Where the Deer and the Antelope Play

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

I woke with the sun rising and found myself mostly in the shade. I did indeed have a good camping spot. Sadly, I packed up the tent and realized that this was my last morning to wake up to 60 degree weather. I will miss Colorado. Camping in this state has been quite perfect.



I got an early start on my drive and headed straight for Amarillo, TX and Palo Duro Canyon. I only made some stops along the way for free wifi and to stretch out, but for the most part I wanted to have some time in the canyon to hike and take photos. One of these days I’ll actually have to stop and do something in New Mexico rather than just driving through it.



I had reserved a spot in the park and of course when I showed up it didn’t matter since only about 3 other people were camping in the park. After my previous experiences, I figured it was better to reserve ahead. “The Grand Canyon of Texas” as it is known was very impressive. I’ve never been here before and what I thought would be a small canyon turned out to be 120 miles long, as much as 20 miles wide, and with a maximum depth of more than 800 feet. The elevation at the rim is 3,500 feet above sea level.



The park was formed by water erosion and therefore the road had several water crossings. I found it amusing that instead of mile markers to find yourself on the park map, the low water crossings were all numbered and served as landmarks.
As I drove over a few of the low water crossings, I saw some kids playing in the water. There had been rains the day before, so there was water. Some rain was expected today, but I hoped not overnight as I had no intention of putting the rain-fly on the tent as I’d overheat during the night.

I stopped at one trail and found that they put temperature gauges at the beginnings of the trail to let you know what you are getting in to. This one read 120 degrees. My car was only reading around 104, but I’m sure the 120 was closer to what it would feel like standing in the sun. I decided not to go hiking today. Instead I took photos from the road.



It was a dry heat, and certainly didn’t feel quite as miserable as the humidity I’m used to. I didn’t see any wildlife other than some far away birds and lots of bugs. The horse flies were enormous as were the ants.

I found my campsite and was happy to see the picnic bench was covered. I scouted out the area finding the ant piles and located where my tent would be. The ground was packed too hard for tent stakes, so I decided to just set up the tent before I went to bed and use my weight to keep it down rather than stakes. Plus I could see the rain clouds approaching and I didn’t want to get all my equipment all wet.

While the rains pounded heavily on the roof to the picnic bench, I had lunch and decided what to do the rest of the day. I noticed that before the rain was heavy, the light rain almost evaporated before it hit the ground. I could hear rain, but the ground never seemed to get wet.

The rains cooled off the temperature to around 90 and I drove around looking for photo opportunities and waiting for the golden hour before sunset. I bought tickets to the evening Texas Show in the canyon and then took interval sunset photos as the shadows elongated in the canyon.



The Texas Show was….well it was very Texas proud. The darkness did bring cooler weather to about 80 and the backdrop of the canyon wall created an impressive scene. Before the show began a deer wandered on stage and looked around at the audience. Everyone exclaimed and took out their cameras. I was amused. I enjoyed the clear, starry sky and the lighting on the canyon wall. However, I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this show to anyone else. I was glad I went though because all the fireworks at the end and loud bangs through the show would have surely woken me up if I had been asleep in my tent.

I didn’t get back to my campsite until about 11:00pm and was slightly annoyed to see that someone else had grabbed my campsite. We are given campsite numbers when we check in, so no one should have been in the same spot as me, but I’m sure they saw the empty campground and just decided to pick one at random not thinking anyone else would turn up.

I set my camera up to take star photos while I scouted for a somewhat decent tent site. The sky was incredibly clear and starry with no light pollution at all. The stars even twinkled at me, and not just the flying satellites and planes. I saw several meteors, but not frequent enough for photos. I probably should have stayed up later to get a longer star trail, but I knew I was driving the next day, so I put away the camera and went to sleep.

Last day in Colorado

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

We started the morning at the same time as the sun so both Christy and Andie were at the airport by 6:45. I went back to the hotel with very minimal morning rush hour traffic and used as much internet time as possible to update blogs, get an idea of where to go on my trip home and other tasks.

I decided to spend my first night in Colorado Springs, only about 1.5 hours south of Denver. So, I was there in plenty of time to drive through several parks and 3 visitor’s centers before I found an adequate State Park to pitch my tent. I ended up in Cheyanne Mountains State Park. The park is only about a year old and the facilities are wonderful, new, and very clean. I’m not used to such clean bathrooms while camping. My tent site was about a 2 minute walk from the car. I was able to carry everything over in one trip and set up the tent on a raised platform of small gravel rocks that ended up being fairly comfortable to sleep on. I could tell that if it rained, the rocks would act as a sieve to pull the water further down into the soil before pooling under the tent. There were some nice tie-down hooks around the tent site if I needed them.



My goal for the day was to spend sunset in the Garden of the Gods, so now I had the whole day to wander. I drove up to the summit of Pike’s Peak, America’s mountain. Or maybe it was America’s highway. I don’t remember the slogan, but it was funny. The drive had less pull offs that I had hoped for. Anyone who has driven through a park with me knows I love to stop at pull offs and take in the sights. The temperature slowly dropped as I climbed higher and higher. The temp at the bottom was around 85, but by the time I reached the summit it was down to about 48. Luckily my fleece along with everything else was in the car with me, so I was quite comfortable.





I arrived at the summit just in time for the Cogs railway. The railway is alternative to driving. This meant that I had some good photo opportunities at the train pulled in, but it also meant that the summit was quite crowded while I was there. I scrambled on some rocks and looked for photos while all the people were there and then went back up to take my tourist photo at the summit sign after they all left.





The drive down Pike’s Peak allowed for more photo opportunities and I stopped to get some photos of various views and rock formations. At the bottom of a steep downhill slope there was a mandatory brake temperature check and I passed with a temp of 178 degrees. At over 300 degrees, one is required to pull off and stop for 30 minutes to let the pads cool down. I’m very proud of my Prius in the mountains. The Prius really became my friend and companion over the past 2 weeks and I love my car even more now if that’s possible. =)



By the time I got to the bottom of Pike’s Peak, it was time to go stake out my spot in Garden of the Gods for sunset and the photography golden hour of the day. The golden hour is the hour before dusk and the hour after dawn. Those 2 hours of the day provide the best light for any photography anywhere in the world. I was disappointed to see the clouds blocking the coming sunset, but it did make the weather more comfortable for hiking around. I tried to match the rock formations to their names, but I found one rock that looked like a pained old man that appeared to have no name. At least no name seemed to match. I decided to hike to the Siamese Twins for sunset since it wasn’t right off the road and might have less people milling around.



This proved to be a decent plan and I was able to spend the golden hour photographing the Siamese Twins from all angles and catching the deep red of the rock in the setting sun. I also, as usual, became the photographer for various families and couples that came through and wanted a group photo. One family lingered too long and I missed what I considered the best part of the sunset through the hole between the Twins, but I still got many other shots.






I also found a deer that only appeared to have one antler. Upon closer inspection, the other one was growing down his face rather than up into the air. I’m not sure what happened to the poor guy, but I hope the antler doesn’t impede his survival.



I ate dinner in the park and waited around for the stars to shine bright. I figured a rock formation would make an interesting foreground to star trail photography, but the cloud cover was becoming thicker and the light pollution from Colorado Springs was making the stars dim.

So, I headed back to the campsite and to sleep.

History of Denver

Monday, August 9, 2010

Today’s theme revolved around walking to the clock tower, and then back to the hotel. We did this many times throughout the day for various reasons. Lucky that walk is only about 4 blocks.

This morning we had breakfast at Paradise Bakery & Café and then started our Denver tour with Kevin, the tour guide. It was a private tour that gave us the history of Denver. Kevin showed us the small amount of historic buildings in downtown Denver as most have been torn down. We learned how Denver got its start as well as the reasoning behind many street names. The most humorous fact of the day was learning that that blue devil horse at the airport killed its creator when it fell over on top of him. Denver still decided to display the bronco.

Since we had a large breakfast, we drove to the Forney Transportation Museum and marveled at all the old cars, trains, horse carriages, motorcycles, and bicycles. I found it very interesting to learn that the first electric car came out in the early 1900’s and the idea was abandoned soon after. Also, it was fun to see the history of bicycles. They had a train snowplow on display that made me feel tiny and a Model T that we could sit in and pretend to drive.

We intended to eat more crepes for lunch, but they were just closing, so we had a delicious lunch at Ling & Louie’s Asian Bar and Grill. While sitting outside on the patio, we watched an actor do a walking ad for a burrito place. I’ve already forgotten the name, so Andie or Christy will have to remind me. He did many takes of his ad walking up and down the street with varying degrees of animated talking which highly amused us. We did overhear him tell some people that this was an internet only ad. We’ll have to check it out soon.

After lunch we took the free mall bus up to the Brown Palace Hotel, the oldest hotel in the area. They have a self-guided walking tour at the desk and we marveled at all the ornate décor in the lobby. By now it had started to rain and after another brief stop on the mall we had to run back to the hotel.

Tonight was the first that we were inside the hotel for their complimentary wine hour and we played their selection of games including Clue and Scrabble while waiting for the rain to slow. We had a light dinner at Rialto Café and then packed up for we were checking out the next morning.

We will be sad to part ways in the morning and I will be sad to leave the mountains to head back to the Texas heat.

High class day

Saturday, August 7, 2010

Today is Upwardly-Mobiles Day. We started the day off at Yoga on 6th Street. Maryann introduced us to power yoga which takes place in a room heated to 95 degrees or higher.

After getting cleaned up, we started walking down 16th street, Denver’s pedestrian mall and ate lunch at Corner Bakery. We kept walking along 16th and spent some time in the Tattered Cover Bookstore, one of the largest independent bookstores in the US. I found a book with some weird Colorado roadside finds, but not many were on my route back to Texas.

We finished our afternoon walk at Denver’s REI. The location is superb as it is right on the creek with man-made rapids begging to be kayaked and tubed. Apparently the store is the largest in the US, but I couldn’t tell the size difference between this one and the one on Seattle. In any case, I was happy to stop here because they were able to fix my stove by adding some oil to the fuel pump line.

The clouds came rolling in blocking the sun and turning the weather from warm to pleasant. We stood on a bridge and watched the kayakers for a bit and then slowly headed back to the hotel. We took the free mall shuttle back.

Our dinner pick for the evening was Vesta Dipping Grill. Each entrée came with your pick of 3 dipping sauces. There were probably around 30 or more sauces to choose from. Everyone was very satisfied with their meal choices and we even ordered some truffles for dessert. Tonight we splurged and it was tasty.

Our final stop for the evening was at the Impulse Theater underneath the Wykoop Brewing Company. The improve comedy group was so entertaining that we left the theater with aching abs and cheeks from laughing so hard. I highly recommend the Impulse Theater if you are ever in Denver.

Suitemates Do Denver

Sunday, August 8, 2010

This morning started out with a yummy breakfast at Crepes N Crepes where we obviously had crepes! Between the four of us we had a mushroom crepe, a margarita crepe, a spinach and feta cheese crepe, and a strawberry, banana, nutella crepe. We were all happy with our choices.

After breakfast, not having too much time before Maryann needed to head to the airport, we drove over to REI to do some more browsing and then walk along the river through Confluence Park and into Commons Park. REI sits right on the river in front of some man-made rapids that people like to kayak and tube down. We watched several people bike, jog, and walk their dogs along the path on both sides of the river and we played some card games.

It was sad to end our relaxing afternoon and go to the airport. Then, Christy, Andie, and I drove back to Boulder in preparation for our evening King Lear tickets on the campus of the University of Colorado at Boulder. I am in love with Boulder as an outdoorsy town full of active people. Every shop has a bike rack full of bikes, and everyone is out and about.

We walked along Pearl Street pedestrian mall and had a wonderful snack/lunch/early dinner at Boulder Café. It was happy hour and appetizers were half price so we shared a cheddar cheese fondue and tasty spinach dip.

The campus of University of Boulder was fun to tour and we ended up at the Shakespeare Theater area where they had a whole theme going. Outside they were serving food and had people dressed up in their Renaissance best and playing music. We had to walk through a building to get to the outdoor theater which was situated in a courtyard sided by four buildings. It was very Shakespearean. We arrived early enough to hear the prologue talk given by one of the main guys in charge of the production. He gave us a brief introduction to the characters, the story, the history of the play, and more. It was very interesting information and quite useful while watching.

King Lear was long and we didn’t get back to our hotel until about 10:30pm where we had a light snack and headed to bed.

Mountains Seasonings

Friday, August 6, 2010

After a late night last night we all slept in this morning. Then plan today was to head to Boulder for some hiking and a tea tour, but we needed breakfast first. The hotel staff jumps to help us, so we asked for a breakfast recommendation.

Brueggers Bagels proved to be a great breakfast choice and we were all able to get something to fill us up. We headed to Boulder and went to Celestial Seasonings for their tea tour. The place was more packed with people than we had anticipated and their on the hour, ever hour tour started at 12:30 for us. While we waited for our tour, we were given small tea cups to sample their teas, both hot and ice.

The tour started with a short movie and then we put on our hair nets, and beard nets for the guys and headed into the factory. We were able to walk right along the equipment, see the bags of seasonings in storage and enter the peppermint room. The peppermint room, as you might guess, holds all the peppermint, spearmint, and wintergreen and has to be in an enclosed room otherwise you’d smell the mint a mile away. Anyway, we went in and my sinuses instantly cleared. It was amazing. I’m going to have to get some peppermint tea to use when my allergies are bad.

After the tour, we drove to Chautauqua Park for an easy 3-mile hike. Well, the visitor’s center promised an easy hike. The first part of the hike was easy and was part of an extensive trail system intended mostly for joggers, dog walkers, and walkers. When it started to rain, we found a shelter and hung out while the rain passed. In the meantime, Maryann taught us some basic yoga moves in preparation for our yoga class tomorrow.

The rain passed in 30 minutes and we headed up the trail to Royal Arch. This trail proved to be challenging and was complete with many switchbacks and some minor rock scrambling to get to the arch. Three quarters of our group made it to the arch, though, and we were treated we a beautiful birds eye view of Boulder through the arch.

Back down the mountain, we headed to a restaurant named Sherpa’s in Boulder. This place was a perfect end to the day. The porch seating was cool in the shade and breeze and the food was terrific. It was somewhat of an Indian/Thai mix of food choices served by servers who could have been from Nepal.

We drove back to Denver, got some groceries for the room, and had some gelato in the restaurant downstairs. Overall it was a good, but tiring day.

Carbon Footprint Day

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Today was a rather mundane day and I had to remind myself several times why I had to leave the park to go back to Denver to pick up my roommates. I spent the morning at the campsite trying to dry out my rain fly and ground tarp as best I could.

In Estes Park I found a laundromat/shower that served my purposes perfectly and was next to the Safeway so I could run my errands while the laundry was going. I also found a place that made the best raspberry smoothie I’ve ever had.

After all my personal errands, I shopped at the Estes Park downtown shops and then drove to Denver. Hotel Monaco in Denver is extremely welcoming and the staff is all jumping to serve the customers. I was able to get our reservation upgraded to a two-bed room with no problem. The hotel is pet friendly with a dog food bowl and water in the lobby. The room is very large, too. Soon after checking in, I left to go pick up Christy and Andie at the airport. We had quite an experience getting both of them in my car, but after a little bit we were off to go find dinner.

The Denver airport claims to be the largest in the US at 53 square miles. Most of that is open space though. The road to the airport was about 10 miles long and when I started seeing signs for the terminal, my car told me I was still 8 miles away. The airport also has some interesting works of art out front. First I saw what might have been 3 sculptures of white clouds. Then I saw the blue bronco with the demonic red-lit eyes.

We had dinner at Tita’s Restaurant which was a little hole in the wall Caribbean joint. They had a DJ and by the end of the night everyone was up and salsa dancing. The food was very good and the atmosphere was definitely entertaining.
Back at the hotel we tried to stay awake until Maryann’s delayed flight got in around one in the morning. It was a travel day for us all, but it was good to finally be together again for our annual roommate reunion. This is our 7th year of continuing our annual tradition and our 10th/11th year anniversary of knowing each other.