Denver, Colorado (July, 10, 2010)

July 10

We got up, mom took a shower and then we made some scrambled eggs, toast and bacon for breakfast. We spent some time doing laundry. We went to the theater around 1ish. I watched Toy Story 3 while mom and Erika watched New Moon, the Twilight movie. I have never seen a movie at the theater by myself before, so it was a weird experience. My movie started sooner so I had to wait about 15 minutes in the lobby for their movie to finish. I spent some time writing about our trip so far. I got four pages into it when they came out of the theater. It was about 3:30 when we decided to go to Walmart to pick up a few things. We found some chicken to make chicken burgers for dinner. We went back to her apartment and relaxed a bit.



We watched Invictus while we did more laundry. We made the chicken burgers a bit later. Doug came back around 6ish and was full from the free tacos we forgot about. Oh well. We ended up watching the other movie, Nine, while I used the computer for a while. After the movie, we watched Friends for a while until we got tired. We all went to bed early because tomorrow was going to be another really long day.

Colorado Springs to Denver, Colorado (July 9, 2010)

July 9

We had about an hour left to go. We finally saw the lights of Denver out in the distance. We stopped at a gas station near Castle Rock to use the bathroom and to get some gas so we didn’t have to when we got closer to Erika’s. We got off I-25 and got onto the I-225 towards Aurora. We followed her directions and finally got to her apartment complex where she had us type in a code on the keypad to open the gate. We had trouble so she had to come help us. She said most of the time it doesn’t work, so she ends up using the cards the residents of the complex were issued. We parked the cars and got out the stuff we were going to use that night. She showed us where she lived, gave us the mini tour of her apartment and she told us that she got some free Rockies tickets from a friend who couldn’t use them. The game was for Friday night if we decided to go. We were all so tired from that long haul, I think we put away close to 570 miles in one day. We unpacked our sleeping arrangements and while we did that, Erika was sleeping on her blow up bed she shared with Mom. She has no way to haul a real bed, so a $45 blow up mattress had to do for now. I got my bed ready and laid in it while Erika’s new cat, Poppy, stared me down. The kind of staring that makes you feel uncomfortable, almost like she was plotting a way to murder me.



Mom and Erika fell fast asleep. Erika had to work in the morning and mom just isn’t a night owl. Doug decided he’d play the computer all night long. I yelled at him to go to bed. He did eventually. No one wants to hear keyboard and mouse clicking while they were trying to sleep, plus it’s rude to the ones who were sleeping. I wasn’t sure how long I had slept before I woke up with the feeling of something staring at me. I yelled out for someone to turn the light on. I know what I was doing, but at the same time, it felt like I was asleep too. Doug was watching Friends on the DVD player so, he got up and turned the light on. “Something is staring at me.” I explained in a daze. Erika and mom also woke up wondering what was going on. “I don’t know where I am.” I said in a light panic. It takes me a couple of seconds to figure out where I am when I am somewhere new. A few minutes later, the lights were out and were all asleep again. Erika’s alarm went off in the morning and she got ready for work. Mom got up shortly after, took a shower and ate some cereal. I got up around 10:00 a.m. and got ready. We unloaded Erika’s boxes we’ve had in the car since we left. We unloaded all the boxes we brought in and put them away in the cupboards and threw the boxes away to remove all the clutter. The fry daddy leaked oil all over the kitchen floor, so we spent some time cleaning that up. We changed our clothes and got ready to meet Erika for lunch. I told mom to guess where we might go for lunch. I said probably Taco Bell. Erika gave us the address of her work and we found it pretty easily. We met her in the front of the building.



We picked her up and guess where we went? Taco Bell. She said she came here every once and a while. There is a Famous Footwear near the Taco Bell where someone had turned their van into the Scooby-Doo Mystery Machine. Erika had sent me the picture of it to my phone months ago. When we went into the Taco Bell and had our tacos. We couldn’t stay long because she had to get back to work soon. We finished and drove her back to work. We parked our car near hers in the parking lot and followed her into the building. She showed us the first floor, which consisted of a cafeteria and some offices. We went up the elevator to her office and we met some of her co-workers. They seemed very nice and they liked Erika. So I guess that job suited her.



We stayed there for about and hour until we decided to go do some errands. We stopped at the Walmart first because she desperately needed some groceries. She HAD nothing, not even milk. We picked up a few things and some other things to ear while we were visiting Erika. After Walmart, we went to the Goodwill down the road. I tried looking for a Rockies shirt to wear to the game that night but found nothing. I was surprised. We found a couple other t-shirts instead. On the way back to her apartment, I found a Dick’s Sporting goods and attempted to find a cheap Rockies shirt. We looked through a few shirt racks and I found a good plain gray one with Colorado Rockies on it. I bought one for Erika for $4, it said something like Rocktober on it, probably when they made the playoffs in 2009. We paid for the shirts and hustled home to put stuff away. We saw that Doug finally got up. We told him to get ready because Erika would be home soon. Erika got home a while later and we all rushed to finish getting ready to go. Erika changed her clothes, we got into the car and headed towards the light rail station down the road. We got to the parking garage, parked the car and headed towards the ticket kiosk. I gave Erika some money for our tickets, she put the money in and got our tickets and change back in dollar coins. We had a bunch of dollar coins.



We headed up the stairs to wait for our train to take us to Denver. We were going to cross three zones to Coors Field. We probably waited close to 15 minutes until our train showed up. The Denver light rain wasn’t any different than the ones I’ve been on in the past, the Portland MAX, the train to Washington D.C. and the BART of San Francisco. A couple other Rockies fans were also on their way to the game. We got to Union Station about 20 minutes later, this is where all the trains eventually end up and turn around.



We walked through the building and walked down a few blocks to Coors Field.



We went to the gate and had our tickets scanned. The lady who scanned my ticket saw Jingles and asked about him. I told her that I was doing a traveling possum thing like the traveling gnome. She smiled and thought it was a pretty cool idea. She told me to enjoy the game and that my possum to enjoy the game too. I told her that we would. We walked into the concourse and found out seats. Our box seats were similar to the Terrace Club ones at Safeco. I couldn’t believe how tiny the field was. The dimensions were definitely shorter than at Safeco. They had water in centerfield where ducks often came to hang out, other than that; it was like any other field.



I believe it was cowboy night, so some of the fans were dressed up and the players’ pictures on the big screen when they came up to bat were dressed in cowboy garb. I found a program lying on the ground near us so I helped myself. A while into the game, Erika and I got up to get a snack and a drink from the concession stand. We got our food and paid the cashiers with our dollar coins. I asked the girl if they got those coins often and she said yes because so many of the fans take the light rail to get to the game. We went back to our seats and enjoyed our food and drinks. The game was pretty boring until the 7th inning.



Erika told us that the professional Colorado sports teams have a deal with Taco Bell. If the Rockies scored more than 7 runs, the entire state of Colorado won 4 free tacos (with a purchase of a drink) whether or not you were at the game. You would have to go into a Taco Bell the next day between 4-6 p.m. The Rapids, Broncos and Nuggets were all included in the deal. Ian Stewart from the Rockies hit a grand slam in the bottom of the 7th inning. Prior to the grand slam, they were down 8-5. The ball was hit to right center field near the water. The crowd roared with excitement and we were happy because we had just won 4 free tacos! The Rockies scored one more before the routine 3 up and 3 down, game over. Rockies win 10-8 as they rallied past the San Diego Padres. We got up and headed out of the stadium like everyone else.



We got disoriented as we left Coors Field and had to turn around to find Union Station to get back on the train and to our car. We got on the train-along with everyone else in Denver and had to stand in the aisle. It took forever to get back to our car. We reached our car about midnight and Doug informed us then and there that he was going to hang out with Jon. He could have told us earlier, before we got back. Jon picked him up and drove off. Erika, mom and I went to our car. Since we were in town already, we decided to get some milk, bread and bacon for breakfast tomorrow. We hit up the King Sooper (equivalent to a Safeway) and bought our food. On the way out Erika decided to rent movies from Red Box. We rented two movies, Invictus and Nine. We got to her apartment, put the stuff away and got ready for bed. I watched a few episodes of Friends before falling asleep.

Tuba City, Arizona to Colorado Springs, Colorado (July 8, 2010)

July 8


We got up Mom and Doug took a shower, we packed up our stuff, ate our complimentary breakfast, a choice of biscuits and gravy, breakfast sandwiches or eggs, hash browns, sausage and toast. We got in the car and headed east on Hwy 160, towards Monument Valley. The terrain got so sparse and barren. We starting nearing the valley because you could see what they called “mittens” spread out all over the horizon.



We got to the town of Kayenta, the scenic byway to Monument Valley. We took the route up to Monument Valley on Hwy 163. We stopped on the side of the road to take some pictures of the “mittens.”





We continued up towards Utah and finally reached the turn off and the Welcome to Utah sign. We got out and took pictures with the signs and then decided to head east towards the visitor’s center.



We drove the two miles only to find out it would cost $15 bucks to get in. We said eff it and turned around. We stopped at the sign for Monument Valley and took some more pictures before getting back in the car and heading back towards Kayenta.







We still had a long way to go. We stopped and used the bathroom at a Chevron Station before heading towards Four Corners. We were amazed on how remote some of the shacks the Navajo people lived in. They were very spread out from one another. We hit road construction about 40 miles from the Corners. We neared the sign that said Four Corners. We turned left and saw a huge fence surrounding the monument and several puzzled people. I was literally crushed. I drove all that way for nothing. I so wanted to be in four states at the same time. I even talked about what I was going to do when we got there. We got out of the car and took a few pictures. I was so upset it was closed because of construction. The year I come down there and they decide to do construction. Ahhh! I just couldn’t get over it. I kept thinking, when will I ever be down here again? Seriously!





About 100 yards down the road was the Welcome to Colorful Colorado sign. We finally made it. Doug had to pee so he ventured off down the trail while we talked to a family from Houston, Texas. Doug came back in a hurry stating that he had seen a rattlesnake.



We got back in the car and continued on to Cortez, Colorado. Mom had a patient come into the dentist office one day and told her about Mesa Verde in Southwest Colorado. She had to go see it. We turned off of 160 and entered the park. We paid our park fee and took a picture of the sign before heading up the mountain, all 20 miles of it.



Construction must have been the lucky word of the day, because we got stuck in it while going into the park. We had to wait for the pilot car because they were re-doing the road. Seems like an hour later we finally got to the cave dwellings. We could only see the Spruce Tree House because all of the other ones required tickets/Ranger tours and they were all sold out. Probably for the better, we had limited time there anyway. We parked the car, went to the bathroom and started down the trail to the cliffs. Parts of the trail were pretty steep, I kinda felt bad for the older people coming back up from the cliffs, huffing and puffing. It was really warm that day, yet the clouds said otherwise. We spent a good half hour at the cliffs taking pictures and listening to the random park rangers.







We walked back up and walked through the visitor’s center and looked at some of the artifacts and displays of the cave dwellers.



We thought we should hit the road because it was going to be a long night. We left the visitor’s center and headed the 20 miles back down to the park entrance. It took a while because of the construction. We finally got back down to the highway and headed towards Durango, Colorado, the next large town. On the way there, we hit our first rain storm of the entire trip. There was even thunder and lightening. We got to Durango and looked for something to eat and an accessible gas station. Mom wanted KFC and when we got to the drive-thru, it poured down rain. I hurried with the order so I could roll the window up. We didn’t quite hear her total, we got up to the window to pay, she had messed up the order, we wanted a 12 piece, not a 3 piece, so she fixed it and we had to wait in the parking lot for our food. She came out about 10 minutes later with our food in the pouring rain. We grabbed it and left to go find gas. We found a Shell station; mom pumped the gas while I used the bathroom. I came out and cleaned the windshield and finished up the gas. We got comfortable in the car and got back onto Hwy 160 towards the Continental Divide. While driving, we ate our KFC, which hit the spot, mom talked to Dad until we lost service and Doug continued to watch Friends on the DVD player. Erika called, wondering where we were. We told her that it was going to be a while until we got to Denver, we were still a good 270 miles away. We hit Pagosa Springs just as it was getting dark and it began to rain quite heavily again.



As we headed up the mountain pass, it got darker and darker. I have never been on that steep of a mountain pass before. I had to put the car into different gears so it wasn’t working as hard as it was. We got up on the top of the Continental Divide (where the rivers flow eastward) and to our left was the sign. I wanted to stop but it was too dark and rainy. You could actually feel the altitude change in the car as you got higher and higher.



On the way down, it got so steep, you had to have the gears set on low. There were even blinking signs telling you how fast you were going; and in the background, your mom yelling at you to slow down every two seconds. We could not wait to get to Walsenburg and I-25, we were so tired of being in the car. We still had a while to go and it was nearing 9:00 p.m. mountain time. Most of our trip up I-25 was 75-80 mph, so we made up lots of time we lost on the slow highway. We finally got to Walsenburg and merged onto I-25. We got to Colorado Springs, the first major city since Las Vegas around 11:00 that night. We saw signs for the Olympic Complex and the Garden of the Gods. Too bad it was dark and nearing midnight.