Berck had a three-day weekend (because of that glorious of all holidays, Columbus Day). He also has this coming Friday off. But he has to work Saturday the next day.

We traveled down to Pueblo on Friday evening for dinner with Berck’s buddy from work who just got a job down there teaching ROTC students how to fly. They served us a huge pile of homemade wontons. Berck and I love wontons, but we’re used to eating maybe two at a time from a Chinese restaurant. We did our best but still couldn’t finish the pile. And they were better than what you usually get too.

When we got there, Berck’s buddy held up a bunt pan and said, “You guys wouldn’t want this, would you? It came with the apartment.” Berck laughed as I nearly went into conniptions. I’ve been asking for a bunt pan for years. And I got one for free! I made cheddar monkey bread on Saturday and a pound cake on Monday. Berck didn’t think he liked pound cake until he had some of mine.

On Saturday we drove up to Denver and had dinner with Berck’s college buddy Neal. Then we went to an Eddie from Ohio concert. Neal hadn’t really heard much of them but wanted to go so he could hang out with us. Eddie puts on a great live show… the four of them are just tight… and when they walked off stage, Neal jumped to his feet applauding.

We had pretty good seats. The venue is an old church building that now houses a non-profit that shows folk music. We sat in the front row of the balcony, which meant that we got to see everything, even if it did get a little hot up there.

Next we drove around trying to find a liquor store still open so we could buy real beer (not the watered down stuff they sell in the grocery stores), then settled on Neal’s porch and listened to music on his crummy laptop speakers and conversed. Around 2, we went to bed. Berck and I had brought our air mattress and bedding which made for a comfy night away from home.

In the morning, well, nearly noon, Neal shared what meager breakfast foods he had on hand from his bachelor kitchen and then had to run off for an ultimate frizbee game. Berck and I found a middle eastern place called the Jerusalem Restaurant that Neal had pointed out the night before and stuffed ourselves on gyros and fries and something fried and tasty but that looked like a huge oblong hushpuppy (the name of which I obviously can’t remember).

Next we found the Denver Air Museum, housed in a hanger of the old Air Force base up there (and home to the Air Force Academy from 1955-1958). It’s a pretty good museum. It’s got an X-wing in it and a B-1, which was cool to look at, having just seen one fly over our house the day before.

On Monday Berck futzed with computer stuff pretty much all day. Berck got a call before we went to bed telling him not to show up the next morning until 9 because of weather. Sure enough, we woke up to snow covering the ground. Fortunately, the roads were clear. It had been rain turned to snow, so everything was coated in white. Berck got another call after he’d gotten dressed saying not to bother to come in until 1:30. Of course, by then the sun was out, the snow all melted, and it was starting to get quite warm.

Today it kind of got hot, and tonight we have all the windows open again.