Colorado
Tuesday 06/24/2008 10:18 AM
So I'm blown away by Colorado already. I flew into Denver and went immediately to REI to pick up camping supplies. This was Peter's suggestion since the store is spectacular (more like a mall for outdoor activities than a store). It's three stories with a huge climbing wall in the middle of it. I went up to the top floor to take this photo and was immediately told by an employee that they don't allow photos inside the store, so it's a little blurry, but it's the only one I have:
After I left REI, I stumbled upon what I learned later was Confluence Park (at least I'm pretty sure this is it). If we lived in Denver, I'm sure Alex and I would be here every other day to play and swim and tube in the rivers:
I put my feet in and then was going to head to Red Rocks National Park, but the sky was looking awfully gray and I was exhausted from the travel (flight delays turned a 5 hour trip into a 10-hour journey), so I headed to Longmont. Oh, and I almost forgot: I'm driving a Jeep, though I reserved and paid for a car one step above "economy." The story behind this is pretty long, but it involves the guy working the counter at the rental company being from Crawfordville (a small town just outside Tallahassee) and all the cars in the class I'd reserved being serviced or rented out already. Even though I've sworn I'd never drive an SUV, this seems like the perfect place to do it ... and it's fun! But not fun enough to rush out and buy one.
So Longmont is still in flat country, but I can see the Rockies from there (about 25 miles away):
This morning, I woke up really early and headed toward them to take some photos before the digital storytelling workshop (the reason I'm actually here) begins. I ended up making it all the way to Estes Park, the "gateway to the Rockies," about twenty miles northwest, and the town I'll be camping in at the end of the week. The drive was spectacular, but it's a two-lane highway curving through the mountains, so I didn't take many photos along the way. Also, the landscape is overwhelming (the only place I've been that I can accurately describe as "breathtaking") and I'm certain there's no way for an amateur like me to really capture it with a camera. But here's the road to Estes Park:
The sign (obviously, right?) for Estes Park:
The view from a hill above Estes ... and I thought this sort of reflection-of-mountains-in-lake thing only happened in jigsaw puzzles:
After I took the reflection in the lake photo, I was distracted by my funhouse-mirror shadow on the ground (the bottom of the photo ends at my knees), so I had to take a photo of it:
Main St, in Lyons, CO, the town closest to the workshop and partway between my hotel and Estes Park:
My new coffee and internet home away from home: The Barking Dog Cafe in Lyons.
I'm almost late for the workshop (so no proofreading for this page til tonight), but I've just gotta say, this is a hip little coffee shop with tons of dog-friendly signage, a dreadlocked woman behind the counter, great sandwiches, and when I walked in at 7 this morning, the place was filled with 50+ year old farming Coloradoans talking about the rain everyone around here is hoping for, town happenings, etc. I'm used to seeing these places filled with cool college artsy-type clientele, so it was sort of odd in a wonderfully friendly way to find the place so populated with these folks.
Yes, I want to move here.
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