After numerous changes in the planning for our trip to Denver, Krista, Bullet and I headed out of OKC about 7:30 Thursday night. The idea was to drive for a while, get a room on the road, and go on to Denver in the morning. In the back of my mind I immediately wondered how far I could make it. In the many changes of plans we did end up with one kind of silly decision. We took the "scenic" route in the middle of the night.
The trip started quickly as we made our way to the panhandle. Krista made our only kill of the night near Woodward. Now we will never know way the possum wanted to cross the road. We took highway 3 all the way to Boise and on North where it turning into 287. We saw a few deer, a lot of coyotes and some rabbits.
We knew we were going to cut West over to highway 25 at some point. Looking at the map highway 50 would have been the best choice, but at about midnight we turned left onto 160. It is 112 miles from 287 to I25. We did not see another car until we were less than a mile out of Trinidad. I swear this is not an exaggeration. After the first hour, I kept expecting to find a broke down bus that had been attacked by some horror flick ghoul. Literally, we did not see another moving vehicle. The small towns of Prichett and Kim were completely asleep.
The leg up I25 was pretty uneventful. At this point I had decided we where going to make Denver before stopping. North of Colorado Springs I slept for about an hour while Krista drove, before taking us on into Denver. I walked into the hotel lobby not knowing what to expect. It was about 8 hours before check-in after all. They gave us a room on the spot. It felt good to shower and clean up after being in the car for so long.
Not wanting to waste daylight, we headed into the mountains. We spent Friday afternoon driving around Golden, Lookout Mountain, Central City and Idaho Springs. It was all beautiful. Highway 6 follows a canyon for many miles. Lookout point looks down on Denver. Well, I'll distribute the pictures as quickly as possible. We went to bed pretty early Friday night. I did pretty good for only having one hour of sleep, but it sure was nice to get in bed.
Saturday, we headed into the mountains again. We had intended to go to the zoo, but two facts changed our minds. First, we heard the zoo was kind of old school. In other words, small enclosures. The second bit of info was that the pine forests that cover the mountains, are pretty much doomed. There is a type of beetle that has fed off the pines for years. Normally, the winters kill off enough of them that the pines can keep up. Now that the winters are warmer, not enough are dying off. The projection is that the millions of pines covering the millions of acres of mountains will all be dead in a few years.
We went farther North on Saturday. We drove up to the Rocky Mountain National Park. The peaks were much higher here, up to around 12,000 feet. It was much cooler, of course. We bottomed out around 40 degrees before the road started back down slope. We didn't get to see any bears or elk, but we had a small scale snow ball fight. At some point we crossed over the official continental divide. We got back to the hotel a little later than the night before, but still went to bed at a good time.
The Double Tree is a little old and it shows, but it's still a nice place. From my little experience with hotels it seemed about right for the price. The restaurant is good, we had a couple meals at it. They've got internet access for a little extra. It's obviously not part of the original amenities. The extra for Bullet is only $25. They've got an outdoor hot tub, but it was so windy it was full of leaves and dirt.
Saturday, we left Denver about 10. We went up to the Rocky Mountain National Park. It was only a couple hours from Denver. The heights were even more extreme than what we saw Friday. Once again, I'll get you pictures as soon as I can. We didn't see any wildlife, except for some little squirrel-like varmint. It's amazing how far you have to drive sometimes just to get a few miles. Often we could see where we had been half an hour ago.
I'm really glad we rented a car. The gas would have killed us in the truck. Not to mention the wear and tear on the poor thing. It's been a while since I've driven anything new, well except for the bmw last weekend.
Our trip back was pretty normal. We left about 9 central time and got to see the stuff we had missed in the dark on our way up. We took a slightly different route cutting through the corner of New Mexico. We got to see a few antelope and the Capulan Volcano. I will say that the longest stretch of road anywhere is the 60 mile stretch in that area. I thought we were never going to cross over into Texas. Once we did we went through a few small towns, slowly tracking South and East. We eventually linked up with I40 and, of course, from there it was a straight shot. We were glad to be home, but the king sized bed and brand new car would have been nice to keep. For those interested it was 2008 Malibu that we rented. I don't know if we were the first to drive it, but we were close.
There is one more piece of the story to tell though. About the time we pulled up to the Condo, a young lady was parking. She approached our neighbor's door and starting knocking. As a bit of background, our neighbor, David, has recently got a new roommate. It was someone he did not previously known, he had to place an ad in the paper and just hoped for the best.
I was unloading the car, so was regularly passing by the young lady. She was their to pick up her baby from "the baby's daddy". Shouting and crying could clearly be heard from upstairs, but he apparently could not here the door bell. She looked to me a few times, and I finally told her "If it was me, I'd try the door." That's all it took, and she headed up the steps, into the condo. A few moments later she was screaming for help. I, and some other neighbors, got to the door about the time she was coming out. She had the baby in her arms and was sporting a quickly darkening bruise on her cheek. Krista was dialing 911 in a heartbeat. He didn't follow her out .
To make a long story short, the paramedics, ambulance and the cops showed up in that order. They checked the lady and baby over, and the cops had the daddy in handcuffs without a discussion. With all the bad stuff they see, I bet the cops just love to hear a woman say she'll press charges. It looked like a classic scene from "cops". He had no shirt, no shoes and smelled of alcohol. It was pretty clear it was more than just liquor affecting him. Last we heard no one had put up the money to bail him out.
Last minute drama aside, it was a great weekend. I had no problem with allergies in Colorado and, even though they were setting record highs, it was cooler than it was here. Still Oklahoma is where all our friends are, so it is home. If a time does come to look for a new home, though, Denver will be on the list.