11 Steps To A Perfect Sunday Afternoon - Denver CO, USA

Step 1:
Pop out to the mall for pork, pineapple, beer and (because you’re in Colorado) legal edibles.

Step 2:
Fire up the barbecue and the wood-smoker.

I’m hanging out with my new friends in Denver, Morgan, Rachel, Evan, Brett, Aaron (and Guinness the dog).

It’s a sunny Sunday afternoon. The barbecue’s smoking, we’re all cooking together, talking about travel and tasting delicious stuff.
I feel like I am experiencing an American Idyll.

When I was hitchhiking in Morocco in 2013, I met Morgan’s uncle Bill, and travelled with him from the Atlas Mountains down to the Sahara Desert. We had a lot of laughs together.
When I told Bill I was headed to Colorado, he hooked me up with his nephew Morgan on Facebook. Morgan generously invited me to visit him and Rachel and their housemates in Denver.

(Below: Brett doting on his barbecue pork. We all fell in love with it too.)

Step 3:
Eat massive amounts of amazing food.

Everyone in this household is an amazing chef and gourmet.
Morgan has whipped up four different pestos, garnishes, salads and cocktails.
There’s food flying everywhere.
Evan knocks out pizza and focaccia.
Brett smokes and roasts an eight-hour pork shoulder, and produces home made dill pickles from his personal stash.

I grab a weird assortment of ingredients; banana, cheese, hot sauce, peanut butter.
I start frying stuff. For a while it feels like I’m making fried rice, then it gets a bit like an omelette, then swerves down a curry side road.

With so much cooking talent around me, I’m feeling the pressure a bit.

A few eggs and cumin reign in the chaos a bit and once I’ve melted the cheese on top it looks pretty edible.
I decide to call the finished product ‘Indonesian Tagine’.
Luckily everyone is drunk by the time I serve it. X-)

Step 4:
Eat massive amounts of edibles. Ignore the warnings of your new Coloradian friends about the potency of Denver’s cookies.

Step 5:
Go down the block to the public ‘Disc Golf’ course and play 18 holes.

(Above: Evan, Morgan and Brett. Evan is ‘teeing off’.)

I have never played this game before but Disc Golf is extremely fun.

Each player has three different frisbees: a heavy driver, a medium distance and a light, rounded putter.
There are ‘holes’ dotted around the park, which actually aren’t holes but look like a basketball net crossed with a lobster trap.

The objective of the game is to walk around the park and get intoxicated.
Throwing frisbees at the ‘holes’ is optional.

Step 6:
Get the munchies and repeat step 3.

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Step 7:
Play ‘Settlers of Catan’.

This is a really fun game.
You have a board, and dice, and you have to build feudal kingdoms.
I used to play Dungeons and Dragons when I was a kid, so I already have a predilection for mediaeval geekery.

Step 8:
Play ‘corn-hole’.

That sounds like something scary they used to do in Alabama doesn’t it?

It’s OK. It’s a college party game involving tossing bean bags. Good clean fun.

There’s a bunch of bean bags filled with dried corn kernels, and a couple of holes… I feel like this game is pretty self explanatory.

(Below: cornhole. Brett and Rachel face-off against Morgan and Evan.)

Step 9:
Play beersbee.

Beersby isn’t so much a game as an excuse to throw frisbees at your friends while they are drunk.

Brett insists it is a gentleman’s game, but I think it brings out the worst in me.
I mean, you’re throwing frisbees at people and trying to hit bottles.
I was the kind of kid who loved slingshots and making bows and arrows. I’ve got a violent streak that beersby really enables.

Luckily I’ve always had terrible aim, so everyone is safe.