Happy Saturday, my friends! I am so happy to be in your inbox today. Today’s newsletter has a bit about last weekend’s adventure, some random links to click, and a roundup of the soothing books nurturing me through a busy time.
Anne Bogel wrote years ago about the beauty of having a familiar place to visit - a vacation spot where you know the town, the neighborhood, the secret spots, the people.
Let’s say you like a place. Because you like it, you choose to spend a little more time there. And the more time you put in, the more you like it. It’s a virtuous cycle. It’s how you fall in love. ~ Anne Bogel, “Making It Yours”
This is starting to be how I feel about visiting Colorado ~ for ten years now, I have been making my mom’s town of Buena Vista my own for a little bit each year, and just last summer I finally ventured into Denver for a concert adventure. I did extensive research to find what transportation options were available to get me and my girls to the show at Empower Field, and then found a hotel very close to Union Station since that’s where the free trains would be running from. We walked the neighborhood and nearby park for two straight days and things started feeling familiar and comfortable. We found the river and trail and electric scooters and shops and restaurants and all the stadiums and of course, the big REI.
In August, when I was planning another trip to a concert near Denver (Red Rocks of course!), I researched transportation options and found a concert shuttle that left from Union Station - yay! That meant I already knew how to do this thing. Booked the same hotel, explored the neighborhood again, and added on the excitement of the concert shuttle for the first time and a new concert venue.
Then last weekend, for the trip my friend I planned way last spring, we decided to scrap our original hostel + too many Ubers plan, and just book the SAME hotel since we’d be taking that same shuttle from Union Station as I took last month. But this time we added another fun adventure, and decided to try out the train from the airport to Union Station. It was so easy, cheap, and convenient - another tool added to my adventure toolbox! We also ate at two new-to-me restaurants, so while everything felt relatively easier and more comfy than if we were in a totally new city or neighborhood, I expanded my reach and was still able to show my friend things I already knew.
You can read a bit more about the concert experience in my note below (just click on it to read the whole thing)
I will leave you with my relatively recent “not-an-expert, it just worked great for me” guidance for someone traveling to Denver by plane and attending a show at Red Rocks ~ no rental car or Ubers needed!
Fly into Denver International Airport (DIA)
Take the train to Union Station ($10) - signs at the airport will lead you right to the train!
Stay at the Hilton Garden Inn Union Station - about 4ish very walkable blocks from the station (bonus - the hotel is right next to a grocery store and there’s also a Whole Foods between the station and hotel. I’m a major fan of staying near grocery stores when traveling to save on dining out costs.) All three of my stays here have been great!
Book ahead a spot on a shuttle to Red Rocks via Shuttles to Red Rocks with pickup at The Thirsty Lion (we ate here too this time - it was great!) which is right at Union Station. The shuttle system is incredibly organized, the buses are comfy and nice, and you can just sit back and relax through the bonkers traffic.
Walk on back to the hotel when you get dropped off by the shuttle!
We walked to the station and took the train back to the airport in the morning at 5:00 am as well and everything went SO SMOOTHLY - we couldn’t believe it. Of course there are a million ways to do this adventure, but most of the people we talked to last weekend just found a random place to stay and either rented cars or spent a gazillion dollars Ubering (which they struggled to find after the show) ~ this method eliminates all of that! This is definitely not the cheapest way to do Red Rocks1, but NOT DRIVING was my number one goal and I was willing to pay for a more expensive hotel and the shuttle ($60) to eliminate driving.
I’m no expert (at anything - ha!) but feeling like I have some familiarity with a place makes visiting so much fun and more relaxing. That relief of knowing how to do something (anything!) and get places makes me feel so much braver about trying out new things, without an adventure feeling like a whole lot of work.
Do you have any travel hacks for very specific places or experiences? I would love to hear them!
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Random Links to Click
One of my favorite podcast episodes ever from
~ all about romance and a romance bookstore!I know this is old news by today, but I spent a good portion of my summer debating with friends and family about when the hell Tay would step up politically. She did it with a cat, JUST like I predicted. (NYT gift link)
I’m sure you all remember I’m a bit fixated on books set in Maine, so I was delighted to see this Picture Book Guide to Maine from The New Yorker
This small purchase has seriously improved my increasing-running-mileage-induced plantar fascitis and also just feels so damn good
A medium sized stainless straw cup of ice + about 8 oz of this fizz and my new absolutely favorite morning commute drink is made. When the cup is about halfway empty when I get to work, I add in an ice cold Spindrift and ahhhhhhhh.
Speaking of ice, am I bonkers for wanting one of these for my office?
This album is quite delightful ~ definitely want to see them in concert sometime soonish!
I read a new release last week and wrote a very very rare one-star review, and then my friend shared this Slate review of the book that made me feel better about being so feisty about it.
I have this $8 tank is four colors and get compliments on them every time I’m out. I love telling people it’s from Target ~ I’m fancy like that.
This is what I have playing in the library at all times possible to soothe everyone’s ragged nerves at the beginning of the school year - snappy teenagers and adults alike.
Soothing Reads in a Busy Time
Life has been great lately, but also …… full. My brain is much too jam-packed to process anything that isn’t familiar, so I have been leaning heavily on audiobooks I can count on to soothe my brain and soul while I commute in the afternoon or do chores around the house. My morning commute has pretty much just been music and the occasional podcast episode, and I have actually been forgoing my AirPods altogether for walks because I just can’t handle any more stimulation or inputs. Hearing the noisy nature sounds of early autumn / late summer in Wisconsin is delightful!
When I get in the car at the end of a firehose of a school day, though, all I want is sweet, sexy voices narrating hot people living their lives and doing sweet and sexy things. It’s a simple request, and luckily the supply of romance audiobooks is abundant on Hoopla and Kindle Unlimited! These three recent listens were exactly what I needed.
Do Me a Favor by Cathy Yardley ~ yay for more mature characters from Yardley! This story is set in the Pacific Northwest and features a cookbook writer and a handyman ~ I love getting different careers for romance characters in the sea of career sameness in this genre.
Swift and Saddled by Lyla Sage is the second book in the contemporary Rebel Blue Ranch series and I am so glad I took a chance on it ~ I liked it way more than I did the first in the series. I also really appreciate the unique cover art for this series!
The Best of All by Karla Sorenson ~ YES PLEASE! I love parenting romances and while this one has a sad start, watching the main characters parent an orphaned little girl was so heartwarming. Also, a football player who is just a big old teddy bear under his team dad gruff exterior.2
That’s all for this week ~ thanks for reading!
I love to hear from readers, so please do reach out to me with questions or feedback at mindfullibrarian@substack.com . You can always just reply to this email if you are reading in your inbox, or hit the comment button if reading on the web or the app! If we aren’t already connected on Goodreads, I would love to see you there as well.
Let’s be real: flying to Denver from Wisconsin for less than 24 hours with tickets we had to buy resale because they sold out in the first minute really isn’t going to be an economical win and whether or not it was *affordable* is questionable, as is our financial decision making ability. But, in for a penny, in for a pound, as they say, and DAMN WE HAD FUN.
Remember, I don’t like ACTUAL football or real football players, just football players in romance books. Very different things.
I liked all the football players in my classes in college- as a soc major there were a lot! And definitely when I had to take summer classes so I could study abroad my Causes of Crime class was 10 football players and 2 other women. Coach Taylor on Friday Night Lights is my #1 crush and even though my husband is a HS soccer coach, they have very similar vibes. Thank you for these book recs, I have been reading YA for the comfort vibes lately. I just finished Phoebe’s Diary by Phoebe Wahl.
Thank you for this information on Red Rocks, I would love to go to a concert there! The places we vacation regularly are Ocean Isle Beach in NC and Surfside Beach in SC. In Surfside we have stayed in the same Oceanside Village community for 35+ years and I enjoy knowing where the community center, playground, pool, pond and few oceanfront restaurants are- my 89 yo grandad has a favorite restaurant called The Inlet Kitchen in Murrell’s Inlet that he has been going to since 1960 when he married my grandma. But we didn’t start staying in this community until my twin and I were born. My grandparents had a family friend who rented us her house “The Pearl” (named after herself!) until her death in 2022 at age 108!
We got married at Ocean Isle in 2014, my husband’s aunt and uncle have a house there but we still rent a house on the opposite end of the island to accommodate all of us- the 3 couples have 5 kids between us plus my in-laws so we usually get a house with at least 5 bedrooms. We have stayed in the same house the last 2 summers but my MIL picked a different one for next summer. I really enjoyed being in a walkable area- we could walk to the town square park, walk to the beach, walk to mini golf and sunset slush, walk to coastal museum. There was Toy Story in the Park one night and we spent every afternoon in the house pool. My husband and I went back to our wedding venue restaurant for the first time in 9 years, we hadn’t been since our first anniversary!
We also regularly go to Laurel Fork, VA where my husband’s family has small mountain houses. Between them his family owns 4 houses on this land and we go up there for July 4th every year. It’s 20 minutes to get anywhere beyond the property but the Olde Mill Golf Club and Chateau Morisette winery are places we went a lot more before we had the kids who want to tube down the creek all day. There’s a lot of “creek sitting” for the adults in our family.
Matt Haig's memoir (Reasons to Stay Alive) was such a bizarre study in what looked like extreme codependency. I felt sorry for his wife after reading it.