Last weekend, we were lucky enough to escape the land of 100+ degree temperatures to spend a few days out in Colorado for a friend's wedding. We drove out on a Thursday afternoon. Those of you who have been lucky enough to experience first-hand the drive through KS and eastern CO can understand how relieved we were to finally reach our destination, Evergreen, that evening. It took us 2 frantic stops at closed liquor stores before we finally found one that was open. Seriously, aren't you missing a significant amount of sales when you close at 9pm?! After picking up some wine and beer, we were off to our home away from home for the weekend, Bauer's Spruce Island Chalet, a.k.a. the only place remotely near the wedding that still had vacancy by the time we made reservations. Try as I might, I can't figure out why they were the last to sell out. It certainly wasn't for lack of elegant decor. As an added bonus, the act of killing all the bugs in our room when we got there totally works in lieu of a fitness center.
But the most excitement was definitely in the middle of the night our first evening there when I woke up to a room full of smoke and a horrid smell of burning rubber. I woke up Adam, and we quickly realized that the owner had turned on the heater prior to our check-in…which is of course logical in 80-degree weather when you’ve also left the windows open for us. In our haste to get unpacked and settled in once we arrived, Adam had set his running shoes on the ancient heater just below the window (yes, with the chair leaned up against it and the curtains literally on top of it).
Of course they began to melt and burn. I should add that another feature of the Chalet is a smoke detector without a battery.
And yes, I’ll admit Adam shouldn’t have put his shoes on the heater, but there’s a reason hotels are required to have working smoke detectors. Anyway, the owner was less than willing to provide us any sort of apologies or compensation for having to wake up in a room full of smoke. I believe her exact words were, “Well, clearly you’re unhappy here, so why don’t you just leave?” Yes, waking up to a fire in a room with a battery-free smoke detector makes for an “unhappy” guest. She’s just lucky we’re not the litigious type.
Anyway, despite the fact that our first night there was miserable, we woke up in high spirits on Friday. All our clothes reeked of burnt rubber, but we had a date with our friends (and Chalet neighbors) Scott and Genevieve to go white water rafting. We drove to Mile-Hi Rafting on the Clear Creek River. Our guide was John, and I can’t say enough about how great the experience was! Our boat was just John, Scott/Genevieve and Adam/me, but we kind of stuck with a couple other boats on our trip as well, and I can honestly say that none of the other boats had as much fun as we did. He took us “surfing” a few times and just made it a great day. The other boats weren’t quite as lucky. We overheard one of the guides telling his passengers, “When I say, ‘paddle,’ you paddle. It’s not that hard.” Later, a couple of their passengers were asked to leave the boat for not pulling their weight! Hilarious. Apparently they were rather overweight and had a little trouble staying put in the boat.
Since the hike didn’t take long, we went back to the Chalet for a little wedding pre-party. Nothing says “classy” like a bottle of wine and a game of horseshoes! For the record, I am much better at washers, although I did score a couple points…at least by our standards. I have no idea if we were playing the game correctly or not!
Then it was time to head to the wedding. It was on a golf course in Evergreen, and the weather could not have been more perfect. We were pretty excited on the way there to spot some mule deer (at least that’s what Adam said they were. I would have probably called them “reindeer”) in a person’s front yard. Our cab driver pulled over so we could take pictures.
The wedding was short, sweet, and beautiful. One of my favorite moments might have been the dogs that served as flower girl and ring bearer. My least favorite moment was definitely when a guy and his son pulled up to the tee box right in front of the wedding (literally less than 25 yards from the couple), stands at the tee box for a while, looks at the couple who are currently saying their vows, looks back at the tee box, thinks about it some more, and then decides to TEE OFF! All I can think of is the bit on SNL Weekend Update that Seth Meyer and Tina Fey did called “Really?!” Lesson learned: being a member of a country club does not imply that you have class, sir.
How do you keep a bunch of drunken idiots entertained for 5 hours? 2 words: Photo. Booth. 2 more words: With. Costumes. Now, this was fun. I’m working on getting the online version of these pictures, as they were hilarious. My favorite were definitely the Kanye West glasses!
On Sunday morning, we checked out of the Chalet (thank God!), and Adam and I drove up to Estes Park. The drive took a little while, but the scenery sure is different from what you see in Kansas! We drove through Rocky Mountain National Park (which scared me s***less). I took a ton of pictures, but none of them really do the scenery justice. I was floored that there was still snow on the mountains, even though the air temperature at the snowy spots was 65 degrees. But after the crazy heat we’ve had here, I was more than happy to have to wear a hoodie!
I did spot a few elk, and we caught a distant glimpse of a moose, but my favorite view was this random lake I stumbled upon while Adam was napping in the car.
I could have strolled around forever, but Adam had a pretty nasty blister on his heel from hiking, so he wasn’t feeling it. We drove back to Denver and had an amazing dinner at a place called Sushi Sasa. The next morning, we were all set to get up and drive back when we got a message that Adam’s dad, Dallas, was in Denver and wanted to meet us for breakfast. Dal is a banker and spends most of the work week at his Denver office. He met us at Sam’s No. 3, which was super delicious and affordable, and then we went to his office, which has a gorgeous view of Coors Field and the mountains. I really wish we could have spent more time in downtown Denver because it seemed like a pretty nice area. Unfortunately, we had to leave and drive back to home sweet home. Fortunately for me, Adam took the wheel all the way to Topeka. I just tried to not pay much attention because from what I understand, we were “making great time.”
It was a great trip with great friends, beautiful scenery, and beautiful weather. I decided if I won the lottery, I would love to have a summer home somewhere in Colorado, but with as much as the mountain driving terrifies me, it might take years off my life to live there!
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