Colorado!!

So, we got to our destination, safe and sound. And we proceeded to get busy.

Horses.

10 miles.

Ouch.



We rode up a spectacular valley, stunning vistas... and a few scary inclines...
Though this clearly isn't one...


Nor is this....



Wildlife seen so far...
Chipmunks ... everywhere constantly playing chicken with cars

Hummingbirds ... neighbour has species specific feeder ... cheating?

Deer (3, young, having a party, one was almost sliding down an incline to the road, so clearly the slightly larger of the 3 was the one who bought the booze for the rest.)

Snake ... small, brown, and yes Fran, right outside the bedroom door.

A Rodent ... uh, it was like a prairie dog only bigger, and like a groundhog only smaller ?????

...and a FOX!! ...and right at the patio!!!



Today, Robin and I were thinking of doing a trail hike that we've been meaning to do, but I also was thinking about where to take my dad fishing when my parents visit next week... so instead we decided to drive up Frying Pan Rd from Basalt, following the Frying Pan river upstream to Reudi Reservoir.

So we're driving up...


It's really awesome, river is amazing, lots of fly fishermen... looks like a ton of cool places to fish...


We get to the dam at the bottom of the reservoir...looking cool...


...and then HOLY CRAP! WOW!!


This thing is huge, and gorgeous.
Hmm, no wonder the Aspen Yacht Club is here...


Robin and I mused to ourselves about a certain father/father-in-law who, should he choose to retire up here, might also want to bring along his sailboat...

Steve's Turn

I know I haven't added anything since The Biltmore/Ashville, but I'm going to pick up with Ottawa visiting My bro and his family... but first check this out; this final bit of a very recognizable tune, and keep in mind this is the centre of government of a large country that genenraly is taken quite seriously...


Okay, so Robin and I were having so much fun visiting that we bailed on our schedule and stayed an extra day, this led to deciding that it was time to change from a trip focus of 'the journey' to one of 'the destination'. That destination being Snowmass, Colorado. Pedal to the metal.

Ottawa to Toledo, OH

Ya, we did it in one day. Sorry to all the Canadians we bailed on by taking the route below the Lakes. Next time y'all. Lunch was a Robin request, Quaker Steak and Lube, in the middle of seriously NOWHERE, it was looking like GoogleMaps was doing it's classic misdirection, but we turned a corner and there in an industrial wasteland outside a small town was the shining, glorious QS&L (Robin's perspective). The Crown Plaza in Toledo has a lobby decor that I should have got a pic of, very modern... for 1958-62... cool and creepy at the same time.


Toledo, OH to Omaha, NE

Ya, we did it in one day. Some really nice terrain. Lunch was a little 'drive-in' called The Port. We can't remember what small town this was in though. They make their own root beer, and it's really good, reminded me of A&W in the 70s. Robin had a chili dog she says is the best EVER. Adding, that each ingredient wasn't remarkable but it goes together perfectly. While eating, remembering that we are just barely south of Lake Michigan, a pick up drove by flying a full sized confederate flag... very weird.

Omaha, NE to Snowmass, CO

Ya, we did it in one day. Leaving Omaha, grabbing Starbucks, noticed a large number of homeless waiting for the town library to open, sad. Lunch was in a very Irish town of Kearney, serving a micro brew called Thunderhead. Now I may not be remembering this correctly, but isn't that slang for something toilet related? Anyway, we went there one recommendation from UrbanSpoon.com (we've also been using the RoadFood ipad app). Walking in it smelled like one of the many bars I've been in across Canada, a humid mix of old beer, sweat/puke/urine; lunch was okay, but interestingly, one of the beers was a Ginger Ale, I really wanted to try it, but it would have ruined my endurance to get to Snowmass.

Pretty flat, agriculture. Then just outside Denver, hit some incredible crosswinds. At one point everyone was breaking, turn a curve, and see that the wind had blown over an 18 wheeler, driver looked shaken but was fine. Crazy. Other side of Denver in the more extreme up and down driving in the mountains we ran into rain like I've never seen, temperature down to 41F, so much water on the road that streams were running down the steep grade; the spray off trucks was completely blinding, really bad...

Got though that, then got a call from Robin's mom, there'd been a mud slide between us and Snowmass... wow. By then, Robin and I had decided we NEEDED to get to Woody Creek Tavern for dinner. For those who haven't heard me go on and on and on about this place, here goes and see the pic below of the inside... Oh, wait, ya, mudslide was cleaned up, and we made it to the Tavern. Though the door was sticky and Robin for a brief second thought they had closed early, that would have been a bad scene. Okay, so this place has amazing food, veggie chorizo, fish tacos, hangout of eccentric locals including Hunter S. Thompson, great margaritas, mountainous nachos... It made the whole 3 days of driving completely worth it.

Omaha

We ended up sleeping last night at the styling Crowne Plaza in (HOly) Toledo. All we've done today is drive and listen to the Empire Strikes Back radio drama. In case anyone is wondering, we're not continuing on to Return of the Jedi. Mark Hamill wasn't available for it, so they got Jesse Bradford to voice Luke, and Jesse Bradford is my second least favorite part of the West Wing. Fun fact: the voice of Jabba the Hutt in the Jedi radio drama was Ed Asner. Now you know.

We stopped for lunch at a place called Port Drive In somewhere just east of Chicago. Well, southeast. East would have been in Lake Michigan. Anyway, they make their own root beer, they had phosphates on the drink menu, and the best chili dog I've ever had. It surprised me. It tasted fine while I was eating it, but then as soon as I was finished I became incredibly sad that there was no more. Poor Steve had a veggie burger.

While on the drive we wanted to see a nine foot tall guitar playing Elvis, and the future birthplace of Captain James T. Kirk, but we missed the exits for both of them. We also had a bit of a scare during the afternoon. I was driving in the middle of nowhere, when we heard the cheerful ding ding ding of the fuel light. We found a gas station in the middle of a corn field about ten miles from Reagan's birthplace. Thanks, Gipper.

For dinner, we sampled some of Des Moines' famous Indian food. You know how proud those Iowans are of their Indian food. Actually, it was very good, and we both enjoyed having some vegetables and nice spices. Turns out Iowa is really into pork, so Indian was basically the only place with any vegetables on the menu at all. I think Steve was the only vegetarian in the entire state. This one restaurant we looked into had four kinds of fish, and they were all fried.

We were surprised by how hilly Iowa is, and how pretty the hills are. I expected it to be flatter and more corn-filled, like Illinois or Indiana. Speaking of three of the four I states, the speed limit in Iowa and Indiana is 70, which is great. The speed limit in Illinois was 55, which wa really not so great.

Now we're at the stylish Omaha Hilton. Our room has two double beds. They look comically small.

On the Road Again

We're back on the road after quite a few stationary days. After leaving New York we drove up to Ottawa to spend time with Stuart and Kate. After skirting the edge of the Catskills (which are beautiful, I totally get why people leave Pennsylvania to see them), we had lunch in the town of Roscoe. Roscoe has a diner in it, Roscoe's Diner, which the town is quite proud of. The entrance to the town had a big sign put-up by the Chamber of Commerce that said, "Welcome to Roscoe. ROSCOE'S DINER." I had a BLT that had three huge tomato slices, three slices of cheese, about an inch ofmlettuce, and a single layer of bacon. I guess I can't really fault them for trying to maximize profit.

Hotwire got us a room at the Ottawa Marriott. When we got to our room, we found they'd given us a corner room with a sort of Parliament view. So, that was awesome. We spent two great days hanging out with Stuart and Kate and the kids. Highlights include Kate and I convincing Steve and Stuart to go out around 9 PM to pick us up Tim Horton's and Dairy Queen when they didn't even want anything, reading a book to Lewis until he fell asleep, and last night's delicious Thai food.

Today I had a CMU-themed food day. We stopped at Quaker Steak for lunch, especially great because Tuesdays are all-you-can-eat wing days. I only had 13, which isn't my personal best. Golden garlic, medium, Louisiana lickers, and another batch of golden garlic. We stopped at Max and Erma's for dinner. There's a box of cookies nestled safely in the back seat. I also drove across four lanes of traffic when I saw a White Castle. It was delicious. It's like a drug. Speaking of drugs, when the border guard found out we were driving around for a month, I'm pretty sure he thought we were running drugs. Now we're trying to get to the Chicago area, even though it might mean a late night. We're listening to the NPR Star Wars radio drama, which is keeping us pretty entertained.

Day Whatever: Wherever

We're in New York now, after spending about five days in western Massachusetts. Tomorrow we head for Ottawa.

A few days ago we went to the Eric Carle Museum of picture book illustrations, which I really enjoyed. They had an original Very Hungry Caterpillar and an original Brown Bear (of "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See" fame). They also had storyboards for the original version of "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" called Willy the Worm. You may remember that the caterpillar forged himself and then turned into a butterfly. Willy the Worm just got fat. The museum also had an exhibit by some woman whose name I can't remember, whose illustrations were all pencil and watercolor. They were very intricate and really beautiful. The best part about the place was actually the gift shop, which was the largest collection of children's books I've ever seen. Tons of classics, all beautifully illustrated. They also had things that aren't exactly for children, like a whole table of Edward Gorey.

Two days ago we saw Betty Buckley accompanied by Seth Rudetsky. Her voice has obviously aged, but it's still really powerful. She sang Meadowlark and I really didn't like it, but she nailed Memory. William Finn was in the audience, which I was really excited about. I also met Seth Rudetsky after the show. He doesn't look quite what I imagined he would, having spent so much time listening to him on the broadway channel on the XM.

We got back to New York yesterday and haven't really done much since we got here. We had dinner last night with my family at Peter Luger's, and today we had lunch at the Shake Shack. We had a scare this morning where we thought Steve's wallet had been stolen, which would have ended our trip real quick. I had a headache after lunch, so I lay down in the hotel room until dinner.

We had dinner at Hill Country BBQ, which is owned by my mom's cousin. Either his dad is my grandmother's brother, or his grandfather is one of my great-grandfather's brothers. It's a really neat restaurant. They actually have Blue Bell shipped up for the dessert menu. After dinner we went to the top of Rockefeller Center, so I was actually right across the street from the BNL concert I was skipping. I'm afraid of heights and got a little dizzy, but the views were pretty spectacular as long as I stayed away from the edge.

Day Seven: Lenox

We've been at my grandparents' place in western Massachusetts since Saturday. The cell service isn't great here, so I've been having trouble posting. We're here until Thursday.

On our drive up from New York, we stopped at this place called Shady Glen in Manchester, MA. It has an inexplicably delicious cheeseburger with these crazy petals of grilled cheese on top. Poor Steve had a prefab slab of fried cod.

Sunday morning my grandmother (who is an amazing cook) made us all French toast stuffed with fresh fruit, and then we basically spent the day sitting on the porch reading. I read half of Little Women and then switched over to Catch-22. Sunday evening, we went to Tanglewood and saw the Silk Road ensemble, including Yo-Yo Ma. The ensemble was amazing and played some really interesting and exciting music, and of course it was unbelievable to see Yo-Yo Ma. He was fantastic.

Today we went out kayaking on the lake down the street. Kayaks > canoes. Later we drove out to a contemporary art museum called Mass MOCA. I wanted to go see the Degas exhibit at a museum nearby, but we ran out of time. I did buy an indie rock coloring book at the museum gift shop, including a maze to get Kevin Drew and Feist to the center so they can make a new Broken Social Scene record. So, uh, that's cool. My grandparents cooked for dinner (grilled salmon cooked by a committee consisting of my grandfather, Steve, and my dad, squash casserole, fresh corn, and salad) and then we went to see this political humor group called Capitol Steps. It was cute.

Also on the schedule for this week is a trip to the discount mall, the wholesale CD store, the Eric Carle museum (I'm really excited about this), and Wednesday night we're going to see Seth Rudetsky and Betty Buckley!

Day Six: New York

We completed our whirlwind tour of DC by getting up early and walking the entire National Mall, from the Lincoln Memorial all the way to the Capital. The Boy Scout Jamboree is going on, so we shared the Mall with about a thousand Boy Scouts and a few of their sisters. The part of the Capital facing the Mall is actually the back (which has a more 20s feel than I expected), so we continued around to the front, and then across another small park to the Supreme Court building. That one is open to the public, so we went inside and walked around. You couldn't go into the courtroom, but the door was open so that you could stick your head in and look around. It has windows. I've never seen a courtroom with windows before. There's also a Supreme Court gift shop selling such choice gifts as a Supreme Court coloring and activity book (now with Justice Sotomayor!) and "Litigation! The Board Game." Yes, we bought Supreme Court souvenirs.

I wanted to go to the National Archives next to see the Constitution, but we were already an hour behind schedule (the Mall is a lot bigger than we thought it was). We spent about six hours on the 230 mile drive to New York. We had a quick lunch at a fast food noodle place. My Mac and cheese was literally a bowl of elbow Mac with a white sauce poured on top and shredded cheese sprinkled on top of the sauce. Gross. In New York we caught the last half of a final screening of one of Alan's movies, which was very cool. One of Alan's friends is in town visiting, so we went out with them last night. Steve and I slept on a twin air mattress on Alan's floor and now we're waiting for the day to start.