Colorado Trip

 

I was in Colorado for 10 days and since I have been there several times before and done all the touristy things already I didn’t this time around. I stayed after my sister’s house (usually I would stay in a hotel and have my own car – since we flew into/out of Denver.) She has a new puppy (along with her two other dogs) and he (the puppy) kept things interesting. He was always doing something funny or something he shouldn’t be. We even took them to a dog park one day. I have never been to one before as there isn’t one near my mountain. This dog park had a river with a strong waterfall in it – from all the rain they got.) The dogs had a good time in and out of the water.

As I have said I have been to Colorado several times before (Colorado Springs, Denver and the CO-WY line) and never really cared for parts of the state I have seen or most of the people I met. This trip was along the same line. They have the worst drivers (even when you get away from all the military bases) and the people  - especially in Denver – are too wannabe. They are wannabe yuppies and stoned at the same time which makes them look and sound like a bunch of idiots. I am all for medical marijuana, but CO allows everyone to have it and they have become very arrogant about everything. They also don’t know how to build their roads. It rained (with lighting and thunder) numerous times while I was there and with every drop their roads flooded. It was like being in Texas. Many places in the northeast build their roads to have the rain and melting snow run-off the road, but CO doesn’t and so everything floods which makes their already bad drivers even worse.

The only nice thing about Colorado Springs is that most places are open 24 hours. As I said only hospitals, gas stations and some McDonalds are open 24 hours and most restaurants and fast food places are an hour from me. In the Springs they had all the food places you could want – fast food, ethnic food, etc. I made sure to eat at Edelweiss German Restaurant (I’ve been there every trip) and we had a waitress just arrived from Germany (via Austria.) I won’t go through all the places I ate at as there were many. My sister and I did eat at a place called “Sarge’s.” My hamburger was $12 and wasn’t very good – either was the service.   We also ate at Applebees. My state doesn’t use spices and has never been able to do a well-done steak so I try to have some whenever I am travelling someplace else. It turns out that CO couldn’t do a well-done steak either. The manager brought our food out and had us cut into it to make sure it was alright and mine was almost bleeding so I sent it back. 10 minutes later our waiter came by and asked how everything was going. My sister pointed to my invisible plate and he went to “check on it.” He never came back. The manager brought the steak out again about 15 minutes later and I commented that now my sister’s food was cold because of the wait. We used the payment console on the table to pay – I’ve never used one before – and the waiter had to bring the receipt to our table. He clearly had looked at his very low tip and wasn’t happy when he said “Here’s your receipt.” I don’t believe a waiter/waitress should get a big tip if the food and service is bad. Even though it was the kitchen’s fault for my steak the waiter could have taken an interest in finding out when it would be ready or saying he was sorry for the wait – something – but he didn’t so he got a dollar tip. One more place I want to mention is when we ate at the Broadmor Resort. They didn’t have onion rings on their menu, but they had onions and batter and so made them just for us – they were really good and tasted more like a funnel cake than onion rings. We even ordered pizza online and had it delivered. That is something I cannot do here on my mountain (along with using my cell  phone.) Sometimes it is the little things that we miss.

The main reason for my trip was my sister’s graduation. It was held in Denver. Denver has lots of one-way streets and not many signs and so it was difficult to find the entrance to the theater and the parking garage. They only had one door open and it was literally a 15 minute walk from the entrance to where the graduation was held. We had to be there at 9 am to register and the graduation didn’t start until 1 pm. I have to say I am not impressed with the University or the Theater. The graduates had to line up at 11 am and everyone else at 12 pm. We were stuck in line for almost an hour and only moved a few times. Then they only had 2 people taking tickets and hundreds of people pushing and shoving. It wasn’t pleasant. The ceremony itself started out ok. The guest speaker was a former graduate of the University and won a Silver Medal at Sochi. They then started with the Doctor’s Degrees. Most of them had very long, foreign names. Then they did the Master’s Degrees and that was my sister’s group. The University didn’t follow the alphabet and had people on each side of the stage getting their names called. By the time my sister got her diploma and sat down we had been in the theater for 3 hours (not including the hours before the ceremony started) and they still had 400 people getting Bachelor’s Degrees and several getting Associate’s Degrees. We texted my sister after she walked across and we decided to leave early. It was a very long ceremony and would have been 2-3 hours longer if we stayed the whole time. I was glad I could be there though to watch my sister walk across the stage and get her diploma after all the hard work it took her.

After the ceremony who ate at Cracker Barrel (I know I’m back to talking about food) and then we went to work at a Roller Derby Game in Colorado Springs. I have never been to a Derby before. My sister and some friends work security for the Derby through their Krav Maga school. I just tagged along. Most of the women playing in the Derby looked like they could crush me with their pinkie. It was pretty intimidating. I didn’t seem much of the Derby as I was by the front doors most of the night, but I did see a doppelganger of my old college roommate. He was an exact replica.

A few days later my sister and I (and a friend that she went to school with and also works with) went to Denver to see “Wicked” for my sister’s graduation present. My sister has seen that musical in Toronto and I have seen it on Broadway for my birthday a few years back. The friend that came along had never seen it. We had really great seats – with no one in front of us and close to the stage. There was an usher (who looked like one of the Derby women) who was the Camera Nazi and would yell at random people for using their cameras while ignoring the hundreds of other people doing the same thing. Another weird Colorado thing was people walking down an aisle and then climbing over 6-7 rows to get to their seats. I saw at least 10 different people around the theater do that. It was very strange. The show itself was pretty good – almost as good as the Broadway one. It was a show, a good night and a good graduation present.

We went to the Broadmor Resort several times during my stay. We went to see “American Sniper” in their movie theater. It was a very good movie. Even though people should know by the film’s name (ie sniper) it is rated R and yet there were several little kids there. One couple walked in and left their 10 year old while they left. They came back about 45 minutes later and took their kid out. Another family came in after the movie had started and started shining their flashlights on their phones to blind everyone. They then kept moving around the theater, changing seats until they eventually left.

My sister took me one day to hear her former professor give a seminar on the Austrian School of Economics. I didn’t know what it was about until I got there and he started his presentation – but by then it was too late.   He is supposed to be a well-known economics who has worked for the Federal Government as well as being a professor – he had a 10 minute presentation on his credentials – but it felt like he was trying to get us to drink his Kool-Aid. Some of the things he said contradicted his own presentation (ie he kept going on and on about how big Government destroys our economy and then praised Canada’s “big” government for helping its economy in the Great Recession. I took Advanced Economics in college and consider myself fairly educated in economics, government and politics as a whole, but some of the things he was saying were just too much for me. At the end of his presentation they had a Q & A and everyone who asked a question (I didn’t) didn’t make any sense and one guy tried to instigate the professor and get him to say there should be a revolution to topple the corrupt big government. The professor was at least smart enough to not fall for it – especially since the seminar was taped. I was glad when it was over and I could leave.

One thing I miss is meeting international visitors or at least Americans who travel overseas. I don’t get many of both on my mountain, but my sister is friends with many (from places like Croatia, Latvia, Germany, etc.) We had coffee – in one of those yuppie/stoner coffee places in Old Colorado City – with a woman from Latvia and a woman from Germany. The German was very arrogant (apparently she married an American soldier when he was stationed in Germany and is now making him re-enlist so he can be re-stationed in Germany and she can go back there.) She talked just to hear herself talk. It didn’t matter that what she said didn’t make sense or was even true. I tried to once correct her(about flying with her dogs), but then I saw she just liked to hear herself talk and so stopped and paid more attention to the Latvian. The Latvian woman was also married to an American – but he wasn’t a soldier.  They met while she was working in the US. The Latvian was talking about Riga and some of the things she described were exactly like I remember Russia as being-  they were both part of the USSR after all.  It was pretty interesting.

As I have already said this wasn’t my first time to Colorado or to Colorado Springs. It was the first time though I didn’t have to worry about getting sick or taking care of someone sick. That was something odd – not having the worry. I am glad that I went through because it was nice to see my sister and her dogs as well as enjoy some “civilization”