As promised...
Tuesday, day one:
Got on the road around twelve-thirty, after making a couple of last-minute purchases. In spite of concerns that I wouldn't get into Denver until way too late to do anything, I got there between seven and eight PM - not bad at all.
I'd intended to eat dinner at the Cherry Cricket, a bar/club type place that sounded really nice, but I'd neglected to check up on the Cherry Creek area which turned out to be THE yuppie shopping district flavor of the month. Not a single parking space for a couple of square miles and yeah, I checked.
SO. I gave up and split back to my hotel. Or what I thought was my hotel... hotels.com sent me to the wrong one. Fortunately, the RIGHT one was just up the road, but that few minutes of panic was enough to make me completely ready to turn 'round and go back home. (I didn't.) Ate a very nice dinner in the hotel's sports bar/club and, after the usual bout of insomnia, slept.
Wednesday, day two:
Couldn't sleep in today, as I'd purchased my museum tickets online and picked an early time of day so I wouldn't have to fight traffic to get a space. It worked! Spent a good four or five hours wandering happily around the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. The Body Worlds exhibition, which was really the original reason I decided on Denver as my vacation destination, was AWESOME. Fascinating, gruesome yet in a strange way beautiful. The rest of the museum was just as cool, I especially enjoyed the prehistoric life exhibits and the area devoted to Native Americans. They had a mummy exhibition... sort of. One room and an alcove, like... five display cases, not much of substance but hey! Mummies.
Made the mistake of eating lunch at the museum but NOT at the actual T Rex Cafe, just the little "grab something quick and go" area. Yuck! Bad idea.
I'd blocked out the whole day to spend in the museum, which I didn't wind up needing - I'd intended to hit the planetarium to watch a film or two but I was tired and footsore so I went back to the hotel for the afternoon and read a book.
Dinner was at this goofy touristy place called Casa Bonita. It was... interesting, to say the least. Goofy little skits, a wandering mariachi band, a guy in a gorilla suit... yeah. Nasty ol' cafeteria food. If anyone's of a mind to go - order as little as possible. You're not there to eat, trust me. (Unfortunately you HAVE to order a meal to get in.)
Day three, Thursday:
Today I slept in. Sweet, delicious sleep. I'd figured after spending half the time I'd expected to at the museum that I wouldn't need to worry about taking the whole day at the Aquarium, and I was soooo right. Had a rather nice (expensive but hey, I'm on vacation!) lunch in their restaurant, which had an awesomely huge tank with tons of fish and the obligatory shark. I could've spent the whole afternoon in there, just watching them swim back and forth. I needs me one of them zillion-gallon tanks. The rest of the aquarium was nice, but I got through it in like two hours, tops. So... back to the hotel for more reading and relaxing!
Dinner was at a place called El Rancho, about half an hour outside of Denver. Incredible scenery once I got out of the city proper, especially where the place itself was located. The food tasted awesome, but something I ate gave me a bad case of food poisoning and the trip there just about killed the poor car. Protip: a ten year old four-cylinder Escort is NOT a good car to take driving up mountain roads.
Day four, Friday:
Checked out of the hotel and hit the road for Colorado Springs and my last destination. Colorado Springs is a driving nightmare, and I wasn't even CLOSE to peak driving hours. Had a late breakfast at a Waffle House (strictly for the nostalgia, although it was perfectly nice food) and made my way along some incredibly scenic roads to the Cave of the Winds.
The cave was just as cool as I (barely) remember from twenty years ago, although the ceilings seem to have gotten shorter and the steps and inclines steeper. Picked up some nifty swag at the gift shop, sighed that I couldn't afford the REALLY nifty swag (two hundred dollar crystal skulls! THREE hundred dollar polished geode!) and hit the road for home.
After circling the entire stupid city of Colorado Springs thanks to some bad directions from maps.com, and another seven hours of driving through exciting Kansas, I was home and happy to be back.