Colorado Long weekend (Labor Day)

Nothing like a long weekend in some place you've never been before. Co-worker and friend, Janey planned to do a lot of driving and sight-seeing. Both of us, being flatlanders from Texas and Louisiana had already made up our minds, we wanted to check out mountains.

Saturday, we loaded up in Janey's rental and struck out for the Rocky Mountain National Park. Arriving in Estes Park, we grabbed a quick but delicious lunch at Smokin' Dave's Barbeque and entered the park. For reasons I'll never know, Janey took the dirt ATV road up the mountain. There were switchbacks that truly were not designed for long wheelbased Tahoe trucks. After what seemed like forever, we arrived at the top of the park covered in dust. At 13,000 feet, we found breathing to be a major effort when walking.

Along the way, we were treated to sights of elk, turkey and an unending panorama of mountains touching the blue skies.

Fortunately, we found an asphalt road for our return trip that took a third of the time and once again we were breathing thicker air at only 5,000 feet.

On the way home, we began to talk about never been to Aspen and before the day was over, we were making plans for a run over the mountains again the next day. Crashing for a few hours, Janey met me the next morning, heading out on the interstate this time. 3 hours later, we were in Aspen. I'm not sure what we were expecting but Aspen was somewhat of a letdown. We wandered the few streets in town, spent too much money for a questionable hamburger at Bad Billy's and soon found ourselves headed back to the Boulder area.

Even though it wasn't quite what we were expecting, it was a nice and decent trip that we can count in our bucket list.