Before the wedding festivities began we took a day and a half to hike, visit my sister, stop by the Shrine of Mother Cabrini (Her birthday is the same as mine! How cool is that?!), enjoy the process of beer brewing - and the product itself and generally relish in the beauty of God via the Rocky Mountains.
So as you can see the trip included myself, my wife (Megan) and my mother-in-law (Liz). Our flight out of Chicago was at 6am, now normally 6am flights don't have very long lines for security so we got there at 4:50 but the night before Chitown was hit with some hard storms that delayed flights until the early morning light. Thanks be to Jesus, through another gentleman pushing through the security lines to make his early flight and another TSA agent opening a new x-ray, metal detecting line - seemingly just for us - we were able to run to our gate and make the plane with a whole five (5) minutes to spare. That must have been an omen to our mom as she was wearing sandals that nearly killed her just running through the airport - and we had yet to get into the mountains to do some real hiking!
We landed early on Wednesday morning and had the whole day to spend in the Denver area (check out those mountains in the distance! Sooooooo beautiful!)
So we started at Red Rocks. It truely was a beatiful site, and I can only imagine the concerts there are a phenomenal experience, to say the least. As I understand it the amphitheater was created in 1941 as part of a Roosevelt CCC project to help kick start the economy with more jobs for people. The structure was kept the same but stairs and seats were blasted out with TNT to provide a seating area for the 9,000+ attendees. However, as it was the morning when we arrived the park was open to anyone who wanted to walk, hike, see the views or intensely workout. Needless to say we did not opt to part take in the last option, but we did see the views, walk the stairs and hike the trails - the latter nearly killed my mother-in-law. But seriously, some people were doing some intense workouts on the stairs. I was very impressed...especially with the high altitude and all.
After red rocks we moved onto the national Shrine of Mother Cabrini. The shrine included two chapels, a convent, a fountain which began to flow when she struck a rock with her staff (aka: a sweet miracle) and a large statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus on top of the mountain (375 steps uphill - which nearly killed my mother-in-law again). Nevertheless, it was such a beautiful hike up the hill with the stations of the cross and mysteries of the rosary to meditate on as the steps increased. This is a photo of Megan atop the mountain at the foot of the Sacred Heart statue. I ended up buying a rosary at the shrine, to add it to my collection of rosaries from around the world.
We finished out our first day in Denver with a trip to the Coors Brewery and hanging out with my sister, Kristin (enjoying dinner, an episode of Psych and Yogurtland!). It was so wonderful to see her again. Family is pretty much the best thing in the world, next to Jesus of course.
More to come on the wedding soon...
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