Road Trip 2022

Wednesday October 26

We picked a fine time to leave our remodeling contractors at home alone for a multi-week road trip.  Our initial destination was warm and sunny Phoenix, AZ  but first we had to get over Hoosier Pass after some fresh wet snow overnight with the worst set of “all season” tires ever on our 2016 Dodge Caravan Adventure Van.  After a scary little test drive to McDonalds for a breakfast-to-go we decided to wait until 11’ish when the roads were a little less icy. With tire chains at the ready we made it just fine and we’re soon making miles towards our first nights stay in Durango. 

Angela found time to work on her DuoLingo Spanish while driving through beautiful Colorado. 

Upon arrival to Durango, and at Lucky’s request, we found a very big and nice dog park along the banks of Las Animas River. 

 

Regarding dinner we decided to avoid using our phones and walk around and let Serendipity direct us. Serendipity exceeded our expectations by leading us to El Moro on Main St. for one of our best dinners, salmon and a NY strip, in a long time. 

Thursday morning, Oct. 28 found Lucky ready to go for another days travel on the back roads to Tempe. AZ. 

Spectacular long views of the land and sky today as we drive the two lane highways of NW New Mexico. 

I’m pretty sure this is called a Shiprock. 

Once in Tempe we headed straight to look at our first house, 1401 E Stephens Dr. built and bought by us for $78,000 in 1982.  Both of our kids, Ryan and Michelle,  were born while we lived here for 7 years.  Seeing it again brought back fond memories of our lives back then as well as how busy we both were. 

Once at our hotel in Tempe we headed to Papago Park to watch the Arizona sunset. I’d forgotten how pretty and unique they were.  

The reunion begins the next morning with a Squaw Peak hike in Phoenix with Scott Gudeman and James Gardner.  Scott and James were new engineers with me at APS in 1982.  Scott hikes regularly at Squaw Peak and showed us the way.  

The hike would have been a tough one even if we hadn’t made a few wrong turns here and there  but almost 4 1/2 miles later we limped back to our car and went off for a nice lunch to catch up. 

Great views of the Phoenix skyline to the south from our hike.  

After meeting James and some other old APS friends Dave Bentler, Tony Bruno, Bob Boshee, Jack Sarsam and wife Denise and son Noah, for happy hour at McCormacks Ranch I headed south to Chandler to catch up with pledge brother from Purdue, Charlie Knott.  Charlie is finishing up a project in Chandler before heading back to South Carolina.  We ate, drank and talked for hours.  

Saturday October 29

And the Main Event and the reason for our trip south was Debi Sarceda’s retirement party from APS.  The theme was Denim and Disco if your wondering about my cowboy hat. It was a great party to celebrate Debi’s 42 years at APS. 

This Polaroid cubicle picture taken from Debi’s memory board was taken my first few months at APS right after graduating.  I’m pretty sure thats Barry Hintze, Debi, Pete Martinez and me sitting on the desk. These are just a few of the people who showed me how to be a Division Engineer and become long lasting friends. 

And speaking of long lasting friends, these ladies, Tina, Bea, Debi and Mary have been running around dancing and having a good time forever.  We celebrated a lot of Fridays after work together.  

And this is Larry Daniel, one of the nicest, toughest bosses I ever had.  I know it sounds incompatible but he had a quiet way about him as James and I were learning how to be engineers that you never wanted to disappoint him. I learned more than just engineering from him.  

Merritt Goes to Glenwood Springs

Monday morning October 3rd we were driven by our daughter Michelle to Union Station in Denver to catch our train to Glenwood Springs to celebrate Merritt turning 3 years old this year!

The line for Amtrak is long and of course it’s late but we wait patiently to start our adventure. 

Finally we have our assigned seats and are on the train!

Merritt has lots to do on the train including coloring.  

We stop for a little delay at the Winter Park Ski Train stop and get to stretch our legs while the workers ahead of us clear the tracks of some broken equipment.  You need to be patient on Amtrak and manage your expectations of timeliness!! Enjoy the ride!

Speaking of enjoying we had beautiful scenery as we crossed the Rockies and ran down along the headwaters of the Colorado. 

There was also time for a one hour nap to be enjoyed by all as well. 

A full palate of autumn colors garnished our view as  the Aspens were changing their colors before the approaching winter. 

Merritt wakes up slowly in Nana’s arms after her nap as we cruise slowly through the beautiful Glenwood Canyons.  

We arrive at Glenwood Springs station around 3:30 and walk to our room at the hot springs hotel. 

The iconic Glenwood Hot Springs is the world largest hot springs pool.  Our hotel for the next two nights is just left of the pool at the far end. 

Before you know it we are enjoying the year round 94 degree warm and salty waters. 

At dinner Merritt was mildly spoiled with a root beer for her dinner. 

Tuesday was a another great day and we spent part of it at the park along side the Roaring Fork River that runs down from Aspen about 40 miles to the south before it joins the Colorado. 

In our explorations of Grand Ave we found a blue dinosaur to hug. 

One of our targets for the morning was “Sweet Coloradough” for their famous donuts but alas they are  only open Wednesday through Sunday but they left out some fresh donuts for us anyway! Very nice of them and tasty!

We spent a good part of the day walking, sometimes not always on flat surfaces as Merritt demonstrates!

And we spent time riding the bus too!

After showering off after almost 2 hours at the pool we headed out for an Italian dinner where Merritt loved the spaghetti. 

The pool is brightly illuminated as we walk back to our hotel from dinner. 

Another restful night and some small errands in the morning before we walk over the Colorado River again to catch our train.

Waiting for the train, Papa shows Merritt he remembers rudimentary braiding skills he used to deploy on her Mommy when she was Merritt’s age. 

 

The Amtrak clientele skews greatly towards the Boomer demographic. And with that demographic we’re not surprised to see the EMT’s waiting for our train to arrive to attend to a passenger coming in. 

Merritt takes advantage of the gently rocking train to catch some afternoon Zzzz’s again. 


Merritt practices her handkerchief folding with a little guidance from Papa. It’s been a busy handkerchief this afternoon with spills and clean up activities.  

In the dining car Nana is sure Merritt must be starving and force feeds some microwave Mac&Cheese into her. Shortly after the forced feeding we enter the 6 mile long Moffat Tunnel under the Continental Divide at 9,200 ft. elev., constructed in the late 1800’s.  Then it was all down hill to Denver!

Aspen Tour ‘22: Day 2- A Bust?

Today started out great as we prepare to leave our motel in Eagle for the most valued part of our ride, Glenwood Canyon, and on to Glenwood Springs for two nights. Only a 35 mile ride with 10 miles through the Colorado River canyon where the folks who built the engineering marvel of  I-70 squeezed into the steep rock canyon had also perched a beautiful bike path along the bank of the Colorado River. 

We road on some bike paths out of Eagle and then mostly on US 6 until we got to some brand new asphalt which road like butter the last few miles before we got to the entrance of the canyon bike path. 

We stopped briefly to admire the Colorado river just before the confluence with the Eagle River before flowing into Glenwood Canyon. The sign denotes the historic Dotzero bridge over the Colorado which dates back to the early 1800’s. 

And then we saw this sign which we thought must be wrong!  We had checked the CDOT website this morning and it said the canyon path was open.  They’re were rumors it could be closing due to flash flood warnings but they weren’t in effect until this evening. 

We continued on about a mile to the find this sign at the very beginning of the path before it goes undet the interstate.  Surely they weren’t really closing the path or at the very least they had just closed it and we could quickly finish the 10 miles, the only way for cyclist to traverse the canyon before any rain would fall.   Let’s be quick about it and get going I said to Angela. 

Pushing in further we find the death blow to our trip at a padlocked steel gate. We’re not going to make it to Glenwood Springs on a bike today or anytime soon. 

 

I called the Starlight Motel in Glenwood Springs and they graciously canceled our two night reservation. Then we started back to where we came from trying to figure a way to salvage ou trip.  I considered day drinking at this distillery but it was only 11 am. 

At Gypsum we stopped at a food truck for a carne asada burrito and further pondered our options.  We could cycle to Glenwood Springs over Cottonwood Pass but it’s all gravel and we’d still likely be stuck in Glenwood Springs for days since the forecast was calling for lots of rain the next 2+ days.  We left Gypsum with only the thought to ride another 40 miles east to Avon for the night and then maybe climb Vail Pass in the rain the next day to get us back home to Frisco. 

As we approached the Eagle Airport we began discussing cutting our losses and getting a rental car home. The more we talked, including talking to Tyler at Dollar Remtal (who gave us a great deal on a Toyota minivan), the more we knew it was the best thing to do even if it made us sad to not be able to complete our planned ride. 

So we made three 65 mile trips back and forth to get our bikes home and the rental minivan back to the Eagle Airport. But we did see more aspens starting to turn and the rain hadn’t materialized yet. 

So we ended on a high note by stopping for dinner at the Route 6 Cafe near Avon where we’d had a wonderful lunch on a previous bike trip to Aspen a few years back. A couple of cold gin drinks in our hands and a very tasty meal following helped us come to terms with our fate and our choices and end a topsy-turvy day appreciating all that we had. Autumn’s not over yet. We still may get an Aspen Tour yet.