Thursday, I drove to Nashville to catch a flight to Denver, CO. I flew United, which was new to me, but functionally identical to just about every other flight I've had. The flight went well, the Denver airport is wonderful, and the weather was cooperative on the three-hour drive down into Goodland, KS.
The Denver International Airport (IATA: DEN), referred to on local signs as DIA, is very nice; it's easy to get around in, with moving walkways and a tram system (similar to Hartsfield's) to take you between terminals. There are also more shops and restaurants than I've seen in many other airports of comparable size; the pleasant side effect of that is that the airport smells pretty good. Big picture windows provide a view of the mountains to the west.
Denver itself is not quite what I'd expected. It's not in the mountains, like you might think; it is rather in a big, flat area
next to the mountains. That said, you don't have to go far west to be up in some very big mountains indeed. It's a very spread-out city, which means that everyone drives; traffic has been fairly heavy. This probably also contributes to the city's well-known pollution problem.
The car for this trip is a 2002 PT Cruiser; on the plus side, it's got a jack in the front of the stereo where I can plug in my iPod. On the down side, the car sucks. There's no cruise control, for one thing, and when you're driving hundreds of miles, that's kind of a big deal. It's not the most comfortable ride, either, does not handle hills well (and in Colorado that's just not good) and the acceleration is both poor and imprecise.* In short, it's a car I really don't have much confidence in, and that will later become a problem.
The drive down to Goodland, KS was interesting. No, I'm lying. It was dull. And don't roll down your windows unless you're sure you're not near any ranches. I stayed a night at the Comfort Inn there in town, which was adequate, and visited the customer the next morning (Friday). The visit to the customer location went so well it pretty much guarantees that, on my next trip, the card readers will explode in huge chunks of flaming debris, killing dozens.
After the work was done, I decided to stray from my planned course, and drove to
Colorado Springs instead of back to Denver. That's a sprawling town in its own right, set near the base of
Pikes Peak. The drive there was educational as well, traveling through the
Great Plains region (or, more specifically, the High Plains). It's flat; really, really, flat. That tricks you, though, into thinking that it's a low-lying area. Even Goodland, though, is 3600 feet above sea level, and the elevation changes so gradually going west that you don't really notice it, until you pass through little towns like Simla, CO, or Ramah, both of which are over 6000 feet above sea level (higher than Denver!). It's to be expected, though, as you approach the Pikes Peak region.
Colorado Springs isn't easy to navigate, though by following certain travel principles, I did find a hotel that did not look like it would leave me with a skin condition. After about an hour, I spotted a newish-looking Amerisuites which, as it turns out, was in the process of being renovated into a Hyatt Suites; the room was amazing. New everything, wireless Internet (though the throughput was a bit low), and a 42" widescreen HDTV, and all that for $85.00 a night. It was hard to fathom that only about a week before, I'd been spending twice that amount for a furnished closet in Manhattan.
I should have done some sightseeing as soon as I got into town, but it was starting to get dark, and I'd been working and driving all day, so I just didn't feel like it. Big mistake.
Saturday, the day I'd set aside for sightseeing, started out rainy and cloudy, and the weather only got worse. The Garden of the Gods is majestic as all hell, but is less easy to enjoy in the rain when you don't really want to get out of your car because your camera, like many sophisticated electronic devices, doesn't handle the wet very well.
My next goal was to get up to Pikes Peak. There are a few ways to do this: hiking, driving, or taking a cog train. Hiking was right out, simply due to weather and distance. Driving...well, as I said, the weather had started to turn nasty, and at about 6000 feet, what was rain was now snow, so the road that leads to the peak was closed. I drove back down to Manitou Springs to see if the cog train was running, which it was, but I had just missed it and would have to wait another three hours for the next one, with no guarantee that it would travel to the top, thanks to the weather. My quest to reach I higher land-bound elevation than I'd been at
in Germany would have to wait, as I never made it above 9000 feet this time around.
In a fit of pique, I decided to drive west toward more mountainous country. I saw a sign for Green Mountain Falls and elected to detour there; it's basically a little resort town/suburb, and did not actually seem to possess any falls.
Traveling westward, the snow intensified to the point where, not really knowing where I was going, and in a car that a) I was not happy with, and b) did not have four wheel drive, I decided to turn around and try a different route. I headed north from
Woodland Park, through
Pike National Forest. This was much more scenic, except that the snow kept getting worse, and traffic was almost nonexistent; I started getting concerned once I could no longer clearly see the road, following strictly along the diminishing ruts left by earlier traffic. But I did eventually find my way to the highway and traveled a short distance eastward into Denver.
Once in Denver, I made my way to the hotel to rest for a bit (as wonderful as the hotel room had been the night before, I slept very poorly), and, on my brother's recommendation, visited the
Wynkoop Brewing Company for a late lunch (buffalo burger). They also had an excellent IPA on the hand pump. After that, it was back to the hotel to wait and see if the weather cleared any. It didn't. 300 damn days of sunlight per year, and the one day I had to sightsee wasn't one of them.
As I type this, I'm at DEN, waiting for the next flight to Nashville, seated between a cowboy**, and a girl watching DVDs. I was originally scheduled to fly out at 10:40, but the flight was massively overbooked (customer service's words, not mine), and I was not early enough to get a seat. So now I'm on standby for the next overbooked flight, with no guarantee that I'll get a seat on it, either. Frontier was kind enough to give me vouchers for lunch and dinner, and a $400.00 voucher for a future flight, so I suppose I'll risk flying them again. In the mean time, I sit here, type in my blog, look at my pictures, and scowl angrily at the beautiful weather outside. The
Flickr gallery has been updated again, with a few more pictures than I've posted here.
*(It will, however, accelerate you fast enough to get pulled over by a State Trooper; just a warning ticket, since I wasn't going
too fast.)
**(He must be a cowboy, for he has both the boots
and the hat. In all fairness, he may actually be a cowboy, but come on, who needs to wear boots and a big hat in an airport?)
