The final three days of our trip were much more chill, which was exactly what we needed after a whirlwind tour out West. On Friday we made the long journey to Adam’s hometown, Des Moines, Iowa, stopping in Nebraska for a famous Runza, which is a very difficult to describe fast food entree. Picture a double-wide hot dog bun filled with seasoned minced meat, onions, and gooey cheese, deliciously composed and steaming hot till the last bite - kinda makes you want to drive to Nebraska, right? The road trip was otherwise occupied by my bad singing, Adam’s air guitar, and rubix cube solving (Adam is getting pretty good and I’m…getting it, sort of).

We finally arrived in Des Moines around dinnertime, where we received a warm welcome from Adam’s parents, sister, niece and nephew. After a delicious dinner cooked by Adam’s mom, we met up for drinks with one of his good friends, Liz. It was wonderful to finally meet his friends and family who I’ve heard so much about. The next day after brunch with Adam’s parents we embarked yet again, this time headed back to Tennessee. We stopped in St. Louis for two of it’s renowned dining experiences - Fitz’s (root beer bottling company and restaurant) and Ted Drewe’s frozen custard, then continued on to my parents’ home in West Tennessee. Exhausted, we slept in late this morning then enjoyed a leisurely day at the lakehouse. Now we are back on the road for the final leg of our trip, soon to arrive in Nashville, where we’ll jump back into our regular lives. It will be hard to get back to work, but we’ll carry with us fond memories of 4300 miles, 66 driving hours, 10 days, 3 national parks, wonderful visits with family and friends, and the two of us.

POSTED: 1 year ago NOTES: 0 TAGS: #Tennessee Posted By - mylittlestrawberry

In contrast to our many days spent camping and hiking, our day in Denver was slow and luxurious. We checked into our four star downtown hotel, on which we had gotten a great hotwire rate, and appreciated both the city and mountain views from our 17th floor room. Lunch at Euclid Bar in LoDo (Lower Downtown) consisted of an interesting combination of “gotta try once” items, including fried pig ears, eggplant and curry-infused sausage, and lamb reuben’s. After lunch we stepped out into (surprise) more pouring rain. Adam and I had settled in for a wet 12-block walk back to the hotel but happily discovered a free bus that took us from LoDo and literally deposited us at the door of our hotel. Thank you Denver, and thank you Hotwire for such a sweet hotel setup. The afternoon consisted of wandering the city streets. The high points were trying on pearl button shirts at Rockmount Western Wear, browsing the bookshelves at the beautifully designed Tattr’d Cover bookstore, and sampling brews at Wynkoop, Denver’s oldest brewery (our most interesting find was chile-flavored beer). For dinner we had paella and fried goat cheese and did some great people-watching at a Spanish tappas restaurant called The 9th Door. A brisk evening walk down still bustling 16th Avenue brought us back to our hotel for a final view of the city lights and a restful night’s sleep.

POSTED: 1 year ago NOTES: 0 TAGS: #colorado Posted By - mylittlestrawberry

The Colorado portion of our trip had us visiting at least 3 cities in 3 days, the Estes Park/Rocky Mountain area, Colorado Springs, and Denver. Tuesday was our big drive out of Moab, UT, into progressively more beautiful, western Colorado, and we were going to get there despite the growing threat of rain. As we got into the Rocky Mountain Park area, we had to make a tough call, and chose to skip the mountains because of the rain, but it steered us north to Ft Collins instead. I think that staying in the city rather than camping here was what our bodies were telling us since our taste of civilization in Moab, and the bad weather was cooperating nicely.

Ft Collins is a quaint college town with a great craft brewing tradition. We decided to grab a quick cheap hotel and head over to New Belgium, one of our favorite breweries. This place is awesome. Everyone that walks in the door is given 4 tokens to trade in for 6 oz beer samples, which, with only 45 mins before close, was way more than enough to get us feeling good, especially since many were high-gravity, 9% ABV beers. As is typical when we start drinking, we quickly made friends with some locals and were given a great dinner suggestion in town to round out our day.

The next morning, we decided to get up extra early and scale a few mountains. It’s amazing how different our last few days were compared to these. We literally were going from looking down into magnificent holes in the ground, to up at staggering giants in the sky. We drove through to Estes Park, all the while praying for the rain to hold back, but a partially closed road, $24 entrance fee and the sleet starting to come down scared us away once again. The drive we did make in the state park/forest was so beautiful that we didn’t mind moving on.

We took advantage of the early morning change of plans and drove down to Pikes Peak in Colorado Springs, where the weather was still pretty nice, or so we thought. The drive to 14,110 feet was exciting and mostly clear, though winding and a bit scary, maybe even more so for the passenger… Talk about trust! At the summit, the temperature dropped 35 degrees and the snow/sleet really picked up. It was such a white out that we couldn’t even tell we had made it!! The descent was even more terrifying because of the snow, but was a nice blinder, since we couldn’t tell that one false turn would send us down the 14,000 ft rock face.

In the end, we made it down the mountain, grabbed some dinner, and enjoyed a lazy evening in the hotel, glad for all we had done, thankful for the rest we we now getting, and looking forward to the next day in Denver.

POSTED: 1 year ago NOTES: 0 TAGS: #Colorado Posted By - siftedbit

The descent down Pikes Peak

POSTED: 1 year ago NOTES: 0 TAGS: #Colorado #Pikes Peak Posted By - siftedbit

Nuff said

POSTED: 1 year ago NOTES: 0 TAGS: #Colorado Posted By - mylittlestrawberry