Carbon Footprint Day

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Today was a rather mundane day and I had to remind myself several times why I had to leave the park to go back to Denver to pick up my roommates. I spent the morning at the campsite trying to dry out my rain fly and ground tarp as best I could.

In Estes Park I found a laundromat/shower that served my purposes perfectly and was next to the Safeway so I could run my errands while the laundry was going. I also found a place that made the best raspberry smoothie I’ve ever had.

After all my personal errands, I shopped at the Estes Park downtown shops and then drove to Denver. Hotel Monaco in Denver is extremely welcoming and the staff is all jumping to serve the customers. I was able to get our reservation upgraded to a two-bed room with no problem. The hotel is pet friendly with a dog food bowl and water in the lobby. The room is very large, too. Soon after checking in, I left to go pick up Christy and Andie at the airport. We had quite an experience getting both of them in my car, but after a little bit we were off to go find dinner.

The Denver airport claims to be the largest in the US at 53 square miles. Most of that is open space though. The road to the airport was about 10 miles long and when I started seeing signs for the terminal, my car told me I was still 8 miles away. The airport also has some interesting works of art out front. First I saw what might have been 3 sculptures of white clouds. Then I saw the blue bronco with the demonic red-lit eyes.

We had dinner at Tita’s Restaurant which was a little hole in the wall Caribbean joint. They had a DJ and by the end of the night everyone was up and salsa dancing. The food was very good and the atmosphere was definitely entertaining.
Back at the hotel we tried to stay awake until Maryann’s delayed flight got in around one in the morning. It was a travel day for us all, but it was good to finally be together again for our annual roommate reunion. This is our 7th year of continuing our annual tradition and our 10th/11th year anniversary of knowing each other.