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My sister Bethany recently moved to Colorado. It was a difficult move that involved packing up a house she'd lived in for more than 20 years, along with her two horses, all their gear, and even an outdoor riding pen. Then there was the unpacking. You may gape in awe!
Eventually, she got out there, but still felt nervous and unsettled. She only knows a couple people out there, and they're mostly work-related folk. So my brother Paul organized a family trip for him, my mother, and me to go see her. Plane tickets were reasonable and Bethany has plenty of room for guests, so no need for a hotel. It was a win!
Mom drove down to Paul's house, and they drove together to Detroit Metro Airport, where I met them. My mother has some mobility issues these days, and we discovered that this is both a minus and a plus at an airport. Minus in that arranging for and maneuvering a wheelchair through an airport is a bit of a trick, plus because a person in a wheelchair goes straight to the head of the security line, and so do the people traveling with her. I guess it was a wash.
The flight itself was boring, which is just how I like it. We landed in Denver and dealt with a wheelchair bobble--there was supposed to be one waiting for us at the entry gate, but it turned out THREE people on the flight had requested wheelchairs, and only one chair actually showed up. This caused some back-and-forth, and in the mess, I got separated from Paul and Mom. But we all managed to find each other again through the magic of cell phones. Mom co-opted a skycap to wheel her out to the car rental company shuttle bus (we tipped well), and we found ourselves at Hertz. Here we had more bobbles with memberships and credit card numbers, but it was finally all ironed out. Paul and I each got a rental car--the advantage of mature adulthood--so we wouldn't have to coordinate miscellaneous driving.
Bethany lives in a small town about an hour outside of Denver. Her house is incredible. A sprawling two-story ranch with a walkout basement floor that's basically a house all by itself. This is where Paul and I stayed. It has an enormous, luxurious barn for the horses, too, complete with a warm-water washing station and self-filling water stations and lots of pasture.
Paul and Mom and I, of course, first noticed the air. Not only is Denver arid, it's also low pressure. Bethany's house is actually higher than Denver's famous mile-high stature, and we noticed the difference! I didn't quite struggle for breath, but I got winded way easier--a flight of stairs got me panting--and I found myself having to concentrate on my breathing. Every so often, a wave of "a little hard to breathe, here" would hit me. And I was thirsty almost all the time! It was a strange experience.
On the first day, we helped Bethany do a bunch of finishing work on her house, mostly hanging pictures (she has a =lot= of pictures to hang, and many of them require multiple people) and arranging furniture. We also went out to eat at a wonderful Mexican restaurant in the town. Here we had the Dreaded Pepper Incident. My order came with a roasted jalapeno the size of a sausage. I can handle a fair amount of spicy, but I knew that this would be a Pepper Too Far, and said so.
"I'll take it!" Bethany said, and took a big bite.
It was like watching a cartoon. A flush crawled up her face and she lost the power to speak. Then the hiccups came. I swear steam whistled from her ears. She slugged down water and margarita in equal portions.
Paul couldn't quite believe the hype. He snatched up the pepper and gave it test chomp. Flush, mute, hiccups. Mom and I were laughing so hard, the tears salted our margarita glasses.
I also impressed everyone with my gaydar by spotting two gay guys among the wait staff.
The next day was more touching up the house, but in the afternoon we went exploring. Paul, who loves trail riding on a motorcycle, really wanted to try some mountain riding. He rented a motorcycle, found a trail that looked interesting, and persuaded us to follow him in Bethany's mega-truck so we could all have a look around. This we did.
We weren't technically in the Rocky Mountains, but in some foothills that form a state park. The trail started off as a fairly decent dirt road that climbed and curved steadily upward. The scenery was wonderful. Colorado's ranches and woods and meadows spread out far below us. House-sized boulders and chunks of granite stuck up like giant's bones.
Paul zoomed ahead of us, then came back to find us, then zoomed ahead again. Bethany gamely followed in the truck. The road devolved into a rutted trail, and we were moving up and down like a drunken ship. We came across truly rustic campsites and signs warning us about bears. The scenery continued to amaze, and we stopped every so often to get out and admire it. I came around a mega-boulder and discovered a cliff. Yeek! Several times, the family remarked that Darwin, who is acrophobic, wouldn't handle this trip well, but we found it lovely.
Eventually, the trail degraded too much for the truck to continue. Paul decided to keep going and see where the trail came out and we agreed to meet up in a nearby town. Bethany careful turned the truck around and we began the descent, with another pit stop at the parkapotty. (Seriously, go Team Parks Department.) Going down, I was, of course, sitting on the other side, so I got to see stuff I missed on the way up.
We made it safely to the bottom and headed into the town, where we stumbled across a brew pub and decided to eat there. It turned out to be a great choice. I'm not sure what it was, but I really liked the place. The food was good, and so were the drinks. A live duo played guitar and sang, and it was just . . . perfect. Paul found us, and reported a breathtaking ride down the other side of the foothills.
That evening, I ran on Bethany's treadmill and did my plank work. I totally impressed myself--I did the full workout and didn't have breathing trouble. Go me! Then I drove into Denver to see what the gay district was like. (Yes, Denver has a gay district.) I wandered through a couple bars and struck up a conversation with a nice gay couple that fell just short of, "The next time you're out here, you can stay with us." It's always fun to see what the LGBT scene is in another town.
Somewhere in here, I also made . . The Pavlova.
I had come across the recipe for pavlova only recently and was dying to try it, but it's a HUGE dessert, and I didn't want to waste it on just Darwin and me. I decided it would be fun to try it out at Bethany's. To make a pavlova, you whip egg whites, sugar, and vinegar into a meringue and bake it flat. Then you make whipped cream and cut up whatever fruit you like. (I used strawberries and peaches.) When the meringue cools, you spread the whipped cream and fruit on top of it, then roll it up and slice it for serving. It turned into a big project, with everyone helping. When it was done, we tried it. Delicious! The meringue was crispy outside, chewy inside. The fruit and whipped cream were both tangy and sweet. A great summer dessert, and fun to make.
I actually kind of became the self-appointed cook during this trip. We ate at restaurants in the evening, but I made breakfast every morning--scrambled eggs one day, pancakes the next. It was fun cooking for a larger group.
The next day, we decided to hit Pikes Peak. Pikes Peak is Colorado's most famous mountain and is 14,115 feet high. It's also a park. To get there, you have to drive through the town of Bust, Colorado, which, legend says, was formed by people who couldn't make it to Pikes Peak and they took the town's name from "Pikes Peak or bust!"
We packed a picnic lunch of thick sandwiches, chips, and pavlova, and headed out.
This time, Paul was driving his rental car. We went past the entry tollbooth, got the rules explained to us by a very nice park ranger ("Stay in low gear. On the way down, use your engine to slow the car instead of the brakes. Stop here for a brake temperature check"), and wound our way upward.
The road up Pikes Peak is well-paved, but narrow and twisty. There are several sets of hairpin turns. You find yourself leaning back in your seat. Your ears pop several times, and you can FEEL the air thin out. Meanwhile, the road beside you drops away. You can see miles and miles. Eventually, you can look over the edge and see far below you the road you just came up. It twists like a snake.
The vegetation thins out the higher you go, and it gets chilly. At the bottom, it was 80s and warm. Up on the Peak, the sun shone ferociously and you could feel its heat, but the air was cold, a strange sensation. Eventually, you get past the tree line, and the bare mountain top looks like Mars, with great piles of red rocks.
We stopped about halfway up at a park rest station and had out picnic lunch (pavlova!). We were careful--it was easy to get winded. Seriously. Walk too fast, and you were out of breath. Bethany was starting to feel nauseated and Paul was feeling anxiety. Both are common symptom of altitude sickness. We talked about turning around, but ultimately decided to keep on going.
At the very top, we found a startlingly-large parking lot, complete with several school buses. (!) How they got them around those hairpin turns I'll never know. Paul wanted to head right back down--the altitude sickness was getting to him--but I persuaded him to stop for just a moment at the top. "It would be a shame to come all this way and not at least get a couple pictures," I said.
The road follows the peak's ridge for quite a ways, and there are lots of places where you can say, "I'm at the top of Pikes Peak!" Paul decided it would be okay to stop for a little bit. I hopped out and picked my way across the martian surface to the edge for some photos. Paul and Bethany and Mom decided to join me, and we found a piece of cardboard with "Pikes Peak 14,115 feet!" written on it in black Sharpie. We posed with it, then tucked it back into the rocks for someone else to find.
Being up there is definitely strange. It's beautiful and literally breathtaking. It's also pointedly hostile to human life. It's cold and difficult to breathe, and one wrong step will send you to a messy, painful death. This makes the Peak both exhilarating and frightening at the same time. But we climbed the Peak!
The drive down was more than a little harrowing. It took all of Paul's concentration to avoid burning up the brakes. Some guy in a yellow car tailgated us for quite a ways, and Paul finally pulled over to let him by. He zipped down the mountain until he caught up with the next car, which wasn't so accommodating. Yellow Car's brake lights were on all the way down the mountain, and we started smelling scorched brake fluid. Not good, dude!
When we got halfway down, we encountered the brake check booth. A park ranger stops you and checks the temperature of your brakes with an electronic thermometer. Our windows were down, and when Yellow Car arrived at the booth, we heard the conversation with the park ranger. The ranger checked the brakes and scolded Yellow Car for riding his brakes down. His car was deemed unsafe for further travel, and he was directed to a special parking lot to wait for at least half an hour for his brakes to cool down. Yellow Car tried to argue, but the ranger was adamant. Finally, Yellow Car wrenched himself over into the parking lot with bad grace. We were laughing at him as we approached the ranger, who gave us a clean bill of health and permission to continue.
We made it to the bottom safely (whoo!) and finally made our way to an Italian restaurant, where we enjoyed yet more good food. We also agreed that the trail ride and Pikes Peak trips were extremely enjoyable experiences that we never wanted to do again.
That night, Mom and Bethany went to bed early, and Paul and I ended up having a long brother-to-brother talk that went on for hours, something we haven't done in a long time.
The next day was a lazier day, and we mostly rested. In the evening, Bethany and Paul and I ended up with cocktails on her deck, looking up at endless stars and talking about nearly everything.
In the morning, we packed up and headed for the airport. The plane ride home was equally dull--yay! And when we landed, we immediately noticed the difference in the air. It was so much easier to breathe!
It was a fine trip to Colorado, and we're looking forward to more of them.
Eventually, she got out there, but still felt nervous and unsettled. She only knows a couple people out there, and they're mostly work-related folk. So my brother Paul organized a family trip for him, my mother, and me to go see her. Plane tickets were reasonable and Bethany has plenty of room for guests, so no need for a hotel. It was a win!
Mom drove down to Paul's house, and they drove together to Detroit Metro Airport, where I met them. My mother has some mobility issues these days, and we discovered that this is both a minus and a plus at an airport. Minus in that arranging for and maneuvering a wheelchair through an airport is a bit of a trick, plus because a person in a wheelchair goes straight to the head of the security line, and so do the people traveling with her. I guess it was a wash.
The flight itself was boring, which is just how I like it. We landed in Denver and dealt with a wheelchair bobble--there was supposed to be one waiting for us at the entry gate, but it turned out THREE people on the flight had requested wheelchairs, and only one chair actually showed up. This caused some back-and-forth, and in the mess, I got separated from Paul and Mom. But we all managed to find each other again through the magic of cell phones. Mom co-opted a skycap to wheel her out to the car rental company shuttle bus (we tipped well), and we found ourselves at Hertz. Here we had more bobbles with memberships and credit card numbers, but it was finally all ironed out. Paul and I each got a rental car--the advantage of mature adulthood--so we wouldn't have to coordinate miscellaneous driving.
Bethany lives in a small town about an hour outside of Denver. Her house is incredible. A sprawling two-story ranch with a walkout basement floor that's basically a house all by itself. This is where Paul and I stayed. It has an enormous, luxurious barn for the horses, too, complete with a warm-water washing station and self-filling water stations and lots of pasture.
Paul and Mom and I, of course, first noticed the air. Not only is Denver arid, it's also low pressure. Bethany's house is actually higher than Denver's famous mile-high stature, and we noticed the difference! I didn't quite struggle for breath, but I got winded way easier--a flight of stairs got me panting--and I found myself having to concentrate on my breathing. Every so often, a wave of "a little hard to breathe, here" would hit me. And I was thirsty almost all the time! It was a strange experience.
On the first day, we helped Bethany do a bunch of finishing work on her house, mostly hanging pictures (she has a =lot= of pictures to hang, and many of them require multiple people) and arranging furniture. We also went out to eat at a wonderful Mexican restaurant in the town. Here we had the Dreaded Pepper Incident. My order came with a roasted jalapeno the size of a sausage. I can handle a fair amount of spicy, but I knew that this would be a Pepper Too Far, and said so.
"I'll take it!" Bethany said, and took a big bite.
It was like watching a cartoon. A flush crawled up her face and she lost the power to speak. Then the hiccups came. I swear steam whistled from her ears. She slugged down water and margarita in equal portions.
Paul couldn't quite believe the hype. He snatched up the pepper and gave it test chomp. Flush, mute, hiccups. Mom and I were laughing so hard, the tears salted our margarita glasses.
I also impressed everyone with my gaydar by spotting two gay guys among the wait staff.
The next day was more touching up the house, but in the afternoon we went exploring. Paul, who loves trail riding on a motorcycle, really wanted to try some mountain riding. He rented a motorcycle, found a trail that looked interesting, and persuaded us to follow him in Bethany's mega-truck so we could all have a look around. This we did.
We weren't technically in the Rocky Mountains, but in some foothills that form a state park. The trail started off as a fairly decent dirt road that climbed and curved steadily upward. The scenery was wonderful. Colorado's ranches and woods and meadows spread out far below us. House-sized boulders and chunks of granite stuck up like giant's bones.
Paul zoomed ahead of us, then came back to find us, then zoomed ahead again. Bethany gamely followed in the truck. The road devolved into a rutted trail, and we were moving up and down like a drunken ship. We came across truly rustic campsites and signs warning us about bears. The scenery continued to amaze, and we stopped every so often to get out and admire it. I came around a mega-boulder and discovered a cliff. Yeek! Several times, the family remarked that Darwin, who is acrophobic, wouldn't handle this trip well, but we found it lovely.
Eventually, the trail degraded too much for the truck to continue. Paul decided to keep going and see where the trail came out and we agreed to meet up in a nearby town. Bethany careful turned the truck around and we began the descent, with another pit stop at the parkapotty. (Seriously, go Team Parks Department.) Going down, I was, of course, sitting on the other side, so I got to see stuff I missed on the way up.
We made it safely to the bottom and headed into the town, where we stumbled across a brew pub and decided to eat there. It turned out to be a great choice. I'm not sure what it was, but I really liked the place. The food was good, and so were the drinks. A live duo played guitar and sang, and it was just . . . perfect. Paul found us, and reported a breathtaking ride down the other side of the foothills.
That evening, I ran on Bethany's treadmill and did my plank work. I totally impressed myself--I did the full workout and didn't have breathing trouble. Go me! Then I drove into Denver to see what the gay district was like. (Yes, Denver has a gay district.) I wandered through a couple bars and struck up a conversation with a nice gay couple that fell just short of, "The next time you're out here, you can stay with us." It's always fun to see what the LGBT scene is in another town.
Somewhere in here, I also made . . The Pavlova.
I had come across the recipe for pavlova only recently and was dying to try it, but it's a HUGE dessert, and I didn't want to waste it on just Darwin and me. I decided it would be fun to try it out at Bethany's. To make a pavlova, you whip egg whites, sugar, and vinegar into a meringue and bake it flat. Then you make whipped cream and cut up whatever fruit you like. (I used strawberries and peaches.) When the meringue cools, you spread the whipped cream and fruit on top of it, then roll it up and slice it for serving. It turned into a big project, with everyone helping. When it was done, we tried it. Delicious! The meringue was crispy outside, chewy inside. The fruit and whipped cream were both tangy and sweet. A great summer dessert, and fun to make.
I actually kind of became the self-appointed cook during this trip. We ate at restaurants in the evening, but I made breakfast every morning--scrambled eggs one day, pancakes the next. It was fun cooking for a larger group.
The next day, we decided to hit Pikes Peak. Pikes Peak is Colorado's most famous mountain and is 14,115 feet high. It's also a park. To get there, you have to drive through the town of Bust, Colorado, which, legend says, was formed by people who couldn't make it to Pikes Peak and they took the town's name from "Pikes Peak or bust!"
We packed a picnic lunch of thick sandwiches, chips, and pavlova, and headed out.
This time, Paul was driving his rental car. We went past the entry tollbooth, got the rules explained to us by a very nice park ranger ("Stay in low gear. On the way down, use your engine to slow the car instead of the brakes. Stop here for a brake temperature check"), and wound our way upward.
The road up Pikes Peak is well-paved, but narrow and twisty. There are several sets of hairpin turns. You find yourself leaning back in your seat. Your ears pop several times, and you can FEEL the air thin out. Meanwhile, the road beside you drops away. You can see miles and miles. Eventually, you can look over the edge and see far below you the road you just came up. It twists like a snake.
The vegetation thins out the higher you go, and it gets chilly. At the bottom, it was 80s and warm. Up on the Peak, the sun shone ferociously and you could feel its heat, but the air was cold, a strange sensation. Eventually, you get past the tree line, and the bare mountain top looks like Mars, with great piles of red rocks.
We stopped about halfway up at a park rest station and had out picnic lunch (pavlova!). We were careful--it was easy to get winded. Seriously. Walk too fast, and you were out of breath. Bethany was starting to feel nauseated and Paul was feeling anxiety. Both are common symptom of altitude sickness. We talked about turning around, but ultimately decided to keep on going.
At the very top, we found a startlingly-large parking lot, complete with several school buses. (!) How they got them around those hairpin turns I'll never know. Paul wanted to head right back down--the altitude sickness was getting to him--but I persuaded him to stop for just a moment at the top. "It would be a shame to come all this way and not at least get a couple pictures," I said.
The road follows the peak's ridge for quite a ways, and there are lots of places where you can say, "I'm at the top of Pikes Peak!" Paul decided it would be okay to stop for a little bit. I hopped out and picked my way across the martian surface to the edge for some photos. Paul and Bethany and Mom decided to join me, and we found a piece of cardboard with "Pikes Peak 14,115 feet!" written on it in black Sharpie. We posed with it, then tucked it back into the rocks for someone else to find.
Being up there is definitely strange. It's beautiful and literally breathtaking. It's also pointedly hostile to human life. It's cold and difficult to breathe, and one wrong step will send you to a messy, painful death. This makes the Peak both exhilarating and frightening at the same time. But we climbed the Peak!
The drive down was more than a little harrowing. It took all of Paul's concentration to avoid burning up the brakes. Some guy in a yellow car tailgated us for quite a ways, and Paul finally pulled over to let him by. He zipped down the mountain until he caught up with the next car, which wasn't so accommodating. Yellow Car's brake lights were on all the way down the mountain, and we started smelling scorched brake fluid. Not good, dude!
When we got halfway down, we encountered the brake check booth. A park ranger stops you and checks the temperature of your brakes with an electronic thermometer. Our windows were down, and when Yellow Car arrived at the booth, we heard the conversation with the park ranger. The ranger checked the brakes and scolded Yellow Car for riding his brakes down. His car was deemed unsafe for further travel, and he was directed to a special parking lot to wait for at least half an hour for his brakes to cool down. Yellow Car tried to argue, but the ranger was adamant. Finally, Yellow Car wrenched himself over into the parking lot with bad grace. We were laughing at him as we approached the ranger, who gave us a clean bill of health and permission to continue.
We made it to the bottom safely (whoo!) and finally made our way to an Italian restaurant, where we enjoyed yet more good food. We also agreed that the trail ride and Pikes Peak trips were extremely enjoyable experiences that we never wanted to do again.
That night, Mom and Bethany went to bed early, and Paul and I ended up having a long brother-to-brother talk that went on for hours, something we haven't done in a long time.
The next day was a lazier day, and we mostly rested. In the evening, Bethany and Paul and I ended up with cocktails on her deck, looking up at endless stars and talking about nearly everything.
In the morning, we packed up and headed for the airport. The plane ride home was equally dull--yay! And when we landed, we immediately noticed the difference in the air. It was so much easier to breathe!
It was a fine trip to Colorado, and we're looking forward to more of them.
