This drive felt almost magical; each turn provided a new mountain or river view more beautiful than the next. We decided to make the first day of driving a shortish one, only 5 or so hours. We ended up in a town called Glenwood Springs. This town is known for its hot springs, and adventure park (with a roller coaster atop a mountain peak and all). While we didn't make it to the roller coaster, we did enjoy all of the beautiful sites. Wow, Colorado is stunning!
While it seems a bit strange to share this story, I just must. While we were in Glenwood Springs, we decided not to cook and to order a pizza instead from a local joint called Uncle Pizza. Joe placed the call for pick-up, and then we headed over to pick it up. I went in for the pizza and the man behind the counter asked for my name. "It's for Joe", I said. He responded, "We don't have a pizza for Jill". "Joe", I said. "Jill for Joe, huh?" he said, and then asked me to return in ten minutes. I went to the car to sit with Joe and wait. At ten minutes I went back in, and a couple walked in before me. I didn't hear the interaction, but they quickly left. Somehow I took the brunt of their interaction. "We serve pizza! We don't have darts or TVs" he angrily said. He then continued on to pick up the phone and yell at the customer on the other line, "If you ask me one more question about your pizza, it's going to make 8 pizzas burn, and then yours will be in line behind those. Is that what you want?" I didn't know how to respond to this whole scenario, so I stood there and looked at the art on the wall (a picture of a fat chef making a pizza). The phone rang again, he answered, "Yeah, if you want a pizza within an hour you better drive down here and get it yourself!" Man, Uncle Pizza was a crazy jerk. He finally looked at me again, about ten more minutes had passed, and said "Jill for Joe, right?" I said, "Yep", paid for the pizza and quickly left. I've never seen someone yell at clients, but somehow this was working for Uncle Pizza. It made me want to go back one day and see if he is a business success. The pizza was pretty good.
The next day we headed to Boulder where we met up with a friend of mine, Jamie. I met Jamie in Santiago, Chile when I was down there traveling. It was great to see him three years later. He showed us downtown Boulder, which is a really cool city. It has a pedestrian road with cute shops and restaurants that passes through the middle; and looks almost identical to Charlottesville, Virginia. Afterwards we went to a great little creek that passes through Colorado State University. We let Barley enjoy swimming and running through the creek, while we all stood in the creek trying to escape the 99 degree temps.
That night Joe and I camped at the most beautiful site I've ever camped in, Gross Reservoir. The short twelve mile drive to the site took us an hour, to give an idea of the type of roads we traversed. There were moments with no cell signal and all sorts of nasty noises that came from the car, that made me think we would be in a bad way on the top of this mountain. Instead, it worked out so beautifully I can't even believe it. We slept below the most spectacular-star-filled sky I've ever seen, and beside a deep blue lake surrounded with mountains. Happy birthday to me!
The great thing, it still wasn't my birthday. My actual birthday, today, we hiked through Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs, ate lunch at Manitou Springs Brewing Co, and ate truffles from a local chocolate shop. Life at 32 years old
seems just blissful. I am so grateful for our adventures in Colorado, and ready for whatever good this year has in store!
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