Canyon Run 2007 – Day 10

Today we breakfasted at The Bean in Gunnison. Very good coffee. One very nice server and one very sour server. Heading east we crossed another pass (and picked up a couple of bikes along the way), then angled northeast to Denver.

We reached Denver around lunchtime and found our way to Willo’s brother Todd’s garage. Todd works on German cars – mainly Audis and Porsches – tuning them for performance. While we lunched with Todd at a local biker bar (coincidence only – Todd doesn’t ride) he told us of a car they’d managed to extract incredible performance from running on E-85 (85% ethanol – a commonly available fuel throughout the Midwest), with relatively few modifications. Todd knows a LOT about cars.

After lunch we made our way to our hotel – the deluxe J.W. Marriott in the Cherry Creek shopping district. We unloaded at the curb onto a luggage cart and then followed the valet’s directions around the building and into the parking garage. The valet buzzed me through the gate but as Willo followed the gate descended and she caught it almost perfectly across the face of her helmet. The gate flexed as she powered right through it, no worse for the experience except for a smear of black rubber across her face shield. When we mentioned our narrow escape to the desk clerk, he thoughtfully upgraded our reservation with access to the Concierge Suite, with complementary snacks, bar, dessert and breakfast in the morning.

(We are subsequently considering adopting this as an upscale ambulance-chasing technique – at least as long as Willo’s neck holds out.)

We squeezed in a little furniture browsing in the neighborhood, then Todd joined us to explore our complementary drinks and appetizers. When we’d had enough of those we headed out to Ocean, a very nice Asian restaurant a couple of blocks from the hotel. We made sure to leave room (and time) to come back for dessert.

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