I’m writing this while listening to songs about Wyoming, because we are headed back for a few to make Cheyenne Frontier Days. Ray likes to create playlists for our travels, so as I listen to tunes about the rodeo, I’m reflecting on our days in Colorado. Pretty rivers, lakes, mountains… I see why it’s an outdoors lover’s paradise. People can enjoy rafting, tubing, climbing, hiking. Cool, clear water. Tall, rocky, still snow-capped mountains. Green. Blue. Brown: all the colors. It’s just plain pretty.
We camped at Boyd Lake State Park, which was a highlight in itself, but also a great base camp for visits to both Denver and the Rocky Mountain National Park. The state park was an excellent place to just relax. We were right on the lake, so we enjoyed cooking out, floating in the water, lounging in the sun, and doing campy stuff – like making s’mores. There were also a couple of playgrounds and a pretty awesome paved bike path that was nice for roller skating and scooter-riding, as well.
It’s cheesy as can be, but I was crazy excited about going into the Denver area to visit Casa Bonita, which is a Mexican restaurant with mediocre food, but chintzy décor and silly entertainment. I’m a sucker for a tourist trap! I love amusement parks, state fairs, road-side attractions… It’s just fun. Of course, I’d seen the South Park episode where Cartman does everything in his power to get an invite to Kyle’s birthday party at Casa Bonita – even kidnapping Butters and luring him into a bunker, so that he could go in Butters’ place. Ray had never seen the episode, somehow, so we had to watch it (without the kids) before going to the famous restaurant.
Don’t get me wrong. The food is edible. But, if I had a bunch of Taco Bell and a plate of Casa Bonita food in front of me, I’d chow down on the T. Bell. They do have alcoholic beverages, which makes the food go down a little easier. The sopapillas are the bomb, so if you are hungry from passing on the food, you can eat a ton of those. Put some honey on those bad boys, and go to town! I got the taco salad, which really wasn’t all that terrible. Ray liked his chile relleno platter. The girls rarely eat anything, anyway, so them turning their noses up to the food was no surprise. But, people don’t go for the food! They go for the entertainment.
The entertainment includes cliff divers, who dive from two to three stories into a small pool. They also have goofy skits with a gorilla and a pirate, puppet shows, a “scary” cave to wander through (my kids found it terrifying), arcades, an old tyme jail photo area, cotton candy and sno-cones, and a gift shop. Kids love it, and I did, too. Ray thought it was okay.
While we didn’t spend much time in Denver proper, we did check out the Denver City Park, which was pretty big, and included an excellent playground. The girls are continuing on their “Playgrounds Across America” tour, and I would say this one was in the top five they’ve seen.
We spent our last day in Colorado at Rocky Mountain National Park. First, we stopped in Estes Park for lunch, and it’s such a cute town. I really like gateway towns to national parks. They are full of cool shops, good restaurants, and nice scenery. This is also where the idea for Steven King’s bestseller ‘The Shining’ was conceived. He and his wife were staying at The Stanley Hotel when the story came to him. The Stanley, which opened in 1909 and catered to the upper class, was just getting ready to close for the season in 1974, when King and his wife checked in for the night. They were the only ones lodging there that evening, and King said he had a fretful night, tossing and turning and dreaming about the long hallways and seeing his son running through the corridors screaming. Nightmares. He got up in the night and outlined the tale of a haunted hotel. Years later, Stanley Kubrick would make the film adaptation, which starred Jack Nicholson.
At the national park, we looked and looked for bighorn sheep, be we didn’t spot any. We did, however, see a ton of elk. We also took a 9-mile, dirt-road, tight-curved, scary-as-hell ride up the side of a mountain. Ray loves doing this stuff in our lengthy truck, but I felt some anxiety coming on. Nevertheless, it really was a pretty ride up. The views at the top were spectacular, and while at the Alpine Visitor Center (where it was about 30 degrees lower in temp than at the bottom, where we started out), I took a short climb up a slew up steps to the very top. Here, I experienced what is meant by the air being thinner. I felt like I was hyperventilating mid-way up. But, the trip down was pretty great. Not only could I breathe freely again, but it was all downhill. We took the paved road back down and saw some gorgeous sights along the way. It was amazing to see so much ice and snow still hanging around in late July! Of course, we did all this to a playlist about the Rocky Mountains and Colorado, as the kids objected and begged for Radio Disney.
As I finish this blog, the Wyoming tunes are still going, and we are about 13 miles outside of Laramie, where we will stay for the next three nights. Cheyenne Frontier Days, here we come! Yeehaw!
4ina5 