Saturday, August 30, 2014

It’s a long way from this place to Denver; it’s a long time to hang in the sky…

If we ever fly to Denver again, it will not be in the dark. Part of the excitement of arriving is being able to marvel at the landscape and anticipate the adventure. We arrived at 10:26 Mountain Time (12:26 a.m. Richmond time) last night after the usual airport chaos in Atlanta, including a lost Greek fisherman's hat, and then again when we reached Denver. After about an hour of running through terminals and riding escalators and subways, we found our bags fairly easily and headed for Alamo Car Rental where there was a sign that said, “Go directly to bus,” whatever that meant. After a bit of confusion, we figured it out and found signs outdoors for all the car rentals except Alamo; however, I saw an Alamo bus heading in our direction, and I ended up chasing it down the street, trying to flag it down, pulling a suitcase behind me! We finally got our car and arrived at our hotel about 12:30 a.m. We had eaten lunch at 1:30 p.m. in Richmond with only nuts and pretzels and half a protein bar on the planes. The first dinner of our vacation came from 7-11!

First thing when we woke up this morning and looked out our hotel window, Robin exclaimed: “It looks like Kansas!

Where are the mountains!?” I don’t know why he said that— he’s never been to Kansas! But I have, and he was right. There was this great plain for as far as we could see.  Denver is over 5,000 feet above sea level, which means there is far less oxygen than we are used to in Richmond, which is under 1,000 feet.

 Robin and I usually spend about half of September on a road trip to celebrate our anniversary on the 10th; this will be our 31st.  Since we are trying to go to as many states as we can, and neither of us has been to Colorado, this won out over a few other options.  Plus I've always wanted to go to Aspen, especially after I learned that there is a John Denver memorial there.Friends have told me about Aspen, and I have been a long-time fan of John Denver and his music.  Robin has never been here either, and he is always ready for a new adventure.  So we’ve decided to “do” as much as possible in Colorado and Wyoming during these 15 days.

We headed south this morning toward Colorado Springs and visited the vast, beautiful, park-like setting of the Air Force Academy.

By the time we got there, I was feeling a little light-headed. They say it takes a couple days to get used to less oxygen. Getting into and out of the Academy was challenging because there was a football game there today. Once we got out we continued to head south, only to slow to an almost stop near Coors Field—probably another sporting event.

Once we got around that bottleneck, we went on to Manitou Springs to explore the Garden of the Gods. Oh, my. I was expecting a pristine botanical garden; instead, we found the most breathtaking garden of mostly red rock formations just jutting up out of the earth amidst the native grasses, interspersed with

many varieties of yellow flowers. To make it even better, Pike’s Peak towered right there beside us, just slightly west of the Garden. I had never heard of this spectacular natural national landmark until Frank Green, one of our instructors at work, mentioned that I wouldn’t want to miss the Garden of the Gods, so we took his word for it. Only problem, as we pulled onto the road into the Garden, the first drops of rain began. We made it around the loop road; however, we only spent minimal time out of our car because of the weather, and we vowed to go back tomorrow.

Robin said that we had to admit that we have become technologically dependent. We forgot to bring Samantha, our GPS, and the silver Impala rental car does not have a GPS. Getting around Denver and then Colorado Springs was much more challenging without one, not to mention the time it takes to go the wrong way. I hate to admit that because I often yell at Samantha, especially when she doesn’t like the direction we’ve taken. We began our search for a Costco.

The day ended with a wonderful dinner at a German restaurant called Edelweiss. We enjoy going to Edelweiss in Greenville, VA; this one was much larger and equally as good. As we dined, we reminisced about our first dinner in Stuttgart, Germany, exactly one year ago this weekend.

We are eager to return to the Garden of the Gods tomorrow and perhaps the cog railroad up the mountain to the top of Pike’s Peak, where the elevation is over 14,000 feet.

We are into our fourth day in Colorado; however, this is Day 1 of our blog because we have had "technical difficulties."  Please stand by.