Road Trip via cameraphone


Posted by Nate in Travel.
Tuesday, September 12th, 2006 at 3:14 pm


It started Thursday evening after soccer. Everyone ran home to clean up – and for some of us (Scott), pack – before hitting the road to Colorado. I didn’t record the start time, but I believe it was getting close to 9… We drove all night, Cody, then Scott, Rick, then me.

The bummer of the rotation is that I was supposed to sleep during those first two shifts but everyone was all excited for the road trip and nobody slept. So round about dawn we crossed into Colorado and I took these pictures of my co-pilots. Princesses.

We rolled into Ft. Collins to kill some time before picking Troy up at the Denver airport, and decided to eat breakfast at Lucile’s. Hell yeah. That put us right by campus so it was time for a stroll down memory lane…

We headed over to the old theatre building and stuck our noses in all our old stomping grounds – or what was left of them. The old black box is a classroom, the improv room is divided and weird, but saddest of all was the mainstage.

I know that space sucked and the audience was uncomfortable and couldn’t see, but that’s where we all served our time… Weird to see just the outline of the old stage, the empty light grid, and the lonely white cyc. Then it was off the airport, grab Troy, and up to Estes for the festival! We checked in, cleaned up, got our tickets and headed to the fairgrounds. Friday is the hot ticket if you actually want to eat or do something popular — much less crowded, but almost everything is up and running.

That night we hit a concert: Brother and Seven Nations. Good show, but we were all hitting a wall, and the venue wasn’t the best and the audience could have been more animated. And the MC for the evening was beyond annoying, almost single-handedly ruining the show. Seriously. Not sure if the group took to Brother as much as me, but I loved them. Super sweet. 7N was pretty right-off-the-CD, nothing new from them but some good banter between songs.

Then home to bed for a quick night’s sleep before the main event: Saturday. Rose early to check out the parade, and got to see my parents! They came up for the day to hang out and check out the festival, and it was great to see them. That’s us just after the rain that morning — you can see the cardboard cozy around my cup to keep my fingers warm. It was damn chilly for a while there…

I think this speaks for itself, and in fact sums up the day rather well. Hell of a good time.

Next morning was another whirlwind, starting with brunch with Scotty’s parents at a super nice lodge. That’s Rick taking in the gorgeous scenery. Hard to remember how much I used to take the mountains for granted, now that I never get to see them. Ah, mountains. Next stop in Berthoud to visit Rick’s family and drop him off. It was great to tour around the place, and they fed us like kings before sending us on our way with a ton of delicious leftovers.

Coming down out of Estes we passed the Devil’s Backbone, one of the first places Karen and I hiked back when we lived in Colorado. Managed to snap a picture out the car window… Finally dropped Troy off to meet his parents – it was an elaborate surprise visit, they thought they were picking up a custom-made DVD cabinet for his brother’s birthday – and we were back on the road.

Official time: 2:30. We hit home at 4:30 (hour lost), and I was asleep by 5:30. Amazingly I believe we all had a pretty normal day the next day, I know I wasn’t firing on all cylinders but was still somehow productive at work. So there you have it! Big fun road trip!

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3 Responses to “Road Trip via cameraphone”

  1. Q Schroe Says:

    That sounds like an awesome trip! I’m glad you guys had so much fun. I actually stopped into Johnson hall a few weeks ago, and it looked just like that. Pretty creepy. I did find, however that underneath the end of one of those ducts is an opening into the drafting room. It’s crazy.

    Also, I didn’t realize that the girl Karen had posted about had found that post/blog! That’s weird and a half. Luckily I’m still dropping emails to the Arcadia kids, so they won’t be put off by my posting pictures of them. They may actually end up beeing my best means of staying for free in Edinburgh when I want to travel there for the weekend.

  2. Rick Says:

    It’s great to be able to get away for just a few days and do some much fun stuff! I’m sure you paid a bit of a price with fatigue, but hey, you’re young. It was great to see you and the guys and hang out a bit. We’d never been to the Scottish Festival, so thanks for the invite.

  3. Troy Says:

    awsome time my friend!