Hello Denver!

Scott and I had a wonderful trip to Denver. We left on Thursday around noon and took I-70 from Spanish Fork, through the canyons and mountains down to Denver. It was a beautiful ride, though winding, with red rock all around the river and suspended highways.

We even stopped along the way in Palisade, CO which is famous for their fruit, and grabbed a bag of cherries. Mmm! The town had a very quiet, “Andy Griffith” kind of feel to it. As we drove through Palisade trying to find a gas station to fuel up, we ate our cherries and spit the seeds out the car windows.

Picture of Castle Rock, CO

On Friday morning, we took a tour of Parker where Rocky Vista University is located. The town is SO quaint. Though the Denver skyscrapers are a stone’s throw away, the rolling hills and manicured lawns of Parker have a very rural and inviting feel. Scott had arranged for a tour of RVU with the school’s recruiter. So at 10:00 Am, we had a tour of the whole building including: the first year large auditorium, the second year medium auditorium (both equipped with quiet rooms for students with babies), the lecture lab equipped with hologram surgery hardware, the anatomy lab with cadavers (I skipped out on that part), the manipulation lab (where the students learn osteopathic manual manipulation methods), and the library. Oh… the school has a cafeteria too, but for the moment that just means four refrigerators, four microwaves, and long tables for eating. They are planning on having a full buffet eventually. We were very impressed with the school and Parker. It is for sure a place where we could see ourselves for the medical school years.

I didn’t really organize a plan past Friday, except to watch the fireworks on Saturday night. So when we woke up the next day I had to rummage through the local paper and scour internet sites to find things to entertain us until that evening’s events. We drove around Parker looking at condos for sale, visited Castle Rock and Lone Tree (everything in Colorado, Denver area, is surprisingly close though the map may appear to show distance). We walked through a small farmers market, where Scott tried what he claims is the best tasting meat of his life! Then we spent most of the afternoon watching a little league baseball tournament next to the field where the firework concert was going to be.

After four hours of little league and sitting on a blanket in the middle of a field, the concert began and we found ourselves sitting like outcasts in the middle of a town party. Though, I did have my BYU shirt on and got a couple shouts of “Go Cougs!” So after six hours of sitting on a blanket in the middle of a field, with two hours of concert, and two hours more until it was dark enough for a firework display, we decided to skip out on the rest of the concert all together. Mostly we succumbed to the idea of bottomless fries!

That’s right! We left a brass band extravaganza for Red Robin burgers! OH! It was SO yummy. Definitely the best decision I had made that day was to leave the mosquito infested area to eat a guacamole bacon burger. After we ate dinner, we went along the rolling hills of Parker and found a Best Buy that had a parking lot perfect for firework gazing. It was extra perfect because there was a car in the parking lot next to us that had an extra sensitive alarm system. This made for a fun game of “Which firework will set off the car next.” The best ones were the red, white, and blue spread that made no noise until after a good ten seconds, when it exploded the sound barrier. Anything smaller than that would usually only evoke a double beep from the car.



Throughout the whole trip, I kept asking Scott to take pictures. It was NOT an easy task. The most difficult coaxing had to come with the Red Robin bird picture. He was so nervous about it, he had to ask the waiter if it was “cool” to take a picture in front of the bird. I’m sure the waiter was thinking, “maybe not cool, but you’re welcome to do it.” But there was one picture that Scott begged me to take. I guess beg is not the right word. I had no choice. As we drove home from the Parker Fireworks, with aftershocks flaring up in every culdesac, Scott saw the Bronco Football Training Camp along our route and pulled over for me to take a picture of him… in the dark… in front of this sign! Gotta love him!


All in all I would call this a successful trip, minus the whole part about us driving home on I-80, adding another 100 miles to our exhausting drive home. But that’s another story.