Colorado: Live at Red Rocks

 

Sandstone formations, colored by oxidized
minerals, give Rod Rocks its name,

          An August 2024 weekend stopover in Denver gave Jane and me a chance for a quick visit to Red Rocks to see the celebrated amphitheater and a bit of the 740-acre park that surrounds it.  Our nephew, who lives in Denver, drove us to the park, which is about 30 minutes out of town though it is owned by the city of Denver, and accompanied us on the popular Trading Post Trail, a 1.4-mile loop wending around rock formations. It's rated moderate, but on a 90-degree-plus sunny day, it wasn't moderate enough. At a road crossing and with probably less than a quarter-mile to go, we found a shady spot to wait while our nephew sprinted ahead and came back with his car for us.  

        The amphitheater, which has hosted performances since the early 1900s, took its present form during the Great Depression with help from the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Works Progress Administration. It has since seen performances by the Beatles (1964), the Grateful Dead (at least 20 times), Jimi Hendrix (1968) and many others. It's where the concert film "U2 Live at Red Rocks: Under a Blood Red Sky" was filmed in 1983. In 2021, Red Rocks Amphitheatre was the top-grossing and most-attended venue of any size anywhere in the world, according to Billboard Magazine.

      Here are a few snapshots:

The Red Rocks Amphitheatre has seen musical performances of all types for more than 80 years.

Performances were held here for several decades before
the seating area and stage were completed in 1941.

Formations such as this seem to change shapes as you view them from different angles.

Stairs make some of the steeper sections
of the Trading Post Trail a bit easier.

There's not a lot of shade on the Trading Post Trail.

A hiker takes a break.

The elevation change on the Trading Post Trail is more than 300
feet, but it seemed to me that the trail went up and down
that much more than once.

Our nephew knew a good spot for a selfie.

Road Trip: East to Denver

Much of Interstate 70 between Utah and the Contiental Divide
 in Colorado runs along the Colorado River.

     

Mid-April 2022 found us driving our 11-year-old Chevrolet Equinox from San Diego to Denver to meet up with Jane's sister (who lives on Long Island) and the sister's son and his family (who live in Denver). The ocassion was his daughter's fourth birthday. We haven't flown since the pandemic began, though we think we might fly somewhere eventually. The end of the mask rule for mass transit makes it much less inviting. 

      This trip also marked the first time we were eating almost all meals indoors in restaurants. At home in San Diego, we can eat outdoors year-round at most places. We wore masks in hotels, especially in elevators, but we became more relaxed about sitting unmasked at restaurant tables. (When we got home, our at-home Covid tests were negative, which was a relief since our granddaughter, whom we see regularly, is still a few months away from being old enough to be vaccinated.)

     Now, to the trip itself: 

     We left San Diego on Sunday, April 10, and drove about five hours to Henderson, Nevada, just outside Las Vegas. We stayed a night at a Hampton Inn, the first of three Hilton properties that we visited on this trip.  I have nothing of interest to say about Henderson or the hotel; we just wanted to break up the drive. The next day we made it to Moab, Utah, and Arches National Park. The park is spectacular and Moab is diverting enough for the hours that visitors aren't in the park. To give ourselves two full days to explore the park, we stayed three nights at another Hilton, this time the Hoodoo Moab, one of Hilton's Curio group. It is a strikingly designed hotel with a decent restaurant, an Instagram-ready pool (though the weather was too cold for it to get much use) and a hot tub. My main gripe was that even pricy places like this are not automatically tidying rooms every day, and unlike at the less-expensive Hampton Inn, rooms don't include any sort of breakfast. It's easy to see why so many people are choosing VRBO or Airbnb over the bare-bones service that so many hotels are offering. One recommendation in Moab: the Jailhouse Cafe for breakfast. Only a block from the Hoodoo.

       (Separate posts focus on Arches National Park, Denver, Pikes Peak, and Bryce Canyon National Park.)

      On April 14, we drove east on Interstate 70, much of the way beside the Colorado River, wending through the Rocky Mountains, crossing the Continental Divide via the Eisenhower-Johnson Tunnel, and arriving in Denver, where we stayed four nights downtown at Le Meridien, a Marriott hotel. We ended up having several meals in the hotel's popular Corinne restaurant. Even more popular is the 20th-floor 54thirty Rooftop bar, which we visited only once and quickly left because of the crowd. Fortunately, there's bar service in the spacious lobby. 

     After a few days of family time, ejoying my nephew's slow-smoked pulled pork and doing some sight-seeing, we left Denver for two nights at the Cliff House hotel in nearby Manitou Springs at the foot of Pikes Peak. This hotel not only cleans the room every day, it does turn-down service complete with chocolates! We rode the famous cog railroad to the very peak (14,115 feet above sea level) of Pikes Peak. Then we drove back north through and beyond Denver to Fort Collins to visit friends who live there. We stayed two nights at the pleasant Armstrong Hotel downtown. Fort Collins is home to several big tech companies as well as Colorado State University, and the downtown has the coffee shops, bars and shopping that you'd expect with such a well-educated population. I especially liked Ace Gillett's, a retro cocktail lounge in the basement of the Armstrong.

      Then we were back on the road west toward home. Stopping first for a night at the Tru, our third Hilton property, in Grand Junction, Colorado. The hotel is more stylish and better planned (lots of hooks in the room, plenty of room for suitcases, etc.) than the similarly priced Hampton Inn. Like the Hampton Inn, breakfast is included. On our nephew's recommendation, we had dinner at Bin 707 Foodbar, a wine restaurant that offers local wines, including some "orange" wines, which are white wines that have spent more time on the skins to develop tannins, Think of them as meatier whites. Try the wines, but don't order the cioppino. Duck breast with gigante bean cassolet wasn't bad, though. 

      Next was two nights at a sprawling Best Western Plus in Bryce Canyon City, Utah. We arrived early enough to drive the 18-mile length of Bryce Canyon National Park before dinner (which was at the Stone Hearth Grille in nearby Tropic), and the next day we hiked a bit in the canyon, Dinner that night was back in Tropic, this time at Rustler's, which is conveniently located at a service station.  Get the trout; it was the best fish dish I had on the entire trip.

     Our plan was to then go to Boulder City, Nevada, for one night and a quick look at Hoover Dam, but once in the car we decided to skip the whole dam thing and drive straight through to San Diego. We were home before 6 pm.  In 16 days we had put 3,007 miles on the car. 

Here are some photos from the trip: 

Interstate 70 wends through the Rockies between Utah and Denver.

The highway lanes form ribbons across plains.

The variety of mountain formations make this a very scenic drive.

Signs along I-70 point to major ski destinations.

The lobby of the Armstrong Hotel in Fort Collins, Colorado.

Our friends in Fort Collins took us on a several-hour tour of Rocky Mountain National
Park. Bear Lake, above, was still frozen on April 21.

Looking west toward the mountains from near
Fort Collins. 

The west-bound entrance to the Eisenhower Tunnel on Interstate 70.
 It's the longest tunnel (almost 1.7 miles) in the U.S. Interstate system. And, at 3.4 miles above
sea level, it's the highest point of the entire Interstate system.  We stayed on
Interstate highways for most of our trip, Essentially, it was I-15 (and I-215 for a bit) 
north out of San Diego, through Las Vegas and well into Utah. Then we took I-70 east to Denver. 
 We took I-27 south of Denver to Manitou Springs (Pikes Peak) and then back north through
Denver to Fort Collins. We took the same highways home, 

U.S.A. Road Trip: From the Chesapeake Bay to San Diego Bay in Eight Days

      Jane and I had several big things on our minds in the summer of 2017.  One was the impending birth of a grandchild; one was waiting for our house on Tilghman Island, Maryland, to sell; and another was an ambitious autumn road trip that would take us, among other places, to Milwaukee, Glacier National Park, Seattle, San Diego and Denver. Then events took over.

We relied on our phones' GPS apps
to get from place to place, but the
map was a big help in chosing
the overall route.

      First to happen was our granddaughter's birth in San Diego on July 13. Then we accepted an offer for our house. Moving quickly, we flew to San Diego, met the newborn, and arranged to rent an apartment three blocks from the waterfront. We returned to Tilghman and started getting ready for the move. Our furniture and other belongings were  loaded onto a United Van Lines truck on September 18 and within a couple of hours we were on the road, racing to get to San Diego before the truck. Plans for the original road trip were scrapped -- our furniture would be delivered on Sept. 27 -- but we still wanted at least a night in Milwaukee to see son Kyle and his wife, Meg. And we wanted to go through Denver to see nephew David and his wife, Beth.  And between Tilghman and Milwaukee, we figured we could stop in Columbus, Ohio, to see friends from New York who now masquerade as Buckeyes.
     Some of the driving days were longer than others, and in some places we seemed to be almost the only vehicle that was not a Kenworth, a Freightliner or a Peterbilt. It's amazing how close these behemoths get when they're tailgating or cutting in front of a relatively small car like our Chevy Equinox. We drove thousands of miles, almost all of it on mind-numbing Interstate highways. Here's how the trip worked out.
     We left Tilghman at mid-afternoon on Sept. 18 and were pleased that we made it well into Pennsylvania for our first night on the road. Jane was online in the car looking for places to stay and eat in Breezewood, which is basically a truck-stop town of fast-food outlets. We opted to continue west to Somerset where we stayed at a Holiday Inn Express and escaped fast-food by dining at the rustic Pine Grill.
     The drive to Columbus turned out to be one of our shortest driving days, which was fortunate because we had a document to print out, have notorized and sent overnight for the closing on our house, which was happening back in Maryland the next day. Easily done at a UPS store. At our friends' suggestion, we stayed at the downtown Hotel Leveque and met them for dinner a short walk away at the Guild House on High Street. I went to graduate school at Ohio State but we didn't go up High Street far enough to see the campus or what's become of the neighborhood where I lived in the 1970s.
     From Columbus, it was another fairly easy drive to Milwaukee. We stayed at a downtown Hilton Garden Inn, where we had stayed on a previous trip, and dined at Pizza Man, a large and busy pizzeria near my son's apartment. I'm always impressed with what a pleasant city Milwaukee is, or maybe it's that Kyle and Meg have excellent taste in choosing their neighborhoods. On our original itinerary, the next stop would have been to visit a friend in Minneapolis, but we had to head southwest, not northwest.

Interstate 80 in Nebraska shows the need for self-driving cars. Human
drivers are likely to find the drive a bit boring. 

   On Thursday, September 27, we made it from Milwaukee to Lincoln, Nebraska, passing through the heart of flyover country. Lincoln, both a state capital and a university town, has loads of cool-looking restaurants and bars. We stayed at a downtown Hyatt Place and had a lovely dinner a few blocks away at Dish.  Temperatures there were in the 90s, unseasonably hot even in the early evening.
     From Lincoln, we drove to Denver, having to forego a visit with friends in Fort Collins, Colorado, due to the press of time.  We stayed at a downtown Hyatt; had drinks at Ophelia's, a kitschy bar next to a marijuana store; and had Friday night dinner with our nephew and his wife at Solitaire, a restaurant near their home in a close-in neighborhood of nearly century-old arts-and-crafts homes.
 

This 1938 Ford Woodie belonged to another guest at the La Quinta
in Kingman, Arizona. He said it was all original -- or at least the
wood was.  He said he had installed a Chevy engine, Chevy transmission, air
conditioning and power steering. Oh, and the orange rims were not
original, either. Still, a cool vehicle for traveling Route 66.

  Next stop, on Saturday, was Santa Fe, New Mexico, where we stayed at the Inn on the Alameda, a few blocks from the square. We had drinks at the lively Coyote Cafe and then a totally unremarkable dinner at La Fonda. Without reservations on a Saturday night, we couldn't get into the places we would have preferred.
     On Sunday, we made it to  Kingman, Arizona, one of the gateway towns to the Grand Canyon's southern rim and a popular stop for people tracing U.S. Route 66 from Chicago to Los Angeles. We met one such couple who were keeping track of licence plates. Ours was only the second Maryland car they had spotted. We stayed at a perfectly pleasant La Quinta and had honest-to-Shiva Indian food at India Spice.

The pool and bar at the Orbit In in Palm Springs.

  Monday found us arriving in Palm Springs, California, where we stayed for a second time  at the Orbit In, a recycled and restored Mid-Century Modern motel. Drinks were nearby at the iconic Spencers and dinner was at Rooster and the Pig, a packed Vietnamese eatery in a nearby storefront. We were last in Palm Springs a decade ago and found it little changed despite the reported influx of "new Hollywood" weekenders.
    The next day, Tuesday, Sept. 26, we arrived in San Diego via winding and extremely scenic state roads and spent the night at our new granddaughter's house. The next day we arrived at our Little Italy building to find that the truck driver who loaded us in Maryland had been waiting at the curb since 6:30 a.m.  "I wanted to get a spot," he said, referring to his 80-foot-long tractor-trailer rig.
    For the present, we've found our spot, too, though our travels will continue. The San Diego airport is literally within walking distance.

Halfway through moving-in day. The dining table legs awaited the top. Eventually boxes were stacked six feet high.