Rocky Mountain Way : Denver Vacation Day Two – “Should’ve turned left at Albuquerque”

“The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry” – Robert Burns

“Son of a…that’s gonna leave a mark” – Thomas “Tommy” Callahan III

You can painstakingly plan a vacation down to the very minute and it will still have a mind of its own. No amount of planning, packing, re-planning, and overpacking will cover every detail, unless you’re a sociopath or a mystic that can see the future. Despite how much you will your hard-earned money to give you a great time, money and the universe will do with you what they will. That’s the conclusion I’ve come to over the last 36 hours or so.

Driving yesterday on I-25 North – after our plans to hit up the Garden of the Gods and then take a rail-car up the mountain to Pike’s Peak for a 14,000 elevated view of Colorado – literally crapped out on us, I was thinking about vacations in general. Up to this point each of our vacations since the year 2000 have been with our kids. Both when they were all under 10 and when they were all well into becoming(or were) adults. I know that in the throes of those sometimes chaotic and sometimes delirious family getaways I would think “Man, this will be great when just us adults can get away for a four-day stay somewhere.”

When you’re vacationing with the whole family it’s never about what you want to do as the adult. We would definitely hit record shops for me or something my wife would have interest in seeing, but for the most part it was about making memories for the kids. Despite the chaos and delirium, when I think about our family trip to Colorado or the many family vacations spent in Brown County out in a cabin in the wilderness or our Canada trip, I remember it through my kids’ memories. They’re locked in and remembered through their excitement. I think vacationing as just a couple is something I need to rewire my brain to. I’m still very much in parent mode right now, so I think it will take some time for me to appreciate the freedom that comes with this new dynamic. And I think I speak for my wife as well.

Anyways, day two.

We hit the ground running despite my wife still not feeling all that well. I think what she thought was food poisoning was something else. Like a stomach bug. Either way, her stomach was still tender. I made us some eggs and toast and coffee. No coffee for her, but she did eat a bit of the eggs and toast. After a mid-morning nap we hit the road for the Garden of the Gods. Weather seemed to be cooperating, at least for the majority of our drive. By the time we reached the aforementioned Garden it was another story altogether. The sky went a charcoal grey as we pulled into the visitor center. GotG is a thing you drive through and can stop at certain spots, get out, and take pictures of yourselves standing on these monolithic boulders. Like giant teeth protruding through the earth’s jaw. It was really fun when we were there with the kids back in 2014. In 2024 as we walked around the gift shop before heading out to drive around a torrential downpour hit. Like hurricane-level winds and rain that came down sideways. The doors blew open and water poured in like crazy.

We waited around until the rain became just a solid steady flow and ran to the rental car. We decided we’d just drive to Manitou Springs where the Pike’s Peak rail car awaited. Get there, eat something, then head up the mountain. We arrived and this place was something else. It was this cross section of tourist trap shops over run by tourists and also the local population of no pot to piss in folks and homeless-adjacent; dreamers arriving in Colorado thinking they could live off the land or some hippie pipe dream but ended up just being homeless in the mountains, as opposed to homeless in the city.

Manitou Springs literally looked like one long oddity shop that was carved into the mountain. The streets wound through with barely enough room for two cars to pass each other, absolutely no place to park unless you had a parking pass. We made it to the parking spot for the rail car ride. It was around 2:30 pm. The girl at the gate asked when our ride was and we said 4pm. She said come back at 3:30. So we had to turn around and snake our way back to try and find somewhere to sit and eat our baggie of cut up bell peppers and chocolate almond bars and waste an hour in this tourist trap Santa’s Village carved in rock.

We found a free one hour parking spot so we parked and ate our snacks. Decided we’d check out a couple shops while we waited. My wife said she needed to find a restroom, but of course in these knick knack shops that sell books on witches and vanilla-scented incense they don’t have any bathrooms(or ones they’d share with even paying customers.) She said that she could wait till we got to the restroom at the train station, but I knew that a four-hour long journey in a hot rail car up into the mountains wasn’t the best idea for someone who’s still dealing with stomach issues. We made the decision to skip the mountain trek and just head back to Denver.

Colorado Mountains, 2. The Hubners, 0.

---

It may sound like a lot of poo-pooing from this traveling hermit. A guy set in his ways that likes his schedules and loves his time at home with his old dog and horror movies and vinyl spinning. And you know what? You’re right, I am poo-pooing. I’m a creature of habit. I don’t like being gone from home for very long. That’s just me. It’s how I’m built and where I’m the most comfortable; in my house with my family and my dog.

But I’m too young to be such a complete homebody. I did and still am wanting to have a great time this week. I’m really, really trying here. We have two more days to turn this thing around and make it a memorable vacation for the right reasons, as opposed for all the wrong ones. If anything, hopefully the Dr. Dog show at Red Rocks will be a pleasant ending to an otherwise iffy Colorado adventure.

We shall see.