Vacation scheduling gets a lot more complicated once the kids are old enough for college and job and driving themselves around.  Between Zoe’s job at the Nature Conservancy, Nadia’s pre-season training, and Lanie’s summer architecture program, I was able to eke out exactly one six-day window for a family vacation.  So we consulted the Internet to see where we could fly within that window that was (a) not too long, (b) nonstop, and (c) cheap.  Of the available options, Denver won the family vote.

Everything went smoothly on our sunset flight, apart from the tragedy of being unable to pair bluetooth headphones with the seatback televisions (get it together, JetBlue!)  We had a minor snag at the rental car company, where instead of the sedan we’d reserved we were given a choice between a tiny Kia and a pickup truck.  We are not really pickup truck people, but here we are — driving down the narrow city streets at midnight, holding our breath as we edged between parked cars and oncoming traffic, hoping that it wouldn’t start to rain and that the suitcases wouldn’t get bounced out of the truck bed.

We were here briefly once before, as part of our cross country trip.  The kids still fondly remember the waffle restaurant and the children’s museum.  Unfortunately this time we don’t have cousin Danny to take us around, so we had to plan our trip on our own.  I asked everyone for a short list of must-see attractions.

We started with one of Lanie’s picks — the Denver Art Museum.  We’re not always art museum people either — but we really liked this one.  The building itself was amazing and the exhibits were interesting and varied. It was definitely low on the Museum Life-Suck effect that we can find ourselves vulnerable.  Our favorite part was the Biophilia exhibit, featuring art and architecture inspired by nature.  We also took a quick detour across the park to the state house to stand on the Mile High Step — exactly one mile above sea level.

Next up was Nadia’s pick — the Denver Aquarium, walking distance away along a pleasant route through downtown and along a riverside bike path.  (Not everyone in the party considered this 45-minute stroll to count as “walking distance”.)

Nadia had read good things about the aquarium restaurant, where you can eat surrounded by fish, and a substantial lunch there restored morale.  (Sadly you were not able to point to a fish in one of the tanks and ask them to cook it for you.)

Never too old for the stingray touch tank

After the aquarium, our plan had been to stroll around the nearby 16 Street Mall, an outdoor pedestrian district of shops and restaurants that had come highly recommended.  Unfortunately, the whole thing was under construction and the shops were mostly non-existent or closed, so this one was kind of a bust.

Morale flagging once again, we decided to stop at the Rock Bottom Brewery for drinks and snacks.  This was a fortuitous decision, even though we didn’t like the beer much, because slightly after we arrived the skies opened.  We were very glad we weren’t still outside on the 16th Street Mall, navigating closed sidewalks and picking our way around construction debris.

To cap off the day, we had scheduled a family favorite activity — the nearby Escapology escape room.  Zoe had insisted that we were capable of the expert-level Mansion Murder, but we were a bit daunted when we saw the 27% success rate.  Nevertheless, the difficulty scale seemed a bit easier than we were used to from home, and we managed to solve the mystery and escape the room in about 45 minutes.

And the room had an attached cool steampunk-themed bar and restaurant with board games, so we were able to finish the day with dinner and Trivial Pursuit before heading back to our VRBO apartment.