Dawdling in Denver

When last heard from Timmber Wolf was headed for Denver, Colorado, and Cherry Creek State Park. Some how in seven days and six nights we were there I managed only one picture which I'll get to in a few. We arrived a couple of days early on Saturday instead of Monday so first we checked to see if we could get into our reserved space early ... no such luck.

By then we were already getting frazzled just from trying to drive poor Timmber Wolf around in city traffic. We decided, okay, no room at Cherry Creek until Monday so we would get a hotel room and a rental car and rest, relax, and catch up on laundry before meeting up with my cousin Cyndi and her husband Scott at Cherry Creek. Sounds simple, right? Nope!!!

We first tried getting to the car rental location which proved to be not only tangled up in little streets but when we finally got Wolf in the entrance it looked like we might never get it out again. We gave up trying to get close to the car rental office and called ... no cars available anywhere!We gave up that part of the plan and got ourselves untangled from the area.

Realizing we were on a sizeable street calling itself Parker Road and having a clue that Parker was off to the southeast and away from this maze we were trapped in we headed out. Starving and irritated we called for a lunch break once we were in Parker, a growing part of the Denver suburbs, NOT a little town, and turned into a Village Inn, a name familiar to us from home.

Scrunch, screech, yikes! Something there at the back of Wolf or perhaps PoGoGo's carrier dragged itself across the pavement as we made the uphill turn towards the Village Inn! Inspection found no serious damage so we decided to try a different way out when we left and retreated inside for sustenance. We shut our tummies up and discussed our options over a meal that seemed just as good as at the Village Inn back home but the service was not as good.

The final decision was to head for a hotel nearby and get some R&R and clean clothes. We ended up at the Holiday Inn there in Parker and found the laundromat just doors away from the elevator. This Holiday Inn has a restaurant, Trappers Chop House, at the top with a great view towards Denver and since we were without a car and temporarily tired of managing Wolf in that kind of traffic, that's where we ate both nights. Good food, good service, great view!

Finally on Monday we rejoined our original plans and checked in at Cherry Creek State Park, a very nice place in the middle (it seems anyway) of metropolitan Denver. When Scott and Cyndi arrived, Scott took Geoff to pick up our rental car. We had no intentions whatsoever of trying to wander around Denver in the Wolf!

Fluff on the barbie?

That evening we actually got out our Coleman grill and fixed hot dogs for everybody. We got this grill back in 2004 when two 8-day spells of no electricity got us to prepare for that a bit. It's actually pretty nifty as it can be either on the table as we used it at Cherry Creek or it has its own stand.

One of the memorable things about Cherry Creek is the fluff that floats around from the cottonwood trees, landing everywhere even on our grill. We'd gotten PoGoGo off her carrier and I jumped on it and went with Cyndi while she walked their two dogs and got to see even more of the park and the lake. Okay, for the literal minded, no I did not jump on PoGoGo, I carefully seated myself, but that doesn't read nearly as well!

The rest of that day and Tuesday we spent settling in and visiting with out RV gurus, Scott and Cyndi. On Wednesday and Thursday afternoons I visited with my cousin Steve, another of my "new" cousins and one whose life has had some similarities to my own, definitely a kindred spirit.While I was visiting Steve on Thursday, Scott and Geoff went off to the Cussler Museum with all its nifty cars, something Geoff has long wanted to do. A pleasant dinner with Scott and Cyndi ended a great stay at Cherry Creek as we then prepared to depart for the south on Friday, July 1st.