Colorado / New Mexico Trip Part I

So how did we wind up visiting the Southwest? Valerie will tell you that this trip was all about fulfilling a bucket list item of mine to see a concert at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado. But to my recollection the genesis of this trip was a very enjoyable time we had last year with her high school friend Michelle and her husband Gary when they were in DC. Whichever way you land on the question of how this trip got started, it was certainly also a trip to an ancestral location for me, as my great-grandparents met and married in Pueblo, Colorado at the very end of the 19th century.

My great-grandparents' wedding photo - Pueblo, Colorado

Only one branch of my family followed the typical American Jewish immigrant trajectory of Eastern Europe to the Lower East Side of New York; all the other branches have more unusual stories. My paternal grandmother's family upon arrival got involved in a well-intentioned if poorly thought out scheme funded by a wealthy Jewish benefactor to establish a Jewish immigrant agricultural colony out west. But I digress ...

Thursday

We arrived in Denver on a Thursday. Valerie's high school friend Michelle and her husband Gary were good enough to pick us up and host us as planned, despite the fact that they were going through a house disaster - a few days earlier their lovely McMansiony house had flooded when a pipe burst, and there was a remediation crew there every day pulling up ruined flooring and running giant fans to dry the place out. In addition, they were dealing with elder care issues. But they still made time for us - good friends! They're also very considerate hosts in that not only did they pick us up, they showed up with a car full of Gatorade so we could stay hydrated at the unaccustomed altitude, and had even bought nasal spray for us so we could keep our nasal passages moist in the dry conditions.

Valerie cooling off at the airport

This dude saw Valerie walking with a cane and offered us a ride through the airport. 

The house tented off to contain the dust from removing the ruined tile flooring

Gary and Michelle had an action packed first day planned for us: visits to two parks to see the wonders of Rocky Mountain nature, plus visit Boulder. Unfortunately, Valerie almost immediately started suffering from altitude sickness, and so we had to curtail our plans. We detoured to buy a cannula so they could hook Valerie up to their oxygen concentrator machine (which they own for the purpose of resuscitating guests with altitude sickness). After that we made it to the first park, but on the twisty mountain road to the second park Valerie started feeling really sick so we headed home. 

Photos from El Dorado Canyon

Friday

On Friday Valerie was feeling better and we all took a Segway tour of downtown Denver, which was fun. Over the past twenty years Segways have gone from Transportation of the Future to being kind of nostalgic. The ride started with a little scooting around in an alley so we could get learn to control the Segways - the learning curve is pretty quick - and then we spent about an hour scooting around the city with our guide.

After our tour we had lunch in a Mexican restaurant, then killed time at the science museum looking at the animal dioramas and minerals until it was time for our Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon planetarium show, which was very cool (and I bet would have been even cooler had we been intoxicated!). We ate dinner at a French restaurant and then headed home.

The four of us on Segways

Valerie getting the hang of the Segway

Downtown Denver

Saturday

Saturday was a day I had long anticipated - a concert at Red Rocks Amphitheatre! Our plan was to hit the show in the evening and continue up to Michelle and Gary's ski condo at Copper Mountain, so we spent the morning packing our stuff and loading the car. And then we headed out for ... their grandson's birthday party.

Yes, on the way to Red Rocks we accompanied them to a child's backyard birthday party. I thought we were stopping by for maybe an hour or two, but we wound up being among the first to arrive and the last to leave. We were there for four hours. I guess that's what family does, but for me it was, well, not the highlight of my vacation. Particularly since the food was limited to hot dogs, hamburgers and chips - none of which I eat. I had a slice of cheese on a hamburger bun for lunch while damp little kids ran all around me screaming and pretending that the big dinosaur balloons were pooping on us. Fun!

But then we finally made it to Red Rocks, which was awesome! Admittedly, I wished I had been there with my festival friends, since this crew wasn't exactly the fun-loving, free-wheeling bunch I'm usually with at concerts. Gary and Michelle had been to Red Rocks many times (going there from Denver is like going to Wolf Trap for us), plus they had never heard of Tedeschi Trucks Band, the evening's act, so they weren't all that excited about the event. Michelle kind of liked the band; Gary spent a large part of the show on his phone. For Valerie's part, she likes TTB but is never super excited about outdoor activities. Plus we were all very, very sober: we got there early with the idea of "tail-gating" in the parking lot so we could get in line early. It turns out their definition of tail-gating was sitting on a stone wall eating blueberries. Fortunately, beer was available once we got inside and I (alone among our party) enjoyed a cold stadium-sized (20 oz.?) IPA.

The four of us at Red Rocks

Sunset reflected off the clouds

Moonrise over Red Rocks

After the concert (which was excellent) we continued up to Copper Mountain. Valerie wore the oxygen concentrator to soften the impact of moving from an elevation of 5,200 feet up to 9,700 feet. Poor girl - every time she got used to an altitude, we'd go higher. She felt queasy again when we got up to Copper.

Sunday

As usual I woke up well before the rest of the group. While I was antsy from so many sedentary days in a row I was also a little leery of exercising without being used to our new altitude, so I just hung around the condo until the rest of the group woke up. Gary had mentioned that Michelle likes to make crepes when they're up at Copper Mountain (I guess it's their "we're on vacation" breakfast - Gary's usual breakfast is a protein bar; Michelle's is something quick in the car on the way to work). We didn't start on the crepes until 10 o'clock, and Michelle was also involved with some lengthy conversations giving a friend advice as well as with eldercare, while Gary was working on installing a sun shade on their balcony, so we didn't get out of the house until after noon. 

We wandered over to the main village of Copper Mountain, where it being summer at a ski resort, there wasn't very much going on. We rode the mountain coaster, but then it started raining so we retreated to the condo, where we hung out, ate a snack of caprese salad in lieu of lunch (our friends are not big on formal meals) and napped.

Valerie on the mountain coaster

For dinner we headed over to the town of Frisco for dinner at an Asian Fusion restaurant (after being sent back into the bedroom to change our clothes, since our shorts were deemed too cold for the evening - our friends tread a fine line between providing helpful advice and being a little controlling). For me, "Asian Fusion" always rings alarm bells - it usually means a restaurant which tries to take on too many cuisines and winds up doing them all poorly - and this restaurant was no exception. The carrot coconut curry soup was tasty, if paste-like in consistency, but the fried rice main course was, well, a poorly executed fried rice side dish dressed up as a main dish. During dinner Gary essentially accused the rest of us of lollygagging and wasting the good weather of the morning, so that we had only a little time for activities before being chased back inside by afternoon storms. I just smiled and held my tongue, knowing that I had been up and dressed hours before they were even out of bed, and that it was the crepes, phone calls, and home improvements which had held us up. In any case, we all vowed to get an earlier start the next day. After dinner we walked around the town of Frisco a little, then came home and watch a movie on Netflix, the dumb but well-executed "Happiness for Beginners", starring the perennially-adorable Ellie Kemper.

Monday

While everyone else slept in once again I, being unable to be sedentary any longer, headed out for a morning walk. The temperature was 57 when I left, but it felt much warmer. I think the dryness of the air combined with the strong sun makes temperatures feel different out west than they do back east. I walked from East Copper Village through Central Village and over to West Village, where I found the trailhead for the Vail Pass Trail. I explored a little of the trail, though I didn't want to be gone too long in case the group finally woke up and was champing at the bit to begin the day, ahem, "early". All in all I walked about 3.7 miles, plus I stopped in at the Starbucks to get a decent cup of coffee. Gary makes hazelnut coffee. I'm not a big fan of the flavored coffees - but to his credit he does decaf!

From my morning walk

Sun over the mountains - morning walk

Fireweed - morning walk

Eek!

Once everyone else finally dragged themselves out of bed we did indeed get out the door more quickly. We rode the mountain coaster again then took a lift up the mountain to 10,800 feet, where we did a little walking around and admired the view. Once again we skipped lunch, just stopping for a snack of mini donuts. After that sumptuous repast we went and used a friend's hot tub (the hot tub at their building was on the fritz) then browsed some souvenir shops at Central Village. Gary and Michelle actually own two condos at Copper Mountain and while soaking in the hot tub I got to hear a lot of real estate details about various people who had made various killings buying and selling Copper Mountain real estate.

Up at 10,800 feet

Up at the top of the lift

We got back to the condo just in time, as shortly thereafter another storm rolled in. They really wanted to show us their other condo, which turned out to be ... a condo.

The four of us went to dinner, joined by two of their local friends, with whom there was lots of condo association talk. Valerie and I have noticed over the years that resort towns tend to have overpriced, second-rate food. Dinner was better than the previous night's Asian Fusion place, but still, two mediocre individual pizzas, an appetizer and a glass of wine came to $110, more than double what a much higher quality but otherwise identical meal would have cost at Pupatella in Arlington.

Tuesday

Tuesday I once again got up early and went for a walk, cutting it a little shorter this time because we needed to pack up and head out. We were all returning to Denver, where Valerie and I had a rental car reserved for the second part of our trip. We were due at our inn in Taos no later than 6 PM, so I got a little antsy as our hosts spent a lot of time cleaning out and closing up the condo. We wound up leaving about half an hour later than planned, then hit traffic on the way down from the mountain, so by the time we got to the rental car place we were running low on margin. Fortunately, picking up the car was fast. We all said our farewells, then Gary and Michelle returned home while Valerie and I headed south to New Mexico.