The Colorado State Open Thread series is for people who have any sort of tie or interest in Colorado. You’re welcome to come here, see what your friends, neighbors and anyone else is interested in sharing, and share whatever is on your mind.
This past weekend, I had two cousins from the Boston area come out for a taste of Colorado. They’d never been to the state before though this wasn’t their first trip out west. I thought I might share with you some of the activities that we did and invite you to share the kinds of things you might enjoy doing with any guests who come visit you. I mean, we could talk about the Grand Junction Clerk and Recorder who is apparently on the lam in Texas being hidden by Pillow Guy, or Loren Boebert’s latest outrage, or the state of Covid in the state of Colorado, but I just am not ready to discuss that tonight. You’re free to in the comments, of course.
My cousins arrived on Thursday. They were originally going to come last year, but Covid cancelled their trip and they still had their air tickets to use/lose. They said they really didn’t know what to expect and Andy was concerned about his ears since had both eardrums broken when he was young and he has issues with pressure changes, like with going up and down in elevation. It turned out he could feel his ears pop, but it wasn’t painful and for that he was grateful when he went from 5000 feet in elevation up to 12,000 feet.
The first afternoon, I took the two for a tour through Denver before heading to Estes Park. Andy is a sports fan of all teams Boston so I drove him by the various sporting arenas in Denver, showed them the capitol from the car and pointed out a few sights. I didn’t make them get out and walk around, as it was hot and we needed to get up into the mountains. I had a beef brisket on the smoker and I needed to tend to it. Dinner was that brisket and some beans and potato salad. nothing fancy, but also a relaxing evening. That evening we watched his New England Patriots football team beat up on the Philadelphia Eagles. I think the final score was around 35-0.
Friday, we had another day for acclimatizing to the altitude. We went down to downtown Estes Park and walked around so they could get some warmer clothing (the winds were fierce overnight and they hadn’t paid attention to my warnings about temperatures). They got some nice Colorado and Estes Park souvenirs. A late lunch at the Grubsteak would be followed that evening by some leftover brisket and an evening of teaching each other some various domino games.
Saturday, I drove them up to Rocky Mountain National Park. It was good that we hadn’t tried to do that on Friday, as parts of Trail Ridge Road and the Fall River Road were closed due to snow and ice and white-out conditions. By Saturday, things were back to normal summertime weather.
At the park, I took them down to show them the burn areas on the west side of the park and they were very impressed, not just with the burn, but the whole park. They kept saying “Oh wow!” as we kept seeing new and different vistas, beautiful trees, waterways and critters. There was a herd of about 30-40 elk lying down on the tundra as we traveled along Trail Ridge Road back towards the east side and Estes Park. I stopped at Many Parks curve so they could see where our house is (it’s visible from the park) and where the fire stopped just a couple miles away, if even that far.
Saturday evening, Andy and I made some “moonshine” that he developed. He had given me a taste of this three years ago when we visited them near Boston and I have been looking forward to trying this with his assistance. I’m fond of sweet things and I enjoy making apple pie, so this was immediately a favorite. The batch we made wasn’t quite a half recipe — we modified it somewhat for the supplies I had procured, but it seems to have turned out well. The real taste tests will be in two weeks, two months and then this holiday season when these should have smoothed out and become delicious and great to take the chill off. The recipe made 9 pints and I’ll probably make another batch with quart jars for gifts for the holidays.
That evening, we watched the Broncos beat up on the Seattle Seahawks and played more dominos.
Sunday, the four of us piled into the car and headed down to Coors Field in Denver for the Rockies vs. the Diamondbacks. As I mentioned above, Andy loves all things sports and he had never been to Coors Field. He guestimates he has been to over 300 Red Sox games at Fenway and more than 100 Patriots games. He has had (and shared) season tickets for a few decades, so he’s seen the bad as well as the good.
We arrived early and I gave the cousins a tour of the stadium since I was an usher there back in the 90’s. Unfortunately, the Rockies lost but we still had a good time.
We went from Coors Field to a restaurant where I had made a reservation so that Andy and his wife could enjoy a restaurant with a long tradition as well as a Colorado dish they had been looking forward to in apprehension — Rocky Mountain Oysters.
The Buckhorn Exchange did have excellent food, though both my wife and I wound up taking nearly all of our appetizers home because we ate a lot at the ballpark. Our cousins also had to take one of their dinners back to Estes and I’ll probably get to that tomorrow. They did each have about three of the oysters — they felt they were much tastier and tender than they expected, though when I tried to show them how they get the oysters tender, they really were not happy with the visual.
By the time I got back to Estes and walked our dog Ginger, I just had to go to bed.
Today, I drove our cousins down to DIA and then came back up to the mountains to cool off. The smoke is much less today up here and I am looking forward to an early evening and a relaxing tomorrow.
So, what did you folks do this weekend, and what do you like showing to out-of-town guests? The floor is yours...