We spent a few days in Denver on either end of our trip to the mountains and it was a whirlwind of seeing friends, seeing the city, and testing our theory that we could successfully work the hours of a different time zone than the one we were physically located in. Our major takeaways? Denver is awesome and so are the people that live there. We could have easily doubled the amount of time we spent in the city and still never had a dull moment.
M’s cousin and childhood friends both graciously opened their homes to us for our time in Denver, and between seeing them, some of their friends, and one of my best friends from my college days, it was way more social interaction than we’ve had in the last year. We were lucky that most of that population had been vaccinated, but even luckier that Denver’s famously sunny days allowed us to stick primarily to outdoor activities like hiking Red Rocks, brewery patios (we hit three different breweries during our three total nights in Denver), or game night on the front porch. It just felt so good to be outside and not immediately turn into an ice sculpture! Working from Colorado didn’t go as smoothly as socializing from Colorado did, but we managed. After a short week of 6AM logins (and a few 5AM logins because I am still working on setting boundaries), we were totally wiped, and not at all looking forward to a whole month of that skewed schedule. It’s not rocket science, but somehow we hadn’t really considered until then that if we were waking up for Central Time mornings, our bedtimes should be based on Central Time evenings. WHO COULD HAVE PREDICTED??
While we were in Denver our plans for the next leg of the trip changed a bit. Diligent readers of this blog will recall that we had planned to have a one-night “layover” in Salt Lake City on our way to southern Utah, but when we had to adjust our route to dodge some winter weather in the mountains, it no longer made sense to drive up to Salt Lake City. Instead, we charted a course straight to our Airbnb in Hurricane, UT and picked a city at the halfway point to spend Thursday night. That city was Moab.
A quick Google search of Moab turns up a cute little town that is right on the edge of adventure! After booking a one night stay at the Expedition Lodge (a delightfully renovated motel), we found ourselves suddenly within striking distance of two more national parks – Arches, and Canyonland – and several state and local parks. We figured we could wake up early on Friday and knock out a hike or two at each park and then finish up the last 5hrs of the drive to Hurricane. As is our tendency when planning a day of hiking, we completely disregarded the physical limitations of time, space, and the human body, so we didn’t accomplish near what we had planned, but you’ll read about that in our next post.
All in all, our stay in Moab was way too short. The town looked like it would have been super fun to bum around in for an afternoon and there were so many options for outdoor adventures in Utah’s signature red rock landscape. When we were checking in at the motel, the receptionist asked if we had ever been to Moab before, and when I said it was our first visit, she responded matter of factly, “Oh, you’ll be back,” and handed me my keys. Originally we thought that that was a pretty cocky response from the front desk worker of a roadside motel in a town we had only just learned existed two days prior, but it turns out she was totally right. Before we had even finished breakfast on Friday, M was trying to plan a return trip.
Studs
- Seeing friends that we hadn’t seen in years. A lot of the people that we were able to see in Denver were friends that we hadn’t seen in FOREVER. Pandemic or no pandemic, we simply hadn’t made it out to that part of the country as a couple yet, so it was really special to get to share so much of that trip with wonderful friends.
- Great food and great beer. Until we arrived in Arizona, our plan was to mostly order meals from restaurants, and we didn’t have a single disappointing meal for the entire duration of our trip. And I am pretty picky about the beer that I like because, and I stand by this, beer is gross. But we found a few breweries that had genuinely delicious beers – a Colorado beeracle!
- M’s cousin let us use her laundry facilities. This is a small thing, but one that made our travel experience so, so much better. Having reliable access to a washing machine and dryer is second to none in making me feel at home. It could be because I grew up with the laundry in my childhood bedroom (which sounds like a Cinderella thing, but really wasn’t), but I would prioritize these machines over any other appliance in any stay over a week in length.
- We became four boxes of Girl Scout cookies richer (and $17 poorer) while at our favorite new brewery. One enterprising little girl appeared at our table and completely cleaned us out of all of our cash. The bartenders say that she’s there almost every night during cookie season and we could not help but admire her shrewd business acumen. I’m keeping my eye out for a tiny blond entrepreneur coming out of Longmont, CO in about ten years.
- Our motel in Moab had no additional fee for bringing Dog along. That almost never happens! We couldn’t have been more thrilled with the accommodations, the price, and the service at the Expedition Lodge. It was just what we needed and we won’t hesitate to book there again on our return trip.
Duds
- There was a winter storm warning on our way out of town. Our last night in Denver looked a lot like a night back in Wisconsin. There was a cold front moving in that brought with it an entire foot of snow. Except unlike in Wisconsin, the Colorado roads – even highways! – did not get cleared quickly. We saw plenty of digital signs on the roads Wednesday night to go home because the winter storm was on its way, but we had one more visit to make during our trip, so we roundly ignored all the warnings. Big mistake. The drive back to M’s cousin’s place was slow and treacherous, even for someone who is very comfortable driving in the snow. And by the next morning, there was more than a foot of snow on the ground and on our car, which was certainly not ideal for packing and loading the vehicle.
- We were so sleepy. All of our days were jam packed with funtivities, and we definitely didn’t master the art of the earlier bedtime while we were in Denver. This led to several days of having to put naps on the agenda. Personally, I actually love a lunchtime siesta, but it doesn’t always fit neatly into our work schedules to cut out for a quick cat nap.
- Getting out of Colorado was a stressful drive. We were headed west after work, so the sun was setting directly into our faces, and we were trying to navigate mountain roads during rush hour, so we basically white-knuckled it for the first half of our drive. Luckily, most of the snow from the night before had melted during the day, so the roads were mostly dry and clear.
- Driving in the dark ruined what would have otherwise been a very scenic drive. Obviously we don’t want to waste a whole day driving, but we also don’t want to waste a beautiful drive not being able to see anything beyond our headlights. The silver lining was that the moon was super bright in Utah, but certainly not bright enough to color the landscape. When we woke up in Moab, the first thing M did was throw open the curtains, saying “Are the mountains red? I bet the mountains are all red!” And he was right! But we hadn’t known for sure when we pulled in to Moab what any of the surroundings looked like.
Studs & Duds 