the windy city. I apologize that there's no picture to accompany the imagery, but just Google "Chicago skyline" and you can imagine how epic that was. Needless to say, the O'Hara airport is gigantic and we made our way to the furthest terminal possible from where we landed to catch our next morning flight to Omaha, Nebraska. Now, there's not much to say about Omaha, other than the fact that the airport was quaint, small, and cozy. All I really saw of Omaha really was gate B-12, which is where we landed, and B-13, where we departed. I guess that's the hoppin' spot in Omaha anyways.

Now, I have to inform you our family brought southern hospitality to the West, as Dad performed at least two good deeds yesterday. First, while we were in the Chicago airport, Dad was riding the escalator from the basement level up to the first floor, and an elderly gentleman fell backwards, tumbling down the escalator and onto my father, who caught him with his only free hand. Good thing too, because if not - I'm pretty sure that old guy would have definitely not made his plane, but caught a ride to the hospital instead. Now, good deed #2 came into play on our plane from Chicago to Denver. The lady sitting in front of pops had two kids, a baby and a younger kid maybe age 6. Turns out toddlers and turbulence don't mix and needless to say, the back of our puddle-jumper plane got a little wild but Poppa Tate went into crisis mode and rescued the young sick child with a doggy bag and handful of tissues he commandeered from the old ladies in the back.

Alright - so we make it to Denver finally, and I have to tell you, we were exhausted. Only having collectively about 4 hours of sleep, we were running on fumes and caffeine just wasn't kickin' in enough. We stopped for a bite to eat at "Vinny's authentic Irish-American Bar and Grill" which had some great burgers and since we hadn't eaten anything since 5am eastern standard time, our 2pm mountain time lunch was much appreciated. After that, we drove our rent-a-car twenty miles to our downtown Denver hotel, which kinda resembled a hunting lodge (it had an almost life-size elk inside) and our Denver tour guide, Kelsey - informed us that our first Denver-activity was a nap. I'm pretty sure the entire family agreed that a nap was in order, and although we haven't completed Kelsey's score-sheet yet for her Denver tour, our "quick nap" turned into a 5-hour siesta and we woke up at 11pm, ordered pizza and I watched "Dirty Jobs" until I passed out. A+ Kelsey.

This morning, we woke up early at 7am and packed up the car to head north from Colorado toward South Dakota and Wyoming. Before leaving Denver, Kelsey took us to the State Capitol which actually resembles our nation's Capitol building in Washington DC but has a gold dome on top instead. We also all got our photos taken on the steps of the capitol marking our position exactly one-mile above sea-level, hence Denver being the "Mile-High City." After our photo ops, we passed the first Quiznos (established in 1981), the home of Wonderbread, the US Mint Building, Invesco Field (the Broncos play there I think), 6 Flags Denver, the Coors-Brewing Company, and fun fact: Denver is known as the "Brewing Capitol of America." Alright, that's enough for now, we're heading north toward the Crazy Horse memorial, Mt. Rushmore, and the wild blue yonder in Wyoming. Stay tuned for more Tate Adventures from the West!