My wife and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary earlier this year. We had hoped to go to California, but with the COVID-19 pandemic, those plans sort of went by the wayside. We had moved our May vacation dates to early September and we were trying to figure out what to do. When we were out in Colorado a couple years ago, we had a spur-of-the-moment visit to Steamboat Springs that turned out to be surprisingly excellent. From that point on, Steamboat Springs was my favorite place in all of Colorado. Of course, I haven't visited all of Colorado, so Steamboat Springs is my favorite place in Colorado - up to now! So, it was always a goal of mine to get back out to Steamboat Springs, hopefully sooner than later. (Logo courtesy Redbubble)
We were hanging out at a local Quad Cities brewpub one evening in late August and we had pretty much made up our mind up to that point that we were going to use the open invitation my sister's fiancé has given us for staying for a week at his lake home along Lake Panorama in west central Iowa. But my wife had other ideas. "What about Colorado," she asked. "Wouldn't it be nice to get back out to Steamboat?"
I said, "Well, we could drive out the first day to North Platte, spend the night, then get into Steamboat the next afternoon." Then she said, "Why don't we fly?"
I checked prices on my United Airlines application on my phone for the dates we wanted to fly to and from Denver out of Moline. Yikes! Tickets would be $478 per person round trip. My wife then suggested that I look up flights out of Des Moines. "Maybe we could come back from Colorado and go to the lake for a couple days," she reckoned.
I looked up flights out of Des Moines. It was somewhat better - $177 per person round trip. And then I thought, "Wait a minute. We're halfway between Des Moines and Chicago. Wonder what fares are at O'Hare?" I did a quick check and couldn't believe my eyes - $84 per person round-trip. I about fell off my seat. It was so unbelievably cheap that I knew it couldn't be right.
When we got back home, I got on my computer to make sure that the price I had seen on my phone for our flights was correct. It was - $168 round trip for two people. Then the wheels started to turn. We could drive to Chicago, spend the night at the Hilton Garden Inn O'Hare - my home away from home when I'm in Chicago - leave my car there, then fly out of O'Hare the next morning. We could spend a week in Colorado, fly back to O'Hare. Spend a night back at the Hilton Garden Inn, then drive back home the next day.
And, being a Lifetime Diamond member of the Hilton Honors program, I still had a bunch of points left over from our trip to northern Minnesota just a couple weeks before. I started to look up room points for Chicago, Denver (one night) and then Steamboat Springs. Turned out that I could get rooms with relatively little use of the points.
I turned to my wife and said, "This is stupid! I'm booking all of this right now!" She was giddy finding out that we were going to Colorado for a week and we didn't have to drive.
But, yes, we'd need a car once we got to Colorado. Well, I still had a bunch of points through Hertz that I've been wanting to use for awhile. But, when I went to the Hertz website to see if I could rent a car through them on points, it wouldn't allow me to. I tried a couple three times to rent something through Hertz using points, but it wasn't going to work.
So, I ended up checking to see how much a mid-sized car would cost for a week at Hertz. It would be $475 a week, but adding on taxes and fees would boost to about $600 bucks. Then I remembered that my company had worked out a deal on rental cars through National. I went to the National site, put in my Emerald Club number and up popped a Volkswagen Passat (or similar) for $375 a week. With taxes and fees, it was going to be about $470 for the week. (Taxes and fees on rental cars at the Denver International Airport kills you.) I didn't hesitate - I booked it. I figured that we would probably be saving $400 bucks by being able to park our car at the Hilton Garden Inn instead of at O'Hare, so to me that was a push. Everything was booked, and a week later away we went.
Flying during a pandemic is rather interesting. Everyone masks up in the airport and on the plane. But the TSA doesn't seem to care about social distancing. They were very adamant about keeping the line moving - even though there weren't many people in line for screening. One lady was impatient with me as I was removing things from my carry-on bag imploring me to hurry up. Even when the pandemic wasn't happening, I don't think I have ever been hustled along that brusquely by a TSA agent.
The flight was a little longer than usual - we were forced to fly up north over Central Wisconsin and then down in a southwesterly direction to get to Denver due to severe thunderstorms that were coming in from Iowa. (The whole time we were gone, it rained nearly every day in the Quad Cities and in Chicago. My neighbor monitored our rain gauge while we were gone and we ended up with just over 9 inches of much needed rain that fell the week we were gone. It had been weeks since we had seen any appreciable precipitation fall and we were definitely in a drought. But the other plus was that if we had decided to hang out at Lake Panorama that week, we wouldn't have been able to do anything as it rained there, too.)
It was already in the upper 80's in Denver when we landed around 10:15 a.m. High temperatures had been in the upper 90's and into the low 100's over the previous couple of days and it was supposed to continue like that for at least another couple of days before a massive cold front was predicted to come down on Colorado dropping high temperatures by at least 50 degrees and promising the first significant snow of the season. We knew that the weather could change before we left and we were somewhat prepared for it.
We got our bags at Denver International Airport and took the shuttle bus out to National. On the way out to the National terminal, I checked the National application on my phone to see where I could pick up the car. It informed me that there was a problem with processing my reservation and that I had to see an agent at the desk. Well, when we got off the shuttle, there were three long lines to get into National and Alamo, which shares a building with National. I was pissed because I figured that we'd be standing in line for over an hour to get a car - not a great way to start our vacation.
As we were standing there for about five minutes, a young lady who was an agent for National was coming down the line to make sure people were in the right line. She came up to me and asked if we were with National and I said, yes, we were. But I indicated that I was an Emerald member and there seemed to be some confusion about my reservation and I needed to see a desk agent. She asked if she could see my Emerald number and I pulled up the app on my phone and showed her. She studied it for a moment and she said, "Oh, we can take care of that at the gate. It's probably a credit card number or something that we didn't have. Go pick out a car and get on your way."
I was somewhat astonished - and very thankful - that we were on our way to get a car so quickly. Emerald members can pick out whatever kind of car they want in a special lot. My wife and I wheeled our bags over to the lot and we saw a number of mini-vans and a handful of cars. "Not a lot to choose from," my wife said.
However, we did see two cars that were side-by-side - a Nissan Maxima and an Infinity Q50. Wait a minute - I can take a Q50 for a week? For $375 bucks plus taxes and fees? Well, that was a no-brainer! We started packing up the Q50, got all settled in, got in line, got to the gate, the gate agent sorted everything out, the gate lifted and we were on our way!
Our first stop had to be for lunch and, of course, if I'm in Denver we have to go to the Cherry Cricket. We got there just before noon, got in right away and I immediately ordered a cold IPA while my wife got a vodka/cranberry. Of course, I had to get a cup of their great pork green chili. And that was followed by one of their great burgers with pepper jack cheese, sautéed mushrooms and green chiles.
My wife got just a regular burger for her lunch, but I was also astonished that she remembered and asked for Cherry Cricket's green chili cheese fries. This cholesterol-laden, artery-clogging plate of supreme flavor and goodness is always a treat. Of course, there was no way that we could come close to finishing the plate of unhealthy decadence, but we did make a significant dent in it.
Not much had changed inside the Cherry Cricket from the last time I had been in a year ago - save for the social distancing directives. But outside, I was sort of surprised to see that they had taken the back parking lot out and put in a sun-drenched back patio with artificial turf and colorful rubber tiling. The back wall was covered with vines and a number of metal tables with umbrellas were spaced out in the patio. Actually, as it was warm and sunny that day, if I would have known that they had the patio in the back, we probably would have sat out there.
We took off after lunch for a nearly 3 hour journey up to Steamboat Springs. It's straight shot out of Denver on I-70 up into the mountains, through the Eisenhower Tunnel at the Continental Divide, then down the other side to Silverthorne, CO.
From there, we took Colorado Highway 9 up to Kremmeling where it met up with US Highway 40 that took us all the way into Steamboat. The scenery along Highway 9 is breathtaking at points along the way. It's not quite as magnificent as Highway 9's route south of Breckenridge that we took a couple years ago, but there's still some noteworthy places to turnout and enjoy the scenery. This is picture from a turnout near Rabbit Ears Pass just south of Steamboat.
Getting into Steamboat Springs, we checked into our hotel, the Homewood Suites on the far south side of the town. This hotel is new from our previous visit to Steamboat - we stayed closer to the downtown at the Hampton Inn our last trip - and it offered small kitchenettes and a living room area giving the room some space to stretch out a bit.
After getting settled into our hotel, my wife and I decided to go get reacquainted with Steamboat Springs. Some things had changed, but much was the same from our visit two years ago. There was some construction work going on in the downtown area, but we were able to travel pretty easily around the area, even with the heavy traffic from people enjoying their weekend in the town.
Since we knew a precipitous drop in temperatures would be coming in less than 24 hours and temperatures were to remain cool the rest of our stay, our second day in Steamboat was packed with various outdoor adventures we wanted to experience. It was a gorgeous day, to say the least. Southwesterly winds brought in warm air - the temperature got up into the upper 80's that day - and pushed much of the smoke from the wildfires north of Denver away from the area.
As it is in the mountains with low humidity, mornings start off cool and crisp and with little to no wind. We went out for coffee and espresso, and as we were driving toward the downtown area, we saw a hot air balloon that was just getting ready to lift off from a parking lot off the main drag heading into Steamboat. We took the backstreets and got to the parking lot just moments after the multi-colored balloon took off with six or seven passengers.
After coffee for my wife and espresso for me, we parked our car in the parking lot of the Howelson Ice Complex near downtown Steamboat Springs for a walk on the beautiful paved path along the Yampa River. We walked the trail everyday we were in Steamboat on our previous trip and it was absolutely beautiful. The combination of the babbling stream, the tree-lined bike path and the mountain vistas made for a pleasant walk. We walked a mile up river along the path before we turned around and made our way back down to where our car was parked.
One of the big things that I had on my list of things to do was to run up to Pearl Lake State Park and hang out there. I was completely enamored with Pearl Lake on our previous visit. The lake is pristine and quiet, lined with trees and with stunning mountain views sitting at 8100 feet above sea level in the mountains about 25 miles north of Steamboat Springs. We went out there a couple times during our last visit to the area and I figured that we'd probably go out there at least two more times during this visit.
My wife, being the smart one in the family, suggested we get a couple sandwiches to take out with us to have a picnic at Pearl Lake. We stopped off at the Yampa Sandwich Company in downtown Steamboat to pick up a couple sandwiches before heading up to the state park.
Pearl Lake is about a 40 minute drive from Steamboat Springs via County Highway 129. It features a number of curves and rises, so 45 miles per hour is usually all the faster you can go on the road.
The road out to Pearl Lake winds through valleys with farms and ranches situated along and near the Elk River. The broad fields of green and gold are nestled in between mountain ranges as far as the eye can see. There are a few places where you could turn out and take in some of the sights along the roadway.
One of the more impressive sights on the way up to Pearl Lake is the stately mountain known as Hahns Peak. The nearly 11,000 foot high mountain is one of the highest in the Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest that stretches from north central Colorado through northeast Wyoming. The distinctive peak is visible for miles before the turn-off to Pearl Lake.
It's a $9 a day user fee for Colorado state parks, something that I had no problem paying given how nice the parks are. Unfortunately, that particular day a lot of other people had the same idea that we did and we found the parking lot at Pearl Lake to be nearly full when we pulled in.
But even with all the people in the area that day, it was still great to just be able to hang out and relax on a beautiful day in the mountains. There was a light wind and wisps of clouds showed up on the horizon, but there was still sort of a haze in some areas from the forest fires off in the distance. We did notice after a bit that there was cloud that was billowing up behind one of the mountains to the south. I figured that it was one of those mountain monsoons that bubble up from time to time on warm days in Colorado.
Since it's one of my "happy places" on earth, we hung out at Pearl Lake for about an hour having our picnic lunch and walking around part of the waterfront. We decided to head up the road to another place that we had visited in the past - Steamboat Lake State Park, about 3 miles up the road from Pearl Lake. Steamboat Lake, to us, isn't quite as nice as Pearl Lake. It's bigger and has more camping and boating options, but it doesn't have that cozy feeling Pearl Lake has.
Further up north a few miles is another lake - Hahns Peak Lake - that is about 8600 feet above sea level. We drove back to the campground on a winding road that went up to about 9500 feet before dropping down to the lake nestled in a narrow canyon. It was pretty primitive back in there, but there were still a number of campers in the small campground. We were sort of amazed that some of the larger campers were able to get towed up and down into the campground. It was a pretty significant rise and drop to get there.
As we were making our way back up the road to get out of the campground at Hahns Peak Lake, we realized that the billowing cloud was not the genesis of an afternoon mountain thunderstorm, but a forest fire that had flared up that started from a lightning strike just a day before. The Middle Fork fire was about 10 miles north of Steamboat Springs and had grown to 3300 acres within 24 hours. (It eventually grew to about 6000 acres consumed by mid-September.) It had been extremely dry in Colorado through the latter part of the summer and that was helping compound the forest fire problems in the state. A huge fire north and west of Fort Collins - the Cameron Peak fire - had consumed over 100,000 acres and was responsible for some of the milky skies that we had during our trip to Colorado.
(Update - as of today the Middle Fork fire has now grown to over 16,000 acres consumed.)
We made our way back into Steamboat Springs and a quick visit to the Yampa River Botanic Gardens. We had been there on our previous visit and I wanted to go back to check the place out. Quite actually, we seemed to be somewhat underwhelmed with the floral and plant displays they had on hand. We figured that it probably had to do with the on-going drought. Nonetheless, we did get some ideas on some plants that we want to plant next year to help attract butterflies and hummingbirds.
One place just outside of Steamboat Springs that we neglected to visit the last time around was Fish Creek Falls. Located about five miles east of downtown Steamboat, we had driven up there the day before to check the place out. (see map) However, the two parking lots were full and we decided to come back this day when we figured not as many people were in town.
It turned out that we were pretty smart as there were about a 1/3 the number of people at the falls parking lot from the day before. It was $5 bucks to park in the lot that takes you the trail to get to the falls - all on the honor system - and, once again, I had no problem dropping a finsky into the box.
It's about a quarter mile walk down to the 280-foot falls that was nothing more than a trickle of water compared to other times of the year. A number of rock climbers were scaling the sides of the canyon when we were there. There's a 2.5 mile trail that was described as "advanced" for people who wanted to go up to the top of the falls. Getting back up to the parking lot was sort of a chore for us. The altitude was over 7000 feet in the parking lot at Fish Creek Falls and getting back up the hill to the lot took some effort. We aren't in the best shape, but we certainly aren't sedentary in our lifestyle. People who were in much better shape - and much younger - were having to stop every few steps to catch their breath.
From the trail heading up to the parking lot, we could look up and see the smoke from the fire a few miles away billowing up over the ridge. It was pretty amazing that a fire could flare up so quickly like that, but the dry brush compounded with dead trees from the mountain pine beetle infestation that's taken out millions of trees in the Rocky Mountains can allow a fire to spread pretty rapidly.
We had such a full day that we decided to head back down into Steamboat to grab a drink at one of the many bars they have in the downtown area. We were sitting in a place that had overhead garage doors that opened to an outdoor patio area and I got up to use the restroom at one point. I noticed that there was sort of an orange hue from the sunlight coming into the place. The smoke from the forest fires had come in over the town and gave the sky a milky consistency and turned the sun into this large orange orb. It was sort of surreal to see.
As I said, we knew that the weather was going to change for the worse. A cold front accompanied with strong winds, rain and snow with falling temperatures was expected to hit overnight. I was sort of resigned to the fact that the warm weather was going away and going away fast. Knowing that the weather would change so drastically from one day to the next, I took a picture out of our hotel window showing the ski resort on Mount Werner outside of Steamboat Springs the day before the storm hit.
And on the upper right is the view from the same window about 24 hours later. The wind had increased to over 40 miles an hour with gusts up over 60 mph. Wind gusts on the peak of Mount Werner were clocked at 114 miles an hour during the height of the storm. They had predicted 2 to 6 inches of snow for the area, but we ended up getting a dusting. Areas to the east of where we were - toward Denver and the front range of the Rockies got anywhere from 6 to 12 inches of snow out of the system.
The temperature in Steamboat Springs the day before was 83 degrees (F). Less than 24 hours later, it was 33 degrees. My wife had packed a puffy coat that she had bought a long time ago that worked pretty well for her on this trip. I, on the other hand, had just a long-sleeved t-shirt and a sweatshirt to go over that. Still, I didn't think we'd be heading out that much that particular day.
But, of course, we did. We didn't feel like getting penned up in our hotel room all day long, so we drove around the town looking at some of the damage the storm had inflicted on trees while dodging downed power lines. (Photo courtesy Steamboat Pilot)
We ended up going to a few stores in the downtown area to look around and to get out of the storm for awhile. We were talking with one lady at one of the stores who told us that she had lived in Steamboat Springs for over 40 years, and that she had never experienced weather like this before so early in September. "Oh, we've had some cold weather," she told us. But for this early in the season to have this strong of a storm with snow, no never before." There were others who we spoke with during the course of the day who pretty much echoed what the lady initially told us. It was really some sort of a storm. And we'd been through a derecho just a month before, so we were sort of old hats at this type of a sustained storm.
We couldn't while away the storm having drinks as many restaurants and bars were either closed for the storm or opening later in the day. With not much else to do, we decided to hit a liquor store to have some drinks in our room waiting out the worst of the storm. It was at a liquor store not far from our hotel that I found something that I'd heard about many times from friends, but had never had before - a bottle of Pliny the Elder, a double IPA from the Russian River Brewing Company in Santa Rosa, CA. I'd heard many times about the virtues of Pliny the Elder from friends in California and from others on beer forums who declared Pliny the Elder as the best beer they had ever had. I'm not certain, but I believe at one time the beer was limited in its availability. That's why I was so surprised to see some bottles in a cooler at the liquor store.
My take on the beer? It was good - not quite the earth-shattering and life-changing experience some of my friends said they had when they first drank Pliny the Elder. But at the time that it came out over 15 years ago, Pliny the Elder really pushed the envelope in terms of hoppy and full-flavored beers. A number of other breweries have caught up - and possibly passed - Russian River and Pliny the Elder by now.
There wasn't much else to do that day other than nap, wait for the storm to move out, then go get something to eat. I figured this was going to be a wasted day and it certainly was.
The following day, the weather was much nicer with clearing skies, light winds and temperatures in the upper 50's. It was actually pretty nice without being too brisk to be out and about. When we were up at Steamboat Lake a couple days prior, we stopped into the park ranger station to get some maps on lakes in the area. The lady ranger we talked with told us about Stagecoach State Park, approximately 17 miles south of Steamboat Springs. My wife thought it would be nice to head out there and check the lake out.
Stagecoach State Park is a nearly 1650 acre park with a 820 acre reservoir in the Yampa River Valley of the Flat Top Mountains region of west central Colorado. The dam was finished in 1989 after only 37 days of construction. The park was dedicated soon thereafter and features campsites, a marina and a beach area.
Just south of the lake is the small village of Stagecoach. It sits at the foot of a mountain that was developed in the early 70's as the Stagecoach ski resort. Ski runs were carved out of the north face of the mountain and three chair lifts were installed. The resort opened in 1972, but the corporation backing the ski area pulled its funding a year later. Everything - including houses being built in subdivisions at the base of the ski resort - was abandoned after that. A family came in and bought up much of the property years later, but they have no plans to resurrect the lost ski resort.
Once again, it was a $9 dollar daily fee to use the park at Stagecoach. We talked with a nice lady who was manning the booth at the entrance of the park. She gave us the rundown on what was around the park. I asked her if she was working the day before during the height of the storm. "Oh, I sure was," she said. "I didn't have many visitors yesterday."
Stagecoach Lake was absolutely beautiful. It's more spread out than Pearl Lake, so Stagecoach isn't as cozy. This view is of across the lake to the south where the former ski resort was and the small town of Stagecoach is today. You can see the old ski runs etched into the side of the mountain if you click on the photo above to make it larger. The waters were crystal clear and there was little to no wind causing glass-like effects on the lake at times. It was nice to hang out along the shore and relax on the waters edge.
We drove around the lake and got out at various points to take in some of the scenery. The Flat Tops off in the distance were interesting with a thin cloud layer shrouding the mesa. It turned out those mountains were about 15 miles off in the distance.
There were a number of buttes that jutted straight up around the lake. There was more forestation on the south side of the lake while the north side had more a high desert landscape. The lady at the front gate told us that we may see mule deer and possibly some elk in the hills around the lake. She also informed us that over 200 species of birds could be found around Stagecoach Lake, the highest concentration of different types of birds in Colorado.
We ended up on the far side of the lake by the dam. There was a parking lot there and we wandered down a stone stair-step path toward the waterfront. There was a path over the dam and around the lake on the other side. I tried to get my wife to walk with me over the dam, but she has a thing about bridges and dams, so we didn't do it.
Going right out of the parking lot was a road that took us down below the dam. I was a little skittish driving the rental car down this steep gravel road, sort of wondering if I could get back up. But it turned out to be a lot more easy than it looked.
And we're glad we did because it took us to another parking lot with a long lane that was blocked off, but allowed hikers and mountain bikers to get back up to the back of the dam. A stream of water was shooting out of the turbine housing which can generate up to 800 kilowatts of power an hour.
Walking downstream along the Yampa River, we encountered anglers in the water or on the banks fishing for trout. The water wasn't as swift further from the dam and the stream had a light flow that allowed the fishermen to stand with little to no resistance. The water was clear and you could see the large river rocks lining the bed of the river a couple feet deep.
We wandered along the riverbank for quite some distance stopping every once in a while to chat with the occasional angler or to take a break on a large boulder near the bank. The babbling water churning over rocks made for a very relaxing soundtrack to the day.
It was sort of tough to leave Stagecoach Lake, but it was time to move on after being out there for nearly 3 hours. We ended up driving a few miles west and south of the state park to the small town of Yampa before turning back north to go up to Steamboat Springs.
Our next day was our "wild card day". We had no plans, no place to go, nothing that was pressing, just a day where we could do what we wanted to do. Bless her heart, my wife suggested heading back out to Pearl Lake as she surmised that it wouldn't be as crowded through the week as it was the few days before when we were out there.
Once again, we decided to make a picnic out of our trip. We went to the Steamboat Meat & Seafood Company to grab a couple of sub-sandwiches they make in their deli. When we were in Steamboat a couple years ago, we grabbed a couple sandwiches for a picnic that ended up being at Pearl Lake. My wife thought it would be nice to do it again with sandwiches from Steamboat Meat & Seafood. But two sandwiches, a couple bags of chips and a couple bottles of water were expensive - it came to over $30 bucks. But that was like any place in Steamboat - eating out is expensive. I don't think we paid less than $30 for any meal we had while we were there. The weather was cool with a mix of sun and clouds that day, but the winds were still pretty light. It was definitely sweatshirt weather and it was a little cooler up higher in the mountains. After lingering at our little spot on the bench on the overlook of the lake, we decided to drive down to the marina (on weekends, you can rent kayaks at the marina at Pearl Lake, if you don't have your own) and take a hike over to the dam. It was just over a half mile of walking through the forest and along the shoreline to get to the dam. However, there were a couple areas along the trail where we had to dodge or climb over trees that had fallen during the storm from a couple days before. But the hike was enjoyable with the cool weather that day.
The weather turned colder while we were up at Pearl Lake and we reluctantly decided to leave and head back toward Steamboat Springs. My wife had been reading about some dude ranches in the hills above Clark, a small unincorporated town about halfway between Steamboat and Pearl Lake. We took off down a side road and slowly climbed up the mountain side that came up from the Elk River. We came across a couple of guest ranches, but they looked rather primitive and spartan - not the kind of accommodations that we would probably enjoy.
Our final day in Steamboat featured a walk along the Yampa, a visit to the Bud Werner Memorial Library (we were told by one of our servers at a restaurant we ate earlier in the week that it was a great place - we thought it was OK), a hike up into the hills overlooking downtown Steamboat, then a wistful trip around the town to take in the sights one final time. It was tough to leave Steamboat, but we made a promise to ourselves that we'd be back again.
The drive up and down through Rabbit Ears Pass, then down to Kremmerling and finally on to Silverthorne to catch the Interstate back to Denver was pretty uneventful. We did stop in Kremmerling and drove around that small high desert town checking things out, almost stopping in at a small microbrewery they had in their small downtown area. The heavy snow on the top of the mountains along the Continental Divide was amazing to see so early in September.
When we got to Silverthorne, I did a quick check and found that if we went on straight through Dillon, the road would eventually take us up and over the Continental Divide at the Loveland Pass. I had never gone that way before and I thought it would be sort of cool to do that.
Driving up toward Loveland Pass, we passed two of the more famous ski areas in Colorado - Keystone and Arapahoe Basin - also known as "A Basin". A Basin is known for its long skiing season, sometimes stretching into June. With the recent snow they got on the slopes, a lot of skiers were hopeful for an early start to the season. But the weather was forecast to turn warm and dry again - right after we left. Figures...
The Loveland Pass has a small turnout area where you can park and get pictures of the sign and the area around the Continental Divide. At just under 12,000 feet above sea level, the weather at the pass was not hospitable. The temperature had dropped about 20 degrees from when we were down in Silverthorne and the wind was whipping at over 30 miles and hour.
Loveland Pass is part of the White River National Forest which encompasses over 2.2 million acres in central Colorado on the west side of the Continental Divide. The rocky high sierra with the snow capped mountains in the background was a stark contrast of beauty.
We came down the highway from the Loveland Pass and it took us right on to Interstate 70 heading eastbound. A few miles down the road is the small town of Georgetown just off the Interstate. My wife and I decided we needed to stop for a restroom break and we went into the town's visitor center to do just that. My wife saw some things in there while she was wandering around and wondered if we could go to their historic downtown area that the visitor center was touting.
Downtown Georgetown features a number of shops and boutiques that reminded me a lot of Galena, IL, only nestled in a tight valley between mountains. The city dates back to just before the Civil War when the Colorado gold rush was taking place. However, in 1864, silver was discovered in the mountains surrounding Georgetown and mining camps sprung up almost immediately. By the 1880's, Georgetown was one of the more important towns in Colorado and had their own opera house that hosted nationally known entertainers of the day. But the silver boom eventually went bust and Georgetown's population had dropped by nearly 2/3rds by the turn of the 20th century. By the 1940's, less than 400 people lived in the town. However, Georgetown has staged a population renaissance over the past 20 years and today nearly 1200 people live in the village.
After getting out of Georgetown, we started to head back down toward Denver. My wife had spotted a Duluth Trading Company on our way out of Denver a few days before in west suburban Golden. She wanted me to stop in as she loves Duluth Trading and the closest one we have is in the western suburbs of Chicago.
Now, here's a pretty good story about our experience during and directly after our visit to Duluth Trading Company...
My wife was looking at clothes at Duluth Trading, and I'm just sort of walking around looking at pants, new hiking shoes and the little library of interesting books they sell there. My wife came looking for me and asked me to hold some items for her while she tried some tops on. There weren't a lot of people in the store and I was approached three times by different people who asked if I needed help. Nope, just waiting on my wife.
My wife decided which tops she was going to buy and we went up to the counter and paid. We went out to the rental car, put the bag in the trunks and we took off.
As I was leaving, I noticed a Golden Police Department cruiser with two officers sitting in the parking lot not far from our car. I pulled out of the parking lot and made our way onto the Colfax Ave. expressway. My wife had noticed that as soon as we pulled out, the cops started to follow us. "That's strange," she said as she looked into her passenger side rearview mirror. "Those cops have followed us since we left the store."
Suddenly, the cop car lights up and I look into the rear view mirror and I see him coming up fast behind me. I was doing 55 - the speed limit - and I pulled over into the right lane expecting him to pass. Nope, he pulled in behind me. "Is that for me," I asked incredulously wondering what in the hell I'd done. My wife assured me that it sure was.
We pulled over and the two cops came up to either side of the car. I rolled my window down and asked the cop on my side what I had done. He asked me what I had been doing. I said, "We just came from Duluth Trading Company." He asked how long we had been in there and I looked at my wife and she said about 20 to 25 minutes. Then he wanted to know if we had been to a restaurant before we had gone to Duluth Trading. I told him, "No, we're just coming down from Steamboat Springs."
I asked the officer what this was all about and he said, "We had a report of a couple that was fighting in a restaurant nearby and they left in a car that matched the description of your car and they were reported to pull into the parking lot at Duluth Trading Company."
I looked at my wife and we both had this funny, yet incredulous look on our faces. I shook my head and said, "Fighting? Us? No, that certainly wasn't us." He asked for my license and asked to see the receipt from the store. I said, "Well, it's in the sack in the trunk. I can get it for you."
He told me to stay in the car and to pop the trunk. I looked in my rearview mirror as the officer and his partner went around to the back of the car and pulled the Duluth Trading Company bag out of the trunk. They looked through it and the partner sort of disgustedly threw the bag back into the trunk. Sort of like he was mad that we were probably telling the truth.
The cop came back to my window and said, "You guys sure you weren't at a restaurant earlier."
"Not around here," I said to him. "We came down from Steamboat Springs, went up over the Loveland Pass, then stopped in Georgetown before we came here." I wasn't going to tell him that we had stopped in a brewpub in Georgetown, but that was only for a couple an hour before.
He had run my license and said, "OK, well, if your license check comes back clean, you're free to go. Moments later, his radio squawked something and he handed me back my license. Then he did something that sort of surprised me - he handed me his business card. He had written his partners name on the card as well. He said, "If anything comes up where you think anything was wrong with this stop, don't hesitate to contact the Golden Police Department. This is my name, this is my partners name. Sorry that we had to stop you, but your car - with two people in it - fit the description of what was called in to us. We just had to check it out."
And with that, we took off toward downtown Denver. My wife and I were both sort of stunned from the experience. "What the hell was that all about," my wife said laughingly. I told her that we obviously look like two people who fight all the time. Either that, I surmised, or the employees at Duluth Trading thought we were shoplifters. It really didn't make any sense and we had a good laugh over the whole episode for the rest of the trip.
We spent one night at the Hilton Garden Inn Union Station in downtown Denver. Actually, it wasn't all that close to Union Station and it was sort of on the outskirts of downtown Denver. It was close to Coors Field and the Colorado Rockies were playing the Los Angeles Angels that night. But with COVID-19 restrictions, we couldn't go to the game. But from our top floor room, we could see the right side of the infield, so any plays between 1st and 2nd were visible from our room.
After a nice dinner in the LoDo District in downtown Denver at Venice Ristorante, a place I hadn't been to in about 12 years, we went across the street to Union Station to look around. My wife seems to remember being in Union Station as a young girl, but I'd only been by the place on previous visits to Denver. It was a vibrant place with a number of restaurants, shops and a hotel in the building. It's still the main terminal for Amtrak service to and from Denver, as well as terminals for bus and light rail service through Denver's Regional Transportation District, or RTD. There were a lot of people milling about inside the massive lobby and in front of Union Station when we were there.
The next day was the flight back to Chicago, an overnight stay at the Hilton Garden Inn O'Hare, then a drive home the next morning. I promised my neighbor that we'd being nice weather home as it had rained 7 days straight while we were gone and it was sunny and in the low 70's when we got home around 11:30 a.m. Our lawn had gone from dormant when we left to a lush green by the time we got back home. It had been over a month since I last mowed and I knew mowing was probably going to be one of the first things that I would have to do after we got home.
So, that was our wonderful trip to Steamboat Springs, Colorado. We got a great deal in our travel and lodging bookings that worked out nearly perfect in our favor. The weather - for the most part, save for the inland hurricane/winter storm one day - was nice. And the laid back and friendly atmosphere in Steamboat was exactly why we went back. We ate in some good places, we experienced high country nature and beautiful scenery, and we had a relaxing and refreshing time while we were there. My neighbor keeps telling us that if we really like Steamboat Springs, we'd love Grand Junction, CO. But to me, I don't know how much better life can be once you get to experience Steamboat Springs. (Photo courtesy City of Steamboat Springs)
Happy Belated anniversary! Glad you two have been well.
Posted by: Jen | October 09, 2020 at 12:21 PM
Thanks much! Appreciate it!
Posted by: Road Tips | October 09, 2020 at 12:24 PM