The Denver Trip - Part 2 - Casa Bonita

I just realized I need to finish by recollections on my trip to Denver.

When we got into Denver two weeks ago, we stayed at a Marriott hotel that specialized in 'suites'. That is, every room had a "kitchen" nook and a couch with a pull-out bed. It was relatively inexpensive considering the other options.

When we got there, we noticed that there were quite a few Nebraska license plates in the parking lot. Turns out, there were a bunch of 14/15 year-old kids there playing baseball. They were all from Millard, which is where we live.

The first night there, we went to the Casa Bonita, a themed restaurant that takes all the charm of cafeteria food and combines it with a theme that can only be described as Mexico if it were in an underground cave.

I went there when I was a kid and didn't remember much about it except for a few things.

1. A long line to get our food. It wasn't exactly super long, but when you're a kid, every thing is magnified. When we got there, we got in a long line and were handed paper menus. When we finally turned a corner, it was to tell the cashier our order and then we followed another line. We get cafeteria trays and are handed random plates by workers from the "kitchen". We then took them to our table.

2. Black Bart's Cave. They have an attraction that's a haunted cave. It's not really scary, but it's filled with lights, buzzers and other things that cause a commotion. Casa Bonita was featured in an episode of South Park and when Cartman, the fat kid, walked through Black Bart's Cave, he went, "Ooooh! Scary!" This is what Laura and I said before we went into the cave. Right away, after we had passed a skull on the wall, a loud scream erupted and the skull lit up. Julia wanted to leave right now, but we couldn't as there were people behind us. She clung to me as we walked through the cave. When we got out, Julia said, "That was really scary!"

3. Hot salsa and refried beans. I think Casa Bonita was where I first tried refried beans. It was not unpleasant. I had never had them before and I liked them. The salsa, on the other hand, was a wake up call. I had never tried it before and it was like a volcano erupted in my mouth. I was in pain and I think it scared me off salsa for years. Julia stuck to her tried and true chicken strips and fries. We did get her to try a sopapia. though.

4. Cliff divers. I vaguely remember this from my visit. Every 15 minutes, they have a mini show where someone or some people will dive off the man-made cliff, have a gunfight, juggle fire torches and various other scenarios. This visit involved elaborate scenarios of pirates kidnapping damsels or a good guy/bad buy shootout. All non-cliff diving segments seemed to end in someone diving off the cliff. Even the fire juggling had diving in it. When I was there, all I remember was some guy in a speedo diving in the water. That was it. This visit had a lot of audience participation. Julia loved the shows.

5. Posing for a wanted poster. They have a mini jail where you can pose for photos in which you are part of a wanted gang from the old west. All of us kids had posed for this picture when we visited, but the photo is lost to the ages. We had fully intended to do this with Julia, but the photo was $12.50. We didn't think it was worth it. The jail wasn't big at all and it didn't look as impressive as I remembered it.

The problem with going to Casa Bonita on the first night was that Julia was so enamored by the restaurant, which she called, 'The coolest restaurant ever!' was that she wanted to go back every night. We insisted to her dismay that it was going to be the same thing every night and that it was too expensive to go again. She grumbled at this, but she lived.

http://www.casabonitadenver.com/index.htm