RoadTrip Day 3: Mountains!

We finally get to play in the mountains!


We slept in today, Thursday, as we had had a few beers the night before.  The days are already starting not to matter, Monday, Saturday, Wednesday, Friday, they were all the same.  It was going to be a great feeling not having to dread Mondays.

Boulder Mountain Park

The weather had passed through while we slept and the sky was bright blue and the sun already high as we showered and packed the car.  The Rodeway Inn Boulder had a decent breakfast, some cereal, fruit, pastries, and juices.  We filled up on that and took a little something extra for a snack that we might want on a hike later in the day.

Over breakfast we discussed possible activities for the day and decided on doing a hike in Boulder Mountain Park.  We also had read about Boulder Falls, possibly going to Estes Park or trying to get a tour at New Belgium Brewery in Fort Collins.  But Boulder Mountain Park is close to town and we could do some light hiking as we got acclimated to being at 6000 feet.  We drove over to the park and found the office because we needed to find a map of some trails.  We had read that the Royal Arch was a pretty decent hike and you can make it a big loop trail instead of an out and back.  The guide in the office agreed and if we went to the Flatirons first you could hike along the base of the giant rocks as you approached the Royal Arch.

The Flatirons

Boulder Mountain Park is an awesome city park with a lot of locals using the trails.  There were a few people running, a couple others taking their dogs for walks, and some more just heading out for a leisurely hike on a beautiful day.  We made our way up to Royal Arch, which was more strenuous than we had expected.  Luckily, I am super annoying when it comes to elevation and staying hydrated, so we had packed enough water to refill Lake Superior if we needed to.  We took lots of water breaks and there were many times when we stopped to rest because the scenery was so pristine that it deserved a picture.

When we arrived at our turnaround spot, the Royal Arch, there were a couple other groups enjoying the views created by the large natural arch.  We were happy to follow along and find a spot to relax and take in nature.  We snacked on a few granola bars and fruit snacks as chipmunks played around us hoping to get a snack for themselves.  All the signs said "Do Not Feed Animals" but a few people were happy to feed the little guys whatever they had with them.

I tried as hard as I could without hurting myself to get on top of the arch.  It is what I do in situations like this when anyone can get to a spot on a trail, I want to find a way to get to the place that others can't reach.  This time I was stuck looking through the arch, instead of looking down from the top.

Looking Through the Royal Arch

We made our way back to the car taking a different much less scenic route and thoroughly enjoyed the downhills as our quads had received a pretty good workout on the way up.  We were starting to get hungry but wanted to go check out Boulder Falls which was just going to be short detour before having lunch.

The Falls are a few miles outside of town and only a few steps off of the road so the trip to them only took 30 minutes roundtrip.  But this little guy got us started for some much bigger falls that we were expecting to see later on the trip, like the ones in Yosemite and Yellowstone

The parking situation at the falls is not ideal leaving you to cross the 1 lane state road with cars going pretty fast up and down hills and around curves.  There were a lot more cars parked than what we saw walking around the falls so there might have been other stuff to see in the area but we were hungry and I get cranky when I'm hungry, so we headed back towards town to find a place to grab a late lunch.

In town, we decided that a filling Italian meal would suit us best after hiking and walking a fair amount to start the day.  We found a place that had some outdoor seating in the sun, which felt great as the air was a touch cool.  We split a salad and then both got an entree which was a lot of food but as we were coming to the conclusion that we ordered too much food we also figured that we could keep a box of leftovers in the cooler and could snack up on the remains for dinner.  We also decided that even though we couldn't get a reservation for a tour at New Belgium Brewery that we should still go up to Fort Collins to check out that town and we could still stop by New Belgium if only just to get a souvenir.

As we started driving the 45 miles or so up to Fort Collins, we used the All Stays App on my phone to find the campsite at Horsetooth Reservoir just outside of town.  We took some back roads to get up to Horsetooth and made it by late afternoon.  We had our pick of campsites and choose one off by itself with a beautiful overlook of the Reservoir. It was a great place to relax and we both tried to take a little nap and read some of our books.  We needed to get some supplies, like firewood and ice so we left our site and headed towards town.

Dusk at Horsetooth Reservoir

We got our essentials at the gas station on the way in to Fort Collins but decided that we wanted to check out the main drag in town.  As we were driving, we spotted a mini golf place and I love a game of Putt Putt so we stopped.  After a demolition of Megan during the first 18 holes, we decided that a bet was in order.  I beat her by 8 strokes so I would give her an 8 stroke lead to start the second round of 18 holes.  I knew I was in trouble as Megan started making putts off the bricks, with her eyes closed, and I think one time she tripped as she was approaching her ball and it went in.  She also drained two hole-in-ones that easily propelled her to victory even without the 8 stroke handicap that I had given.

Pizza Cowboy Style

After my poor performance on the golf course, I was not going to have any more fun in this town so we went back to our campsite to have a little late night dinner.  We got the fire going and after reading some more I cooked up the leftovers from lunch and the remaining pieces of pizza.  I dubbed this meal Pizza Cowboy Style.
After filling our bellies with hot leftovers and enjoying the fire a bit longer we turned in to have a peaceful night under the stars.

RoadTrip Day 2: Death by Kansas

We started day 2 after a delightful first night sleeping on the ground.  The sleeping pads worked out nicely and we found that by putting a blanket over our 2 pads they stayed together and the extra blanket made it feel almost like a bed.

We had stocked up on little drinks and snacks from the grocery store in an attempt to not spend all of our money at gas stations.  We also had reusable water bottles that we had decided would be the best way to stay hydrated, cut down on garbage, save room in the already full car, and save a dollar or three along the way.  By my estimate that is a Win, Win, Win, Win Situation.

We had breakfast while on the road as the mountains were calling our names only 1 state to our west.  After finishing our dry as sand granola bars with copious amounts of water we headed away from the sun, full of vigor.  We used GasBuddy to find the cheapest gas within 20 miles of us; it is important to drive 4 miles out of the way to save 2 cents a gallon and with the tank holding 12 gallons that is almost a whole quarter, Audrey.

We also took a look at the Roadside America app, which I mentioned has the crazy, quirky, interesting "tourist" spots.  Well near Kansas City there the famous Car-Henge (Stonehenge made of old cars), the Negro League Baseball Museum (lucky for Megan we hit town when they were closed), and the World's Largest Ball of String.  We had to see this!

Largest Ball of String

Let me tell you a little about the World's Largest Ball of String or WLBS; it is NOT TWINE!  Don't let anyone confuse the two.  Twine and string are not even in the same ballpark, the WLBS is offended if you think twine is really the same thing.  You may be thinking to ask someone that has been to the WLBS, what is the difference. My answer: I have no idea. But there it is, in a lonely corner of some restaurant's patio.  We got out, took a picture, read about how some bored child somewhere started making this ball and didn't stop until he was 59 years old, and then jumped back in the car before anyone could stop us to talk.

I think this was about the time I had to start limiting Megan's use of the Roadside America app.  But we were heading in the direction towards Colorado, already close to 20 miles in to Kansas with beautiful fields of amber grain waving; we'd be there in no time. . . . .

What I meant was there was no time that could measure how long it takes to drive across Kansas.

We started off by listening to the one Kansas City station I enjoy, the comedian station.  They play short clips from comedians' standup routines.  It is really enjoyable and I have to admit to Kansas that I caught myself smiling for portions of that drive.  But before we knew it, the station was lost to the airwaves and we were on our own.

We listened to some country radio, but too much talk about corn prices and soybean plantings for it to be a long term solution to our Kansas boredom.  We played the Alphabet Game, in order finding words that start with each letter.  Luckily, Salina, Kansas has a zoo or we might still be playing.

After the game, in which I can assure you that I won and Megan tried to cheat her way to victory, we listened to a few CDs that we had.  Zac Brown Band, The Killers, Coldplay, hillbillies playing the spoons, radio static, really anything we could find.  This is when I dubbed Kansas, the state that you even listen to the bad songs on CDs.

We didn't want to stop for lunch. Sorry, let me rephrase that, there are not any places to stop to eat lunch in Western Kansas so we pulled off at a rest stop and ate some leftovers that we had luckily packed.  Cold pizza and an ice cold coke.  I wondered if people in Western Kansas had refrigerators yet.

When we finally made it to Colorado we commented that the first field of amber waving grain really was beauitful, even majestic looking and then there was another 450 miles of the same stuff. Unfortunately for us, when you enter Colorado you aren't immediately thrown in to snow-capped mountains.  We drove on for another few hours as we were still deciding where to go first.

We had a friend that was going to be in Denver in 3 days and wanted to try to meet up with him and we had Colorado Springs planned for the weekend so we though Boulder would be a fun place to stay and then we could stay there, go to Estes Park or maybe up to Fort Collins to see New Belgium Brewery.  We got on Expedia and found a cheaper but still decent looking hotel in Boulder, plus it served breakfast which is always a great perk to have.  The Rodeway Inn turned out to be a decent place to stay especially for the $55/night fee.

We pulled in to town after getting stuck in Denver traffic under a steady downpour and low hanging clouds.  We couldn't even see the mountains.  But with the summer of 2012 just starting, I believe this was the last rain the Western US had until August.

In downtown Boulder

We checked in to the hotel and unpacked all of our clothes from the car.  We figured out that we needed to utilize a 2 bag system, the overnight bag would be filled with clean clothes that we could access easily and the other large bag would be the dirty clothes and anything waiting to be worn later, which could be on the bottom of everything in the trunk.  I opened my large bag and found that my bottle of Nyquil that I had been taking to fight off a cold had leaked over a handful of clothes.  Annoyed and stressed I began doing a hand washing and ringing of clothes in the shower to get the red liquid and medicine smell out of my belongings.


Being satisfied with my wash and having taken our showers, we deserved to get some dinner and drinks.  We found a few places that according to UrbanSpoon, were right up our alley.  We went to Mountain Sun Brewery first because it was close to where we parked our car and the rain was starting to pick up, little did we know how lucky we were.  The place had a good feel to it and we decided to ask for a table, with a short wait the bar was looking might appealing.  We ordered a couple of pints of some FYIPA and Annapurna Amber and before we knew it we were sitting down at our table.  After being seated, our waiter Dave started answering our questions.  We wanted to taste a few of the beers and he was more than happy to bring us a round of samples to wet our taste buds.

Don't worry about how long this meal is taking to get through, there is a reason for the buildup.

Date Night Burger from Mountain Sun Brewery

The Date Night Burger.  The Date Night Burger is the reason.  I am not one to get caught up in hyperbole, but this was the best burger I have ever had in my life.  It was a big hunk of ground beef, thick bacon, roasted poblano peppers, date puree, and a glob (technical definition) of warm goat cheese.  I still have dreams about how this burger tasted.  I think Megan ordered some food too, excuse me for not remembering, I was in my own little zone.






After dinner, the rain had subsided a bit and we made our way to Walnut Brewery where we tried a few more beers.  We also made a friend at the bar that was there on business and had a heaping plate of mini donuts and was willing to share.  These delicious little morsels came with a chocolate and caramel dipping sauces. Our friend was from Colorado Springs and told us that we must go to Garden of the Gods and that if we were in the area we should try to go to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison out in Western Colorado.  This was exciting to hear because neither Megan nor I had heard of this place until we saw a "National Parks Magazine" in the grocery store and there was a little blurb about the Black Canyon.  We figured that if it was in a magazine and now we also had a personal recommendation from someone kind enough to share her donuts that it must be a place to see.