Day vs. Night

We woke up in Denver to blue skies and 65 degree weather. We had a few hours before check out so we went out to check out the city. We saw the capital buildings and civic center. We also walked down an outdoor mall that they have. The streets are closed off to cars and only a free bus travels up and down the 15 or so blocks of shops.

For lunch, we went to Casa Bonita. 

If you’ve ever seen the South Park episode about it, it really is THAT awesome. They have live shows, good food and the best décor. It’s decorated as if it’s a Mexican village with a waterfall, Blackbeard’s cave and a jail. 

We we’re running around the place, way more excited than any of the kids there. The only time we weren’t smiling was in Blackbeard’s cave because it was actually terrifying.

After lunch, we hit the road to Utah. This was the most beautiful drive we’ve ever been on. We weren’t expecting to drive through the Rockies but we were so glad we did.  The road was all over the place and we even went through some tunnels going right through the mountain. 

We drove side by side to the Colorado river and we watched the snow and tree covered mountains turned into rocky canyons. 

Tonight we ended up in Salina, Utah. Tomorrow morning, we're getting back on the road and heading to one of the places we're most looking forward to: Zion National Park.

Day of Interest

Yesterday we woke up in Topeka, Kansas. We met a couple in the hotel lobby that warned us of just what we were in for on our way to Denver. Of course, we’re talking about Kansas. When we left the hotel we had 6 hours of flat plains ahead of us.  

Shout out to The Beatles for getting us through it. ;) Despite all of the nothingness, we still managed to find a few antique shops to stop in along the way.  We also stopped at another drive-in, this time around we knew what to do.

We got fried pickles & the burgers were hugeeee!

After leaving that town, we saw this sign:

We couldn’t say no to that, so off the beaten path we went.  We pull up to what looks like a scene from Texas Chainsaw Massacre. There were thousands of glass bottles and rocks in little containers. There was an old VW van filled with more bottles and rocks. 

There was also two American muscle cars with more bottles and rocks inside. When we knocked on the door to the “Museum of 6 States” we were greeted by an interesting old man named Jeff. There are no words to really describe Jeff, but let’s just say the sign should have said “Person of Interest.”  He told us that if we could guess his 10 mystery items he would waive the $1 entrance fee to the museum. He showed us old rusty items from a rooster skull cracker to dinosaur poop. We got two out of ten right. Walking through the “museum” and its 20+ rooms FILLED with glass bottles of all shapes and colors, tools, weapons, fossils, crazy Jeff told us jokes and had a trick around every corner.

The view from the top was awesome, we supposedly saw 6 states but we couldn’t really tell which was which and it was really windy.

Crazy Jeff made us pose for all sorts of silly pictures.

After being there for wayyy longer than we should have, we left with two souvenirs and lots of laughs.

When we finally reached Colorado, we decided to take a “scenic route” rather than the highway.

The road progressively got hillier until we eventually we could see the Rocky mountains in the distance.  We went through a few little towns and throughout each one, the mountains grew closer.

When we got to Denver we did a quick drive through the city, found a hotel, grabbed dinner and crashed for the night.

The view from our hotel room.