Plain Cars and Trains

A play on words of the title to an older Steve Martin comedy. Can you name it? Fortunately, this weekend’s events were not as catastrophic as those detailed in the film I’m referencing. As a matter of fact they were quite pleasant.

Plain Cars, is a reference to the fact that on Saturday we bought a very plain car to replace the plain car lost in an accident a couple of weeks ago. The accident totaled our 1995 Ford Contour and The Emmer was comfortable with that car.

I don’t think The Emmer will even notice a difference in the old and “new” old, plain car. The “new”, old, plain car is a 1996 Ford Contour. It’s the same model, same color and really spooky, even has the same smell as the old, “old”, plain car! Other things that we thought were unique to the old, “old”, plain car we have discovered to be design defects in this particular Ford model. For one, the automatic gas door lever next to the driver’s seat on the old, “old”, plain car never did work right and most of the time you had to open the trunk and use the supplemental handle there to get the fuel door open…..”New”, old, plain car, same thing. The back passenger door on the old “old”, plain car used to squeak like a tank when opened and no amount of WD-40 or oil could fix it….”New”, old, plain car, same thing. Several other things are exactly the same too, but you get the idea. It also looks like I’ll have to do some mechanical work to this vehicle. Hopefully not too much, but before I can even start that I’ll have to deal with licensing and emissions inspections. I’m guessing in about another week it will be time again for The Emmer to take up the “driving life”.

So that takes care of the Plain Cars part but where does the Trains part come in you ask? Well, this is a bit convoluted, but stay with me because you’ll even learn something about Denver history in all of this.

This weekend we celebrated The Emmer’s 26th birthday which is on Tuesday and we also celebrated The Bride’s and my 30th wedding anniversary which is tomorrow. Our celebratory dinner was at one of Denver’s finest restaurants, Restaurant Kevin Taylor. This great restaurant is located in the Hotel Teatro, which is itself, a great destination. The Hotel Teatro occupies an historic 1911 building in downtown Denver that at one time was the headquarters of the…Denver Tramway Company. Tramway, streetcars, trains…get it? In the picture at the top, the hotel/restaurant is located in the tall office building in the background.

Dinner at Restaurant Kevin Taylor was anything but plain. This restaurant has been a fixture in Denver’s fine dining scene for years. It’s listed as a “Four Diamond” destination by Mobile Travel Guide, one of “50 Best Restaurant Hotels” by Travel and Leisure and got the “Award of Excellence” from Wine Spectator magazine. What the Coney Island Hotdog Stand in Bailey Co is to hotdogs, this restaurant is to fine dining in Denver!

One of The Emmer’s favorite things is dining out and she was just beside herself this night due to sensory overload…and there was plenty to overload about. We all decided to do the four course meal option which was a prix fixe dinner that included any choice of appetizer, salad or soup, main course and desert on the menu.

We all chose different things for each of the courses and all tasted each other’s choice. For the main course The Emmer had wild boar, The Bride had Colorado lamb and I had venison. None of us were disappointed in any of our choices…..except perhaps with the wine.

The wine list was intimidating! There were pages and pages and pages of choices. Several selections were priced at $1800, yes that is one thousand eight hundred DOLLARS, for a bottle of wine! Being the son of depression parents I was a bit more reasonable in my choice of wine….If I only knew!….

After a very, very nice dinner the waiter brought the bill with the comment that cocktails and wine for the meal had been taken care of by an anonymous well wisher! Thoughts of that $1800 bottle of wine flashed through my mind!!

So, publicly for all the blogosphere to know…Anonymous, whoever you are, The Bride and I thank you for your part in a memorable evening! You can breathe a sigh of relief that I am the son of depression parents!

Thanks for visiting.