Denver Travelogue

Day 1 - 11/26/2021 Last night, after an "eventful" late flight rescheduling shenanigans, we finally reached Denver at 10.30 PM. Akshay picked us up at airport and after short drive we reached his house in Adams County. Flying west from Pittsburgh. we lost two hours, so it was 12.30AM for our body clock. We had tasty thanksgiving dinner, and although, so much interesting "gappa'' we wanted to do, we decided to turn ourselves in. After a nice and relaxed good night sleep, I woke up at 7:30 in the morning. Akshay and Kishori were already up and were out walking their dog - a black lab named "Simba". I immediately freshened up and set out to join them and that was when I first caught the glimpse of mighty Rocky Mountain ranges. I have always been a mountain-lover and before I realized I started taking a walk towards the mountain ranges. After a few steps a white, snow-covered peak started to show its presence from behind its rugged guardian mountains an...

Day 2 - 11/27/2021 Today's plan was to get a Christmas tree - Doug fir pine tree for Akshay-Kishori's house. We started our short trip around 8:30 in the morning. Akshay-Kishori, US 3 -(Gaurav, Vijeta & Rohan), Alex & Sarah, and Chris & Steff - Akshay & Kishori's neighbors, we all were going to Buffalo Creek, CO where many people go every year to pick out their Christmas tree. We reached Buffalo Creek at around 10 AM. To my surprise Alex has brought stove and propane tank for cookout. Menu for cookout was bacon, hash browns & eggs. In 40°F (quite unusual for Denver for this time in a year), the bacon & eggs along with hash browns was a delight. After everybody was stuffed with food, at around 12 PM we all started on to Christmas tree hunt. I had never done this before and there were many details that I did not know - for example, you have to venture at least 100 feet from the drivable road. There are many different types of pine tree that people use ...

Day 3 - 11/28/2021 Today we started our long road trip to South Dakota. The journey was expected to be at least 6 hours long which actually ended up being a little over 8 hours. Our day started relatively early but by the time we all packed, got ready, dropped Simba - Akshay & Kishori's labrador dog, to Selvin - their neighbor - it was almost 11 AM, when we actually left the house and started the journey. The road trip was full of conversations, catching up , some songs, some "ultimate tic-tac-toe" game and then some more conversat­ion. To get to Rapid City, SD - which north of Denver, we needed to cross almost half of the Colorado, entire Nebraska and then some of South Dakota. On our way to Rapid City, SD, we visited Scotts Bluff National Monument. Driving through the summit road was a phenomenal experience. Out in the east we do not get to see such sandstone structures. Scotts Bluff Monument is 800 feet above the North Platt River and spans across 3000 acres. After...

Day 4 - 11/29/2021 Today was a big day. We had following destinations to cover - Badlands National Park, Mt. Rushmore National Monument, and Crazy Horse Monument. Our morning started really early today. Each of the three destinations are about 60-70 miles away from Rapid City, but they are not in the same direction. Badlands National Park is located about 70 miles in south-west direction from Rapid City. We started our trip at 7:45 AM towards Badlands. I have only seen few photos of it before, but when we reached there, only then I could realize the vastness of it: Badlands - as name suggests - just barren landscape of rock formation, perhaps some sandstone as well - over 244,000 acres of land. We decided to follow Rte. 240 which is the loop road to cover as much Badlands landscape as possible. The timing was perfect. The sun was just rising and the shade of orange in the sky was blending superbly in the orange - red shades of Badlands landscape.. But as beautiful of a sight as it was,...

Day 5 - 11/30/2021 Today's plan was road trip. We finish the second leg of our trip - South Dakota - and start our journey back to Denver. As planned, our day started early. By 7:30 in the morning we all were ready to go. First stop was Wind Cave National Park. The road to Wind Cave National Park was through the Castor State Park. We drove along Rte. 16A. It was one of the most pleasant and beautiful drive - the skies were clear, the roads were winding, and on the backdrop we had tall mountains of Black Hills. After about 2 hours of drive we reached wind cave National Park. To my disappointment, the next cave tour was scheduled at 3 PM., so it was not possible for us to do the tour, but the ranger there informed us on wind cave. Wind Cave is very large, still plenty to be explored, and very specious. For that reason, wind cave has its own air pressure system. When there is low pressure system on the surface, the high pressure in the cave forces air out of the cave. we did experienc...

 Day 6 -  12/01/2021 Today's plan was to visit Rocky Mountain National Park and Estes Park. Today was a work-day and expecting the work traffic as usual, we started our 2-hour ride to Estes Park at 8 AM, but only after eating delicious "Pohe" Kishori made for us in the morning. We reached Estes Park at around 10:10 AM. First stop was The Stanley Hotel. The Stanley Hotel is where they shot the movie - "The Shining". Being a "The Shining" fanboy I was excited to go on the ghost tour, which starts at 4:30 PM and onwards. We grabbed some brunch at Stanley - Delicious Pancakes for Rohan and Eggs for both of us. After brunch our next stop was Rocky Mountain National Park. First stop - Beaver Meadows Visitor Center to get some information and more importantly - stamp the P assport. As soon as we started approaching Rocky Mountain National Park, the snow covered peaks, rugged hills with pine trees, the presence of tall peaks that start to captivate you in your...

Day 7 - 12/02/2021 Today was unexpectedly more eventful than yesterday and let me tell you how. Today we had Pikes Peak on our agenda. Pikes peak is the highest summit of the southern front range of Rocky Mountains in the North America. It is situated at 14,115 feet tall near Colorado Springs, CO - which is about 1 hour and 30 minutes long drive from Akshay & Kishori's place. There is a scenic railway - COG Railway - that starts from Manitou Springs - which is nearby Colorado Springs, and takes you all the way to the summit. We had a reservation for 10 AM train. At 7:45 AM in the morning we learnt that the registration for the car is expired and there is a hold on the car from Denver City. We had two options: First, take the car and just hope that we don't get pulled over. Second, to look for rental car. We already had an "experience" yesterday so we decided to not take any risk and started to look for rental car. After couple of tries, we finally found an "...

Day 8 - 12/03/2021 The morning started off relatively lazy. We woke up around 8 AM and after freshening up we planned for 2 potential options. First, if the registration for the car is taken care of, we would visit the wild-life sanctuary. If not, we would take a train to Denver downtown and hang out there. As we were discussing this, Akshay told us that the registration for the car is renewed and we that we were all set. The wild Animal Sanctuary is about 30 miles away from Denver, Keenesburg, CO. It is spanned across located in 720 acres of land and specializes in rescuing and caring for large predators which are ill-treated, or not cared for, or which otherwise be euthanized. We had to take I-76 East and then take state Rte-52 towards the sanctuary. The drive was unexpectedly pleasant, and especially on Rte 52, where the railroads ran parallel to the street, reminded me of my visits to Goa, where I still remember watching the trains from the houses and streets. At the sanctuary, the...