Vacation Monday - Badlands and one more long drive

Monday morning we woke up in lovely Wall South Dakota, exhausted from our day of hiking and driving the day before.  Food was our top priority so we headed over to Wall Drug to meet our food and tourist entertainment needs.

Then we headed into the Badlands, which really defy words.  We saw jackelope Big Horn Sheep, Buffalo, Prairie dogs and probably some other stuff.  We did not see Rattlesnakes.  Thank god.  We also saw an inordinate number of motorcycles, coming a week early to the Sturgis rally.  They were fine but I'm so glad we were heading the other way.

I wasn't exaggerating when I said every exit in South Dakota promised dinosaurs or free ice water or some other kind of tourist hilarity.  They're all trying to compete with Wall Drug.  We stopped at Big Al's Oasis for lunch and Qat Lady finally got her buffalo burger.  She was also finally done driving and handed over they keys.  We put on Harry Potter (excellent for mindless entertainment) and I drove and drove and drove.  It was around 7pm when I was finally like "I've been driving for the past 5 hours".  We were pretty close to Qat Lady's mom's house (where we would take on the actual cat) at that point.  We stopped for dinner with Qat Lady's mom and stuffed a crying cat into the backseat for the last two hours of the drive.

When we got home, I immediately took all my bags into the laundry room (seriously, there's another person doing laundry at 11pm on Monday?), unloaded them into the machines and got that taken care of straight away.  Good thing I didn't have to work on Tuesday and didn't care how late I stayed up!

All in all, the trip was a blast and I can also report the Qat Lady and I are still speaking, although we may need a break before we really want to hang out with each other again.       

Vacation Sunday - Cub Lake and driving, driving, driving

Because I have special powers, I convinced Qat Lady that it'd be a great idea to be up and out of our rooms in time to catch the 6:30am hikers shuttle into the park.  That way we could squeeze in one more hike before we left town.

We caught our shuttles and headed out on the Cub Lake Trail, the one I didn't get to complete the day before.  Turns out, I'd only seen the flat part and the trail map reporting a 500ft elevation gain wasn't joking.  The hardest part of the hike was up that 500ft over the last 3/4 mile or so.  The up wasn't as bad as being in a dry creek bed scrambling over all the rocks.  The sight at the top was great though; the only lake in the park with lily pads.  Animals seen on this trip include chipmunks, marmots, a gang of elk, and a snake.  Bonus points for me being calm when I saw the snake and taking a picture instead of jumping out of my skin.

We took one last trip to the Gift shop and got some parting souvenieres. Then we headed out of town to our next stop: Wall South Dakota.  Wyoming gets the surprise distinction of "most boring place to drive on the planet" handily beating out both Nebraska and South Dakota for the title.  Nebraska kept me awake because the whole state was under construction and when your state is 400 miles long, that shit's impressive.  South Dakota at least promised me Jackalope or dinosaurs and free ice water at every exit.  We got into South Dakota in time for dinner at the only sports bar in the state that doesn't have buffalo burgers and we got to our hotel just before 10pm. 

Road kill!

Wyoming

Sunset in South Dakota

  




      

Vacation Saturday - One more day of trails

Saturday was our last full day in Rocky Mountain National Park and it went like this:

Dad - so over the mountains and anything involving heights it's not even funny.  I don't know what I'm doing but it doesn't involve going into the park.

Qat Lady - I'm taking the day for myself.  I'll see you at dinner.

Mom, Marge and I - how can we see more of the park? 
Answer: The park runs shuttles within the park (nice) because after yesterday, I was pretty much done driving.  We headed out for an early shuttle and then for an early walk around Bear Lake (we see no bears) and up to Alberta Falls for some pictures.

After those two trails, we headed to the visitors center to pick up the other shuttle and look at the Cub Lake trail, although we didn't have time to walk the whole thing.  Marge also picked up a shiny new water bottle which later survived a swim in the creek.

It was a good thing I threw in one pair of grown up clothes at the last minute because dinner was at a fancy shmancy restaurant in Estes Park.  Dinner was lovely. I had gnocchi which is not commonly seen on menus.  After dinner, we headed back to the hotel and said our goodbyes because we wouldn't see each other the next morning.

      

Vacation Friday - The Drive to hell the Sky

My fear of heights has never been kept a secret.  So, driving the highest paved road in North America should be no problem right?

It was an odd set of circumstances that lead to me being the only person willing to drive either vehicle over the Trail Ridge Road in Rocky Mountain National Park, and only with the agreement of "I can be done and turn around whenever I want".  I also insisted on a 6:30am departure time which nearly set my mom over the edge but she ultimately relented.

We set out and everything below the tree line was fine.  Spending so much time driving on the back roads of Kentucky as a caver really helped me feel comfortable on hills and turns.  Then we got above the tree line.  And the mountain fell away.  So there was the road, the white stripe at the edge of the road and then nothing.  I was near tears.  I kept telling myself at least on the way down I'd be tucked in along the mountain.  Once I got past that, it really looked like I was going to have some bad spots coming down too.  We stopped at a pull out, looked at Marmots and I had some breakfast.  Ultimately I did declare myself to be done at that point, little did I know that we'd actually reached the highest elevation on the trip. 

 We turned the car around and headed back down.  And the parts I thought were going to be bad were fine.  There was ground along side of me (although I couldn't have seen that from the trip up) so I declared the drive back on, found another pull out, turned the car around and headed to the Visitors Center in the Sky, which was where we really planned to turn around.

At the Visitors Center we met Ranger Robert who was all "oh no, go down the other side, it's nothing like what you came up" and then "there's a lodge by this lake and you can have lunch..." The rest of my passengers were sold and the drive down did look different.  I knew I'd just driven by some things that would be hard on the way back (the edge would be on my side of the road that way) but I had some confidence in me from surviving the trip up to that point.

Ranger Robert was correct, the other side of the mountain had apparently never been attacked by a glacier and looked a lot different.  We saw multiple Moose, which was cool as hell, and some other great sights.

The way back home into Estes Park was challenging.  Passenger Marge figured out the right combination to help me.  Whenever we got to a part I didn't like (where it felt like I was driving on the edge of a mountain and about to fall off) I'd say "Talk!" in hopes of everyone distracting me.  Ultimately Marge started asking me questions and making me talk which was the perfect ingredient.  It was like I could feel my brain splitting in two, the part with the fear got sort of pushed aside by the part that was having to formulate answers to her questions about my condo and neighbors and my job.

The rest of the day was pretty low key.  We got off the mountain before a terrific rain storm.  We headed into town and had burgers at a rooftop cafe.  We were ultimately pushed to a new table because of the rain.  And we really enjoyed watching the opening ceremonies for the Olympics.

I'm still not quite over my fear of heights though.

      

Customer Service - Comcast vs. Verizon

A brief interlude before I finish telling you all about my vacation.  I got home last night and my cable and internet were out.  WTF?  I want to watch olympics.  And so the drama unfolds.

Call 1 to Comcast - they couldn't figure out why the cable and internet were out, but asked me to wait an hour.
Call 2 to Comcast - An hour later, no love.  "We'll send a tech out on Sunday".  At least the rep was nice.
We had landscapers at the condo so I shot off an email to the board president and the management company too to ask if that was tied to my cable not working.

This morning
Go to work to pick out the work wireless card, becuase I had actual work to do and required internet access. 
See an email on my phone from the board president - the landscapers did indeed shred the cable lines.  Comcast came out yesterday as the lines were shredded and fixed them, except my line.  They thought they missed one but couldn't find it.  Thanks for really leaving no stone unturned there.
Call back to Comcast and ask the service appointment be moved up since they already knew about the problem and failed to fix it properly yesterday.  They offered me 4-6pm today.
Check my wireless card - Verizon, the nations largest 4G network apparently doesn't offer coverage in South Minneapolis becuase I get no signal on its 4G, 3G or 2G networks.  I still have no internet.
Around 4:45pm the Comcast tech came, was super nice and helpful, and climbed on the roof of the building (which he apparently prefers to digging) to re-wire everything for me.

Winners in this situation:
The board president for helping me and talking to the Comcast tech about what happened yesterday since he saw that first hand too.
Comcast, even though they initially failed to recognize I was part of an earlier outage when I first called (you need a better way to track outages in multi-unit dwellings) they did ultimately send a tech out the same day when I asked, and the tech was on time and fixed everything for me.

Losers in this situation:
Verizon - Nations largest 4G network my foot.  It's Minneapolis, not the desert.
The landscapers - Surprise!  There's cables and pipes and shit underground. 

Vacation Thursday - Drive from Cortez to Estes Park

I woke up Thursday morning and went for a run since I was convinced I'd be sitting still the rest of the day.  I'd planned a 3.1 miler but at the turn around point, I found a path along the river so I extended the run to about 5 miles.  Nice. 

The rest of the day was driving for Qat Lady who felt better about the mountains in some places and worse about them in others.  I highly recommend the Peak to Peak Scenic Byway and would've done much better driving on it than the scenic drive I wound up with the next day.  The hairpin turns nearly did Qat Lady in (I don't understand because I drive a stick shift so I was completely unhelpful) but we made it to Rocky Mountains in one piece and ended the day with our feet up enjoying the view.

   

Vacation Wednesday - Black Canyon and a fear of heights

Fear of heights seems to be a hereditary thing in my family, much like the distaste of tomatoes.  I don't have it quite as bad as my dad or some of my aunties.  At least it's fair to say I don't have it that bad yet.  I think Dad was still pretty traumatized by the drive out of Mesa Verde and was just done driving so when we got to the canyon, I took over.  I'm still not clear on why someone with a fear of heights wanted to visit cliff dwellings or a canyon but I'm sure there were reasons.  My mother on the other hand, is completely fearless at all heights and altitudes.  It's pretty special.

 
We took the "rim drive" which is really not too close to the rim.  At the top we had lunch.  Then we found a nature trail, also not too entirely close to the rim but with some astounding views.  Dad didn't want to come along so he sat and worked on a painting while Mom, Marge, the Qat Lady and I took our hike.

Mom and I also spent some time looking at the Scenic Lookouts.  Dad stayed in the car.  Black Canyon was ultimately a pretty cool trip and I really liked it.  It was nice to spend some time with Mom.  Another nice moment was with Dad and went like this:

Me: Do you want me to drive your car?
Him: Yes.
Me: You can ride in my car or with Qat Lady and Marge.
Him: I want to ride with you.

Super nice because Dad is a fairly fussy passenger, although much less kinetic than Qat Lady.

 

We went to a place called the Camp Robber for dinner. After which, we stopped at Target and then a liquor store so we could finally enjoy the local brews in Colorado.  Win for us.

 
 

Vacation Tuesday - Cortez and Four Corners

This turned out to be the biggest surprise of the trip.  This day was really shaping up to be not so nice but had surprise after surprise.  The night before it was determined that no one would be returning to Mesa Verde.  The 16 mile road with hair pin turns, steep drop offs and no guard rail were appealing to exactly no one.  The night before Mom and I cobbled together a few plans for some more local walks around Cortez and Marge wanted a trip to four corners.  It wasn't looking promising, more like just a day to kill.

I woke up and headed out for my first true run at altitude.  I had a plan to run around a lake but when  got there the road was closed.  Instead I used it as a scouting trip to find the city trail we were meant to walk later on.  It's a good thing I looked for that stupid trail head becuase it took me more than one try to find it.  It turned out to be a good run.  I threw in a few walk breaks, just because I am opposed to having a heart attack but it gave me some confidence and burned off a lot of energy.

This rout and profile aren't that impressive.  I just think it's cool to have an elevation profile that says 6200 feet. 

This is the more impressive photo from the run.  The views were gorgeous.

After breakfast we headed out to a paved walking path maintained by the City of Cortez.  (Thank goodness I'd found it.)  At first, Qat Lady was saying she wouldn't explore in case she was tired from yesterday but eventually we explored the dirt paths and the side trails and had a really nice morning.

The second path we planned to walk was also under construction (like the lake I tried) so we headed over to the Anasazi Cultural Heritage Center.  AAA does not have this place rated as a gem but they totally should.  Just saying.  I basically can never enjoy any museums since spending countless years working in them so Mom and I took the 'half mile' walk up to the summit to look at the ruins and the scenery.

We also had a request to visit Four Corners which I described as "a cross on the ground in the middle of a desert".  That's really all it is but the drive out is pretty fantastic.  Turns out, true deserts are alive and scenic.  Four Corners is a totally cheesy place, but worth visiting if you're only 30 miles away.  It's great for a photo op and added several states to my "been there" tally.

 Marge didn't want to touch the ground so she hovered.  In her defense, the ground was really hot. 

The flags are of the US, the four states and also more than one tribe from the area.  I'm not clear but it sounded like four corners is at least partially on Navajo and Ute tribal land.

This is the only family photo from the entire trip.  After Mesa Verde, Dad was just totally over heights so he didn't do too much else with the rest of us.

 Taking a picture in the desert.  It's so big. 

We had Italian for dinner at a fantastic restaurant and another gem of Cortez. Then we made our plans for the next day.