Rocky Mountain Way : Colorado Vacation Day One – “It’s somethin’

I always seem short of breath in an airport. Maybe those behemoths of international travel and mile-long food courts are oxygen-deprived. They want you to struggle and freak out. They want to keep you in fight or flight from the moment you hit the concourse to the moment you’re crammed in too small of seats next to your travel partner and some stranger that sprawls like they’re on the La-Z-Boy in their living room.

More than likely it’s that I’m just feeding on everyone else’s anxiety, panic, and state of enlightened senses. Neurotic passengers trying to get from one concourse to another on those walking escalators, only to find out that at the end of that walking escalator is a tram waiting to get them to their gate with about 30 seconds to spare.

For one year I traveled for work. I would fly to the east coast, west coast, southwest, and even that middle finger of a state Florida. I don’t think I ever got used to the experience, but I tolerated it because I was getting paid to do it. The actual flying never bothered me, as long as I could see out a window. All the herking and jerking, up and down motion, and turbulence was far more tolerated by my equilibrium if I could actually see what was going on outside. Otherwise it was like riding a 2 hour rollercoaster with blinders on. Not fun.

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Our trip began yesterday morning at Midway airport in Chicago. Our flight left at 8:30 am, and we made it there in plenty of time. We made it through TSA with no issues, checked our giant bag(which ended up being 100 lbs and an extra $100), and got to our gate with time to spare. Though, 8:30 started to stretch like Silly Putty and because people not understanding there was a 2 bag carry-on minimum the rest of us had to twiddle our thumbs for an extra hour. And once we got on the plane there was some other issue with too many people on the flight?(I’m guessing it was the families with 12 kids under 5 on laps)

By the end I think we were an hour and a half behind schedule. Fortunately we didn’t have a connecting flight otherwise I would have been far more upset.

We land and get off the plane and make the epic trek to baggage claim only to find out that our bag was put on ANOTHER flight. It was 11:10 am in Denver and our bag wasn’t arriving until 1:40 pm. So instead of just sitting there for two hours while my blood pressure rose like the Phoenix, we got our rental car and headed somewhere to eat and waste time. The rental is a 2024 Ford Edge and I was very pleased with this. Super nice, leather seats, and my wife’s Android could sync up to the GPS so that has made things a lot smoother(though we lost GPS for bit and had to use my crappy old Google Maps app on the iPhone.)

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We retrieved our bag and a $100 voucher from Southwest around 2:30 pm and got to the Air BnB around 4 pm. It’s a living space built above the garage of the folks that own/rent it. It’s a lovely little place with kitchen/living room space and a bedroom with bath. It’s not really a place to just hang out, but it’s a comfy spot rest after a day of adventures.

We decided we were hungry so we found a pizza place called Blue Pan. It’s a Detroit-style pizza joint and we figured we’d give it a shot. It’s a nice spot with a decent beer collection of micro brews. We ordered the large pizza with one side their Brooklyn Bridge and the other side Johnny Primo(check out the menu here.) I had a Cali Creamin’ Cream Ale and a Beach Spot IPA. Both were outstanding, and that Cream Ale was nitro so it was extra good.

The pizza was a long wait and the bartender waiting on us was very apologetic and gave me a beer on the house. I will not turn away a free beer. Finally the pizza arrived and it was sooo worth the wait. Honestly, some of the best pizza we’ve had. My wife and I were both impressed with the food.

After dinner we wobbled back to the rental and hit up Trader Joe’s for some supplies for breakfast and snacking. By the time we got home the pizza was not sitting well with my wife and she was in the bathroom for a good long while. Seems the ricotta-topped pizza was too much for her. It was cold sweats, head hanging, and a cold rag on her neck kind of night.

Not how I imagined the evening would end, but sometimes you can’t predict these things.

For the mattress being pretty firm we slept okay. Well, I slept okay. Not sure how the night went for my wife. I woke up and she was in the living room sleeping on the small sectional. After we were both up she informed me that she forgot to pack the tickets for the Dr. Dog show at Red Rocks. The whole reason for this trip. Soooo, our son is taking them to the UPS Store and overnighting them to a UPS store here which is fortunately only about a 5 minute drive away.

We always keep our vacations interesting folks. That’s what we do.

Today, after I’m done writing this up and my wife gets up from her nap we’re heading to the Garden of the Gods, then taking the hanging death car 17,000 feet up to Pike’s Peak. We’re getting all the death defying stuff out of the way today, so tomorrow we can hang out in Denver, go hit up some record and book shops, and then just chill.

Day one done. Day two is about to get lit.