Travelogue: Colorado

We didn't have a lot planned for Colorado.  Frankly, I stopped thinking after "Idaho."  We had tickets for the Colorado Rockies game, and we'd already done Rocky Mountain National Park & the Stanley Hotel, but other than that, we didn't have anything planned.  The baseball game was fun, even though the Rockies lost big to the Dodgers. While we were there, we realized that their mascot is a cartoon-ified triceratops.  "Hey!  Colorado!  Dinosaurs!"

We decided to go to the Florissant Fossil Beds the next day, and realized we'd also head past the Air Force Academy as well as Garden of the Gods, which I had heard a lot about.

That was a lot for one day;  too much, really.

Sarah loved going through the Air Force Academy's visitor center, though she was peeved when she realized that if she did join the Air Force (something she's said she has no interest in), she wouldn't be able to fly for them because of her glasses.  She happily got a t-shirt, though.  Unfortunately, we decided that we couldn't spare an extra half hour or so to get to the chapel and walk around it. I've heard it's really amazing, and it's one of the places that I wish we'd taken time for.

Then we headed down to Garden of the Gods, and Lauren started on another Junior Ranger program.  This one wasn't as detailed as the one at Yellowstone, but it still took her a few hours to finish, including the ranger presentation about rattlesnakes.  For the record, their gift shop was the one where I had the hardest time keeping my wallet put away.  I almost got a bear keychain, and I really liked a lot of the earrings they had.  When we finally got to drive around the park, it was HOT again, and the kids didn't get out of the car.  This is another one of those places that I'd like to spend a whole day.  I'd especially like to see the formations at different times of day, to see how the light is different.

I was really irritated at all the people climbing on the formations.

Finally, we headed down to the Fossil Beds.  Jeff & I both thought  "Fossils = Dinosaurs."  Not so much. It was all plant and bug fossils, which are also cool, but not what we expected. The remains of the petrified redwoods were pretty awesome--it does look like wood instead of stone. Lauren & I got caught outside just as a HUGE storm hit. She was running back to the visitor center when a huge thunder boomed, and she freaked right out. That made it the most memorable of all her Junior Ranger programs.

If we'd planned things out more in advance, we probably would have gotten a different hotel, rather than going back up to Denver. But we already had the room, so we were trying to find a place for dinner, "What about that place we saw last night by the stadium, The Giggling Grizzly?"  To be honest, I'd taken a picture of the sign just because it was another bear, but it looked like a decent place. When we first walked in, "Shipping up to Boston" by Drop Kick Murphys was playing on the radio, so I felt like we'd made the right choice immediately. When the waitress came and told us that burgers started at $1.50 because it was Wednesday, I KNEW we'd made the right choice.  When I went in the bathroom, the walls were papered in old Pabst ads, but there was also this:

I kind of love this, although I don't think it would exactly work at Salem.

While we were eating, we kept seeing people on bikes wearing Where's Waldo gear. There were other bikers, too, and we couldn't figure out what was going on. As we were leaving, I told Lauren she should ask someone what the deal was, so she found the nearest guy and learned that they always have a bike parade on Wednesday nights. What a cool town!