travelogue
i’ve gotten ahead of myself, as usual, delving into the specific without giving my reader the outline. Our trip’s framework:
Wednesday the 25th
We left Louisville in my MINI for our non-stop flight out of Indianapolis. Whitney’s a bad flyer even under the best of circumstances, but her months of nightmares about our doom on our flight to Denver had her on a razor’s edge the whole day. Two hops to Tampa earlier in the year had nearly undone her, so I found a non-stop flight to Denver on upstart Frontier airlines. A discount carrier like Southwest or JetBlue, Frontier has new Airbus A318/319 planes with only coach-class seats. I was only impressed with their service, professionalism, and price.
Anyway, our flight left out at 2:10 Indianapolis time. Indy doesn’t follow Daylight Savings time, so we had an extra hour to kill. We had some lunch at the TGI Friday’s on the concourse, then made it through security just in time for boarding.
We flew over a broad band of showers at 41,000 feet, above most turbulence, watching Secondhand Lions on my powerbook. After a two hour flight, we landed at the most beautiful airport I’ve ever seen–Denver International.
On the spur of the moment, I decided to upgrade from the Dodge Neon I had reserved at Thrifty to a Chysler 300 Touring. Calm down…it’s not the V-8. But even with a 250 hp V-6, the big sedan was a complete pleasure throughout the trip, whether knifing through mountain passes or cruising at 80 on I-25.
We stayed at the Estes Park Holiday Inn throughout our stay, and we fell exhausted into bed at 9pm local time (11pm Louisville time).
Thursday the 26th
Thursday was our first day in Rocky Mountian National Park, which is directly west of Estes Park. Most of Colorado’s 14,000 foot peaks (the “Fourteeners”) are in this large park, and the scenery is breathtaking. We toured the main throughway of the park, first up a dirt road through Fall River pass to the summit visitor’s center, then down the Western slope of the Continental Divide to Grand Lakes, then back again to Estes park. Almost every bend in the road was a new vista, and we took pictures appropriately. Returning after 10 hours, we were exhausted.
Friday the 27th
Friday it rained. All day. Undaunted, we went to tour the Coors Brewry in Golden, Colorado just west of Denver. Pretty awesome; I’m all about industrial technology and scale, and a brewery is a perfect example of finesse and brute throughput: They ship 1.5 million gallons of beer per day.
On the way to Golden, we got to drive through Boulder. Even on a drive, you can tell the place is…different. It’s like they exported the Highlands area of Louisville and expanded it to 1.5 million folks.
Once back in Estes Park, we went souvenir shopping. I got a nice long-sleeve shirt that screams “Got Oxygen?!”
Saturday the 28th
Another blissful day in the park. We had a fruitless search for some horseback riding (needed reservations everywhere), but we did get to climb up Trail Ridge Road in the 300 again to see the sights, then taking a bus over to the clear Bear Lake, which we hiked around.
The trip back on Sunday was uneventful, except for us almost missing our flight because of delays going through security at Denver International. The flight couldn’t have been smoother, and the drive back was quick.
So, in outline, that’s our trip. More details (and pics) forthcoming.