Days 8 and 9 - Busy/Lazy and Science Museum

I find it somewhat amusing that the "lazy" days when I don't go out and do very much are somehow the days when I get so busy doing little things here and there that I don't get around to doing the things I did want to do on a day when I don't venture far afield (like answer all of your lovely emails!). Yesterday I had the best of intentions to go to the library downtown and blog and email and get in touch with folks about plans/visits/sleeping spaces, but instead I biked (in the basement, it was raining outside and I might melt), and napped, and played with two adorable puppies, and made plans with a few people, and did laundry. My big accomplishment of the day was going shopping and making dinner, but what fun that turned out to be!

T and I made dinner on Sunday - grilled veggies and chicken, spaghetti, and salad - can't go wrong with simple and delicious. But inevitably when you buy a baguette for two people, you can't eat all of it in one day and it goes stale by the next morning. Since T was working late yesterday I decided to try my hand at dinner and asked Papa for his recipe for zucchini cakes, kind of a play on crab cakes, that I figured would call for bread crumbs and thus use up the baguette. The original recipe was published as a zucchini cake "napoleon" layered with pancetta, mozzarella, tomato, and basil, (and actually used Cheese-it crumbs, but c'est la vie) but we had found it to be a very filling appetizer so I omitted the pancetta and turned the whole thing into dinner, caprese-salad style with fresh basil from the garden. It was still pretty filling but very tasty, especially with T's mango margaritas ;) We intended to get work done after dinner but ended up talking and watching The Dark Knight Rises while painting our fingernails - an evening well spent if I do say so myself!

The cooking adventure continued tonight. I was inspired by a dish Mariel made, and turned some leftover zucchini cakes into stuffed portabella mushrooms. Cooking for one person is very boring, and I hardly ever have the time or motivation at home to do it, but I'm really enjoying cooking for T as a thank you for letting me stay in her house (and eat all her food!) - I can see why Papa likes doing this. A little quinoa, red bell pepper, mixed greens, and parmesan cheese turned the shredded zucchini cakes into stuffing, which we topped at the end with some leftover lobster and a little more cheese for good measure. I'm always nervous trying a new recipe that I find randomly on the internet, especially when I start messing with it and trying to pass it off to other people as real food since I know I'll eat just about anything post-Peace Corps (let's add quinoa! a pinch of garlic salt and some kale! what about this Moroccan spice mix? heck, it smells delicious, let's add a pinch and see what happens). But I might have picked up some previously undiscovered skills from Papa and a healthy dose of good luck - so far so good! I took a page from Mica's martini-glass dinner party and made a side salad with all the various types of greens in the fridge mixed with some basil and parsley from the garden; maybe I just love basil but I thought it tasted particularly good.

Ok, I know this is a travel blog not a foodie blog (I hear that tone of voice Maddy!). So what travel adventures happened? Not a whole lot yesterday, but today Mary and I went out for brunch at Snooze and then spent several hours happily racing all over the Nature and Science Museum! Snooze is a breakfast/lunch place, a step up from your basic greasy spoon but nothing too over the top, with some creative takes on eggs Benedict, a dozen different gourmet pancakes (pineapple upside down cake, cinnamon roll, peanut butter cup), and great service from personable and humorous staff. In finding the restaurant this morning I also found out that Silver Mine Subs and Which 'Wich are, in fact, not just Tucson entities but have franchises here in Denver - who knew?

I seem to end up at the Science Museum fairly regularly as of late, it's always on my "must see while in Denver" list, and although I'm sure I would have enjoyed it on my own, having company is always more fun! As we passed the gift shop I *had* to take a picture of Gnome in one of the astronaut helmets, and was still holding him as we went up to the kiosk where you present your ticket to get into the museum (they're perfectly willing to let you go into the gift shop or food area without a ticket - your money is never turned away). One of the women asked what I was holding, because he does look a bit like a giant dust bunny at first glance, and when I explained that he was a gnome she asked if I was going on the gnome hunt. I'm sorry, did you say a gnome hunt? As we were quickly informed, there are little gnomes hidden all over the Museum! She gave us the locator sheet with the directions for finding all of them with a wink and a smile, and off we went. Some of them were too small to photograph (they were very cleverly hidden in painted backgrounds a lot of the time, one was made of stars that you saw while watching a video at the entrance to an exhibit), but as you'll see below we did find a couple that were conducive to photos and even posing. It was a fantastic way to spend a day around town, and I liked being home early enough to put together dinner as well.

I did realize over the past few days that this is one of the only stops I'm making where I'll be in one place for a long time like this, with enough time to have "lazy" days. I'm excited to be back on the road and seeing new sights, but I will admit that it's pretty nice to have time to just bum around the house in my pjs and plan meals and future travel plans ;)

The (two) days in photos:

 Double rainbow in the grocery store parking lot!

 Caprese zucchini cakes

 It was very stormy today, it's supposed to rain the next few days

 Good news, Gnome - I think T-rex would have left you alone because you're clearly the right size to get stuck in his teeth, and with those little front limbs I bet picking gnomes out of your teeth would be tricky

 I spoke too soon - look out, Gnome!

 Gnome ready for lift off

 Gnome with our first gnome-hunt find in the Mars exhibit

 Mary with mule-deer ears

 These are clearly the answer to my hearing issues!

 The gnome-hunt also led us to Yoda!

 Look for this one as you go into the IMAX

 Were gnomes around when trilobites roamed the oceans?

 Clearly they were around with the dinosaurs! (he's on a dinosaur's back)

 Kind of evil-looking but really cool turtle

 Can you see the gnome sleeping right under the knot in the tree?

 Gnome in space! We went to the planetarium on a whim - when was the last time you went to a show at the planetarium? We couldn't remember, so we decided to fix that, and of course we both fell asleep :p Liam Neelson has a very soothing voice when he talks about black holes

 Did you know there's an observation deck on the 4th floor? Did you know there's a 4th floor to the Museum? Neither did we!

 I might be a smidge obsessed with the panorama feature on my phone...

Stuffed mushroom, decadently topped with lobster and cheese