Getaway, Part One

The size of the hotel bathroom’s shower head is directly proportional to the price of the room. Hubcabs. Frisbees. The rings of Saturn. Hubby and I stayed in such a room this past weekend at the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs.

Here is where we valet-parked our crumb-filled minivan, ate, drank, slept…and got away:

Staying at one of the most opulent and luxurious resorts in our state meant that our weekend went far beyond anything resembling diaper-to-diaper life. Hubby and I had massages at the spa. While dressed in blue spa-provided robes with monogrammed “B’s”, we sipped lemon water on a sun-sloshed balcony overlooking the golf course. We strolled around the lake, drank cocktails on a patio as the sun dropped behind Cheyenne Mountain, and ate a fashionably late dinner at The Penrose Room. The name alone—-The Penrose Room—-immediately conjures visions of a restaurant that does not have a table hopping mascot who makes zany balloon hats.

The leatherbound menus in the Penrose Room weighed about 10 pounds each, but only had 5 entrees listed. I am still not 100% sure what I ate for dinner last night. I recognized a few words on the menu, like “mousse”, “horseradish”, and “raspberry”. Everything else was a blinding mystery so I chose my entree based on the word “pork” in the description. High school guidance counselors truly do students a disservice when they advise impressionable teenagers to take Spanish as their foreign language elective. Sure, it might come in handy in daily life, but what if they are ever faced with “foie gras” or some other frightening French roullade? They could be consumming the innards of a beaked bird and they wouldn’t have a clue…

This leads me to the hardest and saddest moment of our getaway: the moment I ate duck, knowingly. It was a miniature chilled and diced duck tart “thing” (I think that is the French description) with cinnamon and curry. It was compliments of Chef (not “the chef”, just Chef) and it came on a small blue glass plate with a three-pronged mini pitchfork. I managed to choke it down, despite the frantic quacking I could hear in the distance of a memory from when I was a child and I rescued a family of baby ducks from certain doom…sigh. Sorry, ducks. You are cute. And yummy.

When my pork entree arrived, it shared the Broadmoor shower head-sized plate with five plump bright green items that immediately made me think of the kind of caterpillars that used to dangle off my dad’s tomato plants. I made hubby try one first, just in case it really was a fat green caterpillar. His verdict was that it was some sort of bread or dumpling. I tried one and he was thankfully right. It was harmless.

Day one was lovely. Not because of the surroundings but because of the company, my dear husband, who planned this trip completely on his own. He did a brilliant job.