New Year's Eve in Denver (just kidding)

Monday, December 28-Friday, January 1Tuesday, December 29

Mr. E and I had planned a trip to Denver for New Year's Eve and had 1.5 days at home after our return from Austin to unpack, snuggle with the kitties, do laundry, go through mail, and repack before our morning flight on Monday, December 28. Unfortunately, we got news on Tuesday morning of a potential COVID exposure that caused us to cut our trip short and return to Sac that evening. *sigh*

We did manage a few of our planned activities during our short time in Denver, beginning with lunch with Mr. E's cousin, D, on Monday afternoon once we picked up our rental car at the airport (long wait for the Hertz shuttle!). Then we headed to our hotel, the Warwick Denver, to check in and get settled. We had stayed at this hotel years ago, and I had very fond memories of the roof-top pool, which was one of our priority amenities when looking at lodging options for this trip since our gym is still closed. *sigh* (again) While I took a snow-flurry swim in the [very] warm pool, Mr. E took advantage of the Fitness Center for a treadmill workout. 

Our room was a suite on the 12th floor, looking out over the city. We decided to procure some beverages and snacks before going to the hotel restaurant, Gattara, for Happy Hour. Luckily, we were able to enjoy the last 30 minutes of drink and food specials in the outdoor igloo enclosure before a group reservation came in for dinner in the igloo. We took the rest of our drinks and food to-go and finished up dinner in the living room of our suite, enjoying the falling snow outside on the balcony. Mr. E put his adult beverages outside on a small table to chill, which gave us a good sense of the snow accumulation over the evening!

During my Tuesday morning workout, I enjoyed the panoramic snowy sunrise view over the city.

Given the circumstances, we couldn't do our visit to the Museum of Contemporary Art as planned but instead stayed in the hotel room and took care of some online shopping and thank-you notes. We both repeated our pool and treadmill workouts since those were safe activities that were isolated from others, and we walked to Safeway to quickly get some sushi for lunch before heading back to the airport for our evening return flight.

We made the most of our inadvertent staycation here in Sac by taking care of lots of home projects, including several changed room set-ups to accommodate the new bar cart downstairs and revamp of our upstairs library area into a home workout space. And eventually, we learned that the potential exposure was the result of a false positive, so all family and friends are just fine.

This wasn't quite how we expected to welcome 2021, but we already made plans for a Denver trip "re-do" during the upcoming MLK, Jr., holiday long weekend. 

Let's all hope that 2021 brings more joy and fewer "interesting" times into our lives!