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Archive for "Life"

The Trips You Don’t Plan On Taking

Posted on January 23, 2025 by under Health, Life.    

We had two exciting trips to the ER this week. About 10-15 years ago we made a few trips to the ER because of my health issues. This time it was Brian’s turn. Kansas Medical Center (KMC) is our “go to” ER hospital. My first experience with KMC was when I fainted while enjoying our anniversary dinner at YaYa’s in 2011. That’s where the ambulance took me. We’ve been going there ever since.

Now that I know it’s there, that’s where we go any time we have some kind of health emergency because it’s relatively close to our house and it’s on the East side (our preferred side of town).

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Since Monday was a holiday, I took advantage of my day off to go with Brian to his IV hydration appointment. We had a nice leisurely day and we just hung out at home and watched a movie the rest of the afternoon. After watching Back In Action together, Brian decided he would go lay down in the bedroom because he was tired and not feeling great. Before he went to the bedroom, I asked him several times if we should call the doctor and ask for advice. He told me no and that he was just going to lay down and try to sleep it off. It was still early so I decided to watch Emilia Perez. About the time my movie is over, he comes back out and he’s still not feeling good. It’s around 8-ish so probably too late to call the doctor. I don’t know what to do so I suggest we go to the ER and get him checked out.

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We arrived at the ER around 8:30 pm on Monday evening. He explained everything to the ER doctor (Rundell-Little). They do a CT scan of his abdomen and we had to wait a long time for the results. The tech who can read these leaves at 5 pm so they have to send it to another location for review. Depending on how busy the hospital is, it could take a while to get results back. Anyway, we finally got the results back and there was nothing wrong with his abdomen. Feeding tube area looked good. Doctor did note that he had stool that he needed to move (read: poop out) and that was likely causing the discomfort. While we were there waiting, Brian hacked up a bunch of mucus build up and expelling that stuff seemed to make him feel better. The congestion was probably contributing to the pain he was feeling so, not thinking anything more of it, we were released from the ER (with instructions for Brian to have a bowel movement) and got home around midnight.

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Honestly, I don’t think I would have been as insistent about going to the ER if not for Brian’s blood clot that was diagnosed last week. He’s on Eliquis for it but blood clots can cause all sorts of problems including a stroke. I didn’t want to go to bed and wake up to something bad happening to Brian. He was in a lot of pain so he wasn’t going to be able to sleep either. We had to go to the ER to get a professional opinion. If anything, it gave me piece of mind that there was nothing seriously wrong with him so I could at least sleep easier (albeit not as long because we were up until midnight and I had work the next day).

Brian has been working from home a lot so he worked from home on Tuesday. I normally work in the office Tuesday through Thursday so I went to work as normal on Tuesday but checked on him throughout the day. On the way home I picked up some more Pedialyte for him because the doctor recommended he drink it instead of just plain water. I guess he still didn’t have a bowel movement on Tuesday. At this point it’s been over a month, nearly two, since his last poop.

Wednesday I go to work as normal. Called him around 10 am to make sure he was up and feeding and taking his medication. Here’s the how the rest of that morning went according to Brian. Around noon, he starts to get around because he was going to drop off a package for me at the post office. As he is leaving, he feels the urge to poop. So then he goes to the bathroom but he has been super constipated because of the chemo so he can’t poop. He tries for two hours and he didn’t call me because he didn’t want to bother me at work. Around 2-ish he sends me the following text: I’m sorry to bother. I’m in trouble.

I immediately call him to figure out what’s going on. He tells me he is in so much pain from trying to poop and he is cramping so bad that his right hand is in a fist and he cannot open it. He is afraid he is going to pass out. Not wanting an Elvis situation, I tell him I’m coming home to take him to the ER. I rush home and we make it to the ER around 2:45 pm. I contacted Sheila Hodson (my group exercise coordinator at the West YMCA) to tell her I put my 6:30 pm Zumba class on the sub board because I wasn’t sure how long we would be there. I tried to look for someone to sub and posted in the Zumba messenger chat but its too short notice and everyone teaches classes at different locations at the same time. Anyway, my thought was I did bring my Zumba clothes to work that day so I had them with me. Worst case scenario, I would drive from KMC to the West Y, teach my class, and then come back. If Brian got released before I got back, then he could get a ride home from his cousin Zach Hyatt who lives down the street. Sheila was super understanding and encouraged me to stay with Brian. She reassured me that, if we could not find a sub, we could just cancel class. I really appreciated it because, while I would have done it, that was a lot of driving back and forth from Andover to the West side of town. And, there’s no way I could have taught class last night because we did not get released until almost 9 pm.

At the ER, they did an x-ray of Brian’s stomach and confirmed fecal impaction. I have heard of this happening to people but have never experienced it personally. Well, we can now cross this off the list because I now have almost first hand knowledge of what this is like. Brian said many times, he felt like he was going to die. He felt so much pain every time he tried to poop and he had really bad cramping all over his body (including his legs and his right fist not wanting to open). The was no way he could move this stool without assistance.

I only took one photo last night (the one below) because I felt so bad for him. He was writhing in pain.

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First the nurse gave him an enema and let it sit for 30-40 minutes to see if it would trigger some pooping action. Brian tried but only expelled the enema liquid and no poop. A little bit later, she have him a bigger enema — 1 whole liter of soapy water solution. She let that sit for a while and then had Brian try to poop again. Once again, Brian expelled the enema liquid but no poop. In the meantime, it smelled god-awful in that exam room. I was like, “Are you sure there is no poop coming out because it sure smells like it?”

Anyway, since the enemas were not working, the nurse decided it was time to go “digital” — yes, friends, she was going to dig it out of him. OMG. I cannot imagine. She was probably wondering how she got the short straw and hoping that she had called in sick to work that day. She was a good sport thought. At one point, we rang for her and another nurse came. We thought she gave up and ran away but she was just busy with other patients. The doc on duty (Tucker) did warn us that they are a very busy emergency room.

Nurse Shawna came back to check on us and asked Brian why he didn’t want X (I can’t remember the other nurse’s name) to do “the thing” (read: dig the poop out of his ass). Brian was like, “She has big fingers.” I could not stop laughing. As tiny as nurse Shawna’s fingers are, it was still super painful for Brian. He screamed every time. She would get some of it out before he couldn’t take anymore and they’d have to take a break. She would leave, come back, and they would try again. This pattern repeated 2-3 times and she would get little bits out each time. And then around 7 pm, I had to go home and take care of Saki. She had not been fed as we’d been at the ER since 3 pm that afternoon.

When I returned, it was pretty much done. Brian said I missed the most horrible and gross parts. They gave him another enema (third time’s the charm) while I was gone. I guess whatever the nurse was doing loosened it up enough to where the enema actually worked. Shit was gushing out of him. The nurse asked him if he wanted to move to the toilet but he couldn’t stop it. She could barely keep up with replacing one poop pad after another. It sounded disgusting and I’m glad I wasn’t in the room for that part. By the time I got back, they had him mostly cleaned up. He said his stomach was feeling burbly. I encouraged him to try and poop before we leave. I really didn’t want him feeling like has to poop on the drive home or, worse, poop in the car. This last attempt was a success. He managed to poop the rest of the nearly two months worth of shit in his colon out. I could tell that he felt better after that. Imagine having two months worth of poop in your belly. I actually think he’s down to 130 pounds after. It was a crap ton – literally.

We were discharged at 8:40 pm and home by 9-ish. I helped him get in the shower – he needed it! Anyway, we are going to have to stay on top of this poop thing, in additional to all the other things. This whole cancer journey has been quite a ride. For the first time ever we actually completely tapped out our HSA account. As in, there’s no more money in it. Not sure if it will have been replenished in time for when these ER bills come due but we will cross that bridge when we get there. I’m just really grateful that Brian is okay and we are finally past this poop thing.

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Hurrah for Modern Medicine and Great Friends

Posted on January 5, 2025 by under Health, Life.    

With Cindy and Ed Egan, and Lou and Kory Parkhurst at Deano’s East.

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When we first got Brian’s diagnosis, our friend Cindy told us that she has another friend who went through the exact same thing about ten years ago. We both agreed that it would be great to meet this couple and kind of hear about their experience, etc. Cindy arranged the dinner and we were actually supposed to meet at Wine Dive, closer to where the Parkhursts’ live, but Cindy had a crazy busy weekend (both she and Ed had pickleball tournaments that day) and so we had a last minute location change to Deano’s to be closer to the Egans’.

The funny part is we were just at Deano’s West the night before with some friends because I wanted to check out the fancy new location. Everything is the same food/drink menu-wise, the only difference because the new West side location is on a lake so if you’re out on the patio then you have better views. Nonetheless, the food didn’t matter to us. We were anxious to meet Kory and Lou and hear about their journey, how they got through it, and get their advice.

It was super helpful meeting Kory and Lou. Seeing Kory, looking happy and healthy 10 years later, really lifted our spirits. All the doctors were very positive that Brian would get through this okay but you don’t really know. Meeting someone who has gone through the very thing that you’re suffering from, and getting their insights was completely invaluable. I am beyond grateful to Cindy for making this dinner happen, which was the night before Brian’s first radiation treatment.

Kory’s cancer was nearly identical to Brian’s. His was further along and he also had his feeding tube installed before treatments began. Because he is a slender guy to begin with, their doctors determined that he couldn’t afford to lose any weight at all. Whereas with Brian, we were hopeful that he wouldn’t need a feeding tube at all. Wishful thinking on our part because once Brian hit 150 lbs, we were like, okay now we need to do something because he can’t lose anymore weight. In hindsight, we should have listened to Dr. Chris Dakhil and had the feeding tube installed early. You may or may not need it but it’s there if you do. It’ll help keep your nutrition up which is important because it’s hard to fight the good fight when you have zero energy. Which is what Brian’s going through now. He has zero energy to do anything. He is fatigued and tired all the time and all he wants to do is sleep.

We thought that we would not have any problems getting the feeding tube installed halfway through but we failed to take the holidays into account. By the time we decided to pull the trigger on the feeding tube, we had run into Christmas and New Year, and Dr. Imad Nassif only does these surgeries on Wednesdays so the first available date was January 8. You live and you learn. We know now but hoping we don’t have to use this knowledge ever again.

Anyway, it’s amazing to me how far we’ve come. It used to be getting diagnosed with cancer was a death sentence. I suppose a lot of it depends on the kind of cancer you have and how far along it has progressed unchecked. But, as unfortunate as it is for Brian to have gotten cancer, he is at least fortunate enough to have the kind that can be treated. We are meeting more and more cancer survivors which makes me think modern medicine has advanced enough that more and more people are winning the battle. We are hopeful that Brian will get through this just as Kory has and this will all be a faint memory a decade from now.

Here’s a picture of the two Deano’s locations for comparison:

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This is a picture of the front of the OG Deano’s where we had dinner with the Parkhursts and Egans on Sunday night. It’s located at Cambridge Market, which is actually around the corner from Quarters at Cambridge where Brian and I used to live over 10 years ago.

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This is a picture of the front of the new West location where we had dinner with other friends the previous night.

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My Pickleball Sabbatical aka 2024 Year-End Recap

Posted on January 1, 2025 by under Life, Pickleball, Zumba.    

Before we dive in to the 2024 year-end recap, let’s catch you all up first.

  • 2002 — This is the year that Brian and I were married and the year that I started this blog.
  • 2003 — I had originally dropped out of college in 2000 when my four-year scholarship money ran out. I decided I didn’t want to take out student loans. Anyway, I started working for my current employer in May 2002. After a year, I realized I was eligible for tuition reimbursement/assistance so this is the year that I went back to school. This is also the year that I discovered online poker. Brian also started our 24/7 live cam.
  • 2004 — I officially became a naturalized US citizen, continued kicking butt at school, and after a couple of years as a customer service representative was promoted to supervise my team. This was a rough year for our marriage. Brian struggled with depression and was prescribed Zoloft which was super rough for our sex life. We pursued hobbies like poker (went from playing online to playing bar poker and playing in local tournaments), racquetball, chess, and blogging to get us through.
  • 2005 — This year saw Brian through a couple of job changes. He first worked for Cox Communications and then later that year quit that job to start working for Engenio Technologies which later because LSI and then NetApp. We also got sugar gliders this year.

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  • 2006 — I graduated from Wichita State with my Business Administration degree (Management Information Systems major and minors in Accounting and Management). Rewarded myself with my first brand new car (a 2006 Toyota Corolla we named Bebot) and a puppy. However, since I went straight into grad school to pursue my MBA (still at WSU), I was never home and Molly bonded with Brian more so than me. I was super into poker around this time and even Brian was starting to get into it too.
  • 2007 — Brian was super into World of Warcraft around this time. I played some but knew instantly I would get addicted so I tried my best to stay away from it. Plus, all my time was consumed by grad school and my poker addiction. LOL. This year was our first major travel vacation since our honeymoon. We went to Couples Tower Isle in Jamaica and had our first nude beach experience.

Brian and Ching

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  • 2023 — I continued to play in pickleball tournaments but decided to focus more on local and regional ones. Aside from US Open, USA Pickleball Nationals, one PPA tournament, and one APP tournament, most of my tournaments were local and within driving distance. It was an eventful year and I got to meet a ton of people from all over the world. Brian and I also had our first colonoscopies that year. He doesn’t have to go again for 10 years but I’m due back in 2028.

Now that we are all caught up, let’s talk about 2024. At the end of 2023, after doing the math, and after enduring several blind dates at tournaments, and after having some health issues that I needed to sort out, I decided to take a tournament sabbatical. That didn’t mean I wasn’t playing. I still played recreationally but just took a break from playing in tournaments this year.

I was having some major abdominal cramping in 2023 so toward the end of the year we decided to put me on birth control pills to help regulate my menstrual cycle. That seemed to help but that wasn’t the end of my problems.

At the beginning of the year I decided to switch to monovision. For a couple of years my eyesight had started to deteriorate. I guess that’s what happens when you turn 40. Basically, my brain can’t process the correction from my lenses like it used to. When I have my contact lenses on (which is what I use to correct my nearsightedness), I struggle with reading small print up close including my phone. It got to the point where I actually had to enlarge my phone’s font size. However, when I don’t have my contacts in, I can see up close perfectly fine. My optometrist had suggested monovision the year before when I first started having problems but I thought it was weird so I hesitated to try it but it had gotten so bad earlier this year that I was finally willing to give it a shot. So now, I just wear a contact in one eye (my right eye) and I use that eye to see things far away and my left eye is what I use to see things up close. It’s amazing that it actually works. Although, it did take a bit of an adjustment at first because my brain couldn’t figure out if my computer monitor is up close or far away at first. I’m used to it now for regular day to day activities like driving and such but I do still struggle with pickleball because sometimes the ball is far away and then it’s coming right at you and I just don’t think I’m processing it fast enough. I feel like I would play better with both contact lenses in, at least for playing pickleball. When I start playing in tournaments again, that will be something I’ll have to consider.

On top of all of that, I felt my tennis elbow returning and it actually caused me to have serving yips. I am still kind of yippy although my arm pain is pretty much gone. I had to switch to a drop serve because the yips made my volley serve completely unreliable. While I was nursing my tennis elbow and arm issues, I had to cut back on playing and decided to do more Zumba. Well, then I did too much Zumba and my right knee started bothering me. It got to the point where I had to cut back on that activity as well. Getting old really sucks.

Brian had his own share of issues as well. He actually had three root canals which didn’t really resolve the massive infection issue (which looked like a cyst) in his mouth so then he had to schedule oral surgery but then the week of the oral surgery they couldn’t do it because he had some kind of tonsil infection. The oral surgeon wanted him to take care of his tonsil infection first before doing the oral surgery so that the surgery spot wouldn’t get infected. So then Brian goes to an ear, nose, and throat doctor who decides the best course of action is a tonsillectomy. Leading up to his tonsillectomy, his lymph note was swollen so the ENT doc decided they should biopsy his lymph node. He gets this done on the Monday before the Thursday surgery. Biopsy results in finding cancer in the lymph node. ENT doc thinks cancer in lymph node came from his tonsil so then the tonsillectomy turned into a laryngoscopy and tonsil biopsy. I posted about Brian’s cancer journey here, which isn’t actually over. Brian has his final chemo treatment tomorrow and radiation treatments continue through next week.

Anyway, despite this being my “tournament free” year there were a lot of pickleball events that happened — mostly things I either organized or ran like the mixed doubles tournament at Picklebally’s, InPickle Nation’s (IPN) Wichita Winterfest, the Epic Pickleball Tournament at Wichita Country Club benefiting the Wichita Children’s Home, St. Patty’s Day team tournament at the Pickle Club, IPN 3v3 team tournament, Picklemania MMXXIV benefiting the Rotary Club of Andover, Picklepalooza benefiting Senior Services of Wichita, the Dink Minor League team tournament at Crestview Country Club, and a whole bunch of mini tournaments at the Pickle Club along with the weekly IPN round robin mini tournaments.

I introduced some friends to pickleball and invited them to one of the Newbie Nights at Chicken N Pickle, tried to participate in as many CNP ambassador plays as I could throughout the year, and took advantage of other CNP events. My most favorite one being the CNP Wichita vs Kansas City Ambassador Showdown at the Overland Park location. My friend Christ Pink from St. Louis came to Wichita for work and it was a lot of fun entertaining her on both trips. In addition to rec play or facilitating pickleball, I played in a couple of leagues — a team league with Susie Ternes, Matt Von Feldt, and Austin Winter at the beginning of the year and women’s doubles with Julie Egy at the end of the year.

I think the highlight of the year for me was finally getting to visit Tres Palapas. Brian was supposed to go with us but due to his cancer diagnosis he ended up having to sit out. Though he totally could have gone because his treatments didn’t start until after I returned from Mexico due to delays with getting insurance approvals. Brian also had some trips that I skipped including trips to Oklahoma, Mississippi, and Nebraska. The Nebraska trip he did with his dad to bury his grandmother who passed away earlier this year, a couple of months before her 102nd birthday.

Brian is not so keen on international travel so for his 50th birthday we went to Omaha and for our 22nd wedding anniversary we went to Colorado Springs. That’s actually really funny because we totally forgot that we had already been there.

Lastly, not pickleball or travel related, I had my first jury duty experience. It was quite interesting. Anyway, that pretty much sums up 2024. Can’t wait to see what 2025 has in store. Happy New Year, everyone!

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Our 22nd Anniversary

Posted on October 7, 2024 by under Food and Drink, Life.    

UntitledWhat did we do on our actual 22nd wedding anniversary? It was pretty low key but did get to check out a new place. Neither of us had been to Elderslie Farm before and we’d heard great things so we decided to start our day there. I’ve had their food before when my friend Chris and I ate at 1400 at the Wichita Art Museum. I really enjoyed it so I knew I would like the food at Bramble Cafe at the farm. The big question was whether Brian would like it.

I’m glad Brian was a good sport and was down to check it out even though it’s quite a bit of a trek from our house. It seems so far away because it’s in Kechi but, when we finally got there, we both concluded that the drive really isn’t that bad. And totally worth it to experience something that you wouldn’t normally in Wichita.

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Here’s a picture of the menu for when you decide to go.

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Here are some pics from breakfast.

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Brian always gets black coffee – no sugar or creamer. He jokes that he likes it black like his soul. I almost always get some sort of mimosa, unless the place offers a specialty breakfast cocktail. Because I’m always down to try new drinks that I’ve never had before.

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You can pretty much tell who ordered what based on these food pics.

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Naturally, we had to a take a selfie by the sign since it was our first visit there.

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Later that night we continued the celebration at Red Rock. It was a place we used to go to all the time when we lived in Northeast Wichita but we rarely ever go there anymore. There are just too many restaurants in the regular rotation.

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Our friend Bo works there so we asked for his section.

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Here are some pics of our food.

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And of course you can’t go there and not get the “something chocolate” dessert. It’s our favorite dessert there.

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Cheers to another amazing year! May we have many more years of celebrating ahead of us!

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It’s Been a Wonderful 22 Years

Posted on October 3, 2024 by under Life, Relationship, Travel.    

Can you believe that Brian and I have been together for a quarter of a century? Neither can I. When we first met in 1999, I had no idea we would be here in 2024. It’s been (and continues to be) an amazing ride.

While we’ve been together for 25 years, we’ve only been married for 22. For our anniversary this year, we decided to go to Colorado. Why? First, Brian doesn’t really like leaving the United States so while my first choice would have been to travel somewhere exotic that’s not really Brian’s jam. Second, we wanted to visit Garden of the Gods because neither of us had been there since we were young (or so we thought).

You know you’re getting old when you start forgetting shit. We were so excited to go on this trip because we thought we had never been. I don’t know if Brian knew it all along and just didn’t want to let on because he didn’t want me to veto the idea. On the trip up, things started looking familiar (mostly to Brian because I can’t remember anything). While we’re pulling into the hotel parking lot, Brian makes a comment about how we’d stayed there before. I just chalked it up to all Hyatt Place hotels looking the same but Brian was convinced we’d been here. To settle the debate, I looked up my emails from years past and, lo and behold, sure as shit, I had a receipt from that same hotel from three years before. I guess we had stayed there for the Great Plains Regional Tournament at Monument Valley Park in 2021. I felt sure that we stayed closer to the tournament venue but I guess not.

Looking back, we probably picked this hotel because of its proximity to Garden of the Gods and we figured that we could check out the park on my non-playing days, which we actually did and I had just forgotten about it.

I looked up past blog posts and here’s what happened – it started raining on the day we went to check out Garden of the Gods so we took a picture in front of balanced rock and then we spent the rest of the time having lunch at the Trading Post because we didn’t want to risk walking/climbing on the wet, potentially slippery rocks. Since we didn’t really spend a lot of time there and didn’t get to do much exploring, I guess the visit didn’t register and completely got erased from memory. This recent trip turned out to be our do-over.

Brian isn’t really much of a hiker. Actually, he doesn’t care much for walking. So when we were at Garden of the God, we decided to take the trolley tour. I found it amusing because it was the two of us and a bunch of old people. By old people, I mean people way older than us — because I suppose now that we’re around 50 we technically fall under “old people” category as well.

I looked at the other people who seemed to have difficulty walking and such and I felt like the two of us really should have walked/hiked instead of taking the trolley. But, hey, it’s a park donation.

After the fact, we did the free, self-paced, guided audio tour of Garden of the Gods in the Travel Storys app which turned out way better than the trolley tour. First, because you can stop at the various parking lots strategically placed throughout the park to do some exploring and then, as soon as you get in the car and start moving again, the guided tour just picks back up where it left off. You really couldn’t get off the trolley so you were just stuck there. And second, because it is absolutely free. We totally could have saved the $50+ (before tip) that we spent on the trolley tour. Anyway, we just chalked it up to a donation but, if we ever do this again, we are totally skipping the trolley tour and just doing the Travel Storys audio tour instead.

Here’s our Garden of the Gods highlight reel:

We also drove to nearby Manitou Springs to check out the Manitou Spring Penny Arcade. They had all sorts of old school games that didn’t cost hardly anything to play. You could get a $5 roll of quarters and be entertained for hours.

Hands down my most favorite part of this trip was our visit to the Convergence Station (aka Meow Wolf – Denver). I am officially obsessed and want to see all of the Meow Wolf exhibits all over the nation.

Brian and I also got to drive through the Glen Eyrie Castle property. You’re not allowed in the castle unless you have an appointment so these highlights are all we got.

The most underwhelming activity of this trip was the Ghost Town Museum, which I thought would be more like Old Cowtown Museum but sadly it wasn’t anywhere close. I joked to Brian that I can see why it’s a “Ghost Town.” LOL.

Anyway, this was a great anniversary trip. I’m glad we got to go.

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