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Colorado (28 May - 3 June 2023)

Last summer we took the girls on a couple of beach vacations, first to the Dominican Republic, and later to Cancun in Mexico. They both thoroughly enjoyed themselves and "the beach" has been a hot topic of conversation ever since. So when we told them we'd decided to change it up this year and head to the mountains, they were thoroughly confused and not exactly sure what that meant. I mean, why go to the mountains when you can lounge around on the beach drinking piña coladas all day? Fair point (spoiled little shits!), but they'll get their wish next month.

The US state of Colorado is just a two-hour flight from Austin, and while our part of Texas is relatively flat and uninteresting in terms of scenery, Colorado is anything but. The Rocky Mountains carve right through the western half of the state and it's a great road-tripping destination, especially if you love driving really winding roads like I do. Kristina and I already spent some time here during our big US and Canada road trip eight years ago, but one spot on the to-do list we never made it to was Rocky Mountain National Park, because we were hungover and nauseated from overindulging on weed brownies the night before. Colorado had recently legalized cannabis for recreational use - one of the first states in the US to do so (another 22 states have since jumped on the bandwagon, but it's still completely illegal here in backwards-ass Texas). I've been bummed-out about missing the national park ever since. So now, eight years and two kids later, we were finally going to check it out, along with a few other destinations to keep us busy for a week (if we could avoid the ganja).

Our trip to the Rockies got off to a rocky start. We were booked on a 6pm flight to Denver, but when we got to the airport we were told the flight was delayed two hours due to weather, and shortly thereafter it was canceled altogether. Brilliant. We rebooked onto a 8am flight the next morning and went back home instead, and looked forward to the horrendously early start I'd wanted to avoid due to the amount of driving we had planned for the first day.		Anyway, we landed in Denver on time the next morning and picked up our rental car for the week - a Tesla Model 3. I've never driven a Tesla or any other electric vehicle and figured this was a good opportunity to see what they're all about.
And what better way to test a car than punishing it through the mountains! And punish it I did hehe. 90 minutes after leaving Denver we arrived at Rocky Mountain National Park, but before we even got there Jade started complaining about feeling sick. It had been all straight highways up to this point so it wasn't car sickness, but we had given both her and Siena some motion sickness medication earlier just in case the mountain roads made them queasy. We're not sure if it was a reaction to that medication, the altitude, something she'd eaten, or what, but before long the poor girl was puking in the car, miserable, and demanding to be taken home. Really not a good start to the week! She spent the rest of the day drifting in and out of sleep, which wasn't too difficult given the early start.

Rocky Mountain National Park is... a national park within... the Rocky Mountains. Makes sense. While the Rockies stretch some 3,000 miles between the US and Canada, the national park here covers about 400 square miles. The Continental Divide runs right through the middle of it, and due to its varying altitudes it contains both lush wooded forests and desolate mountain tundra. Our journey through the park involved screwing the Tesla along the Trail Ridge Road - 48 miles of awesomeness which is the highest continuous paved road in North America (its high point is about 12,000 feet / 3,700m), and is closed from October through May because it's simply unpassable, or impassable (one of those).

We originally arrived in shorts and shirts because it was a warm and sunny day, but before long we left spring / early summer and went back into winter, and out came the jackets.
While Jade was a miserable mess in the car, Siena was having a great time! We were gutted that Jade was missing out on all of this, but as it turns out she'd get another opportunity for some 'winter' fun later.		We made it over the Continental Divide and started descending, eventually returning to spring. With the roads nice and dry again I was giving the Tesla the fucking beans, and it didn't disappoint. Those things are pretty quick, and the Model 3 we had is the slowest version. Good fun!

On our way out of the park we stopped to stretch our legs and grab a snack. I jogged this short trail to check out the nearby Adams Falls. Not the most impressive waterfall you might have seen but it's buried in a really nice area overlooking the lake below.

So, after an eight-year delay, that was Rocky Mountain National Park. From there we still had a two-hour drive to our final destination for the night. That was one long-ass day after getting up at the crack of dawn to make the early flight out!

This was the view we awoke to the next morning from our hotel room in the little mountain town of Vail, home to 5,000 people and a popular ski resort. Also a good spot for a bit of rafting!

Vail's boasts the largest ski mountain in Colorado (not that we're here at the right time for any of that - one day maybe).		After all the action and driving yesterday, we had a nice quiet today. We meandered around the cute village center, grabbed some lunch, and spent the rest of the day back at the hotel in the pool and hot tub. Nice!

We started day three driving the stunning 60-mile stretch west from Vail to Glenwood Springs. It's almost all downhill in this direction - a total descent of about 2,500 feet (700m). The opposite side of the highway is littered with big trucks parked on the roadside that have overheated, and this side of the highway is littered with trucks that have overheated brakes hehe. The scenery through here is amazing, and a 'good' opportunity to test the Tesla's ability to drive itself while I took photos haha!

Glenwood Springs sits at the confluence of the Roaring Fork and Colorado Rivers, and is home to about 10,000 people. This area was previously home to Indigenous people for thousands of years, until the dirty white man showed up and colonized the joint.		Glenwood Springs is known for its hot springs, but down at this lower altitude it was a little warm for that today. Instead we rented a couple of bikes, threw the kids in a trailer, and went for a blat along the Colorado River back through the stunning valley we'd just driven. Kristina and I cycled this some route during our road trip eight years ago, but it was cool to have the girls along for the ride this time.

Another good spot for rafting. The Colorado River starts up in the national park where we were a couple earlier, and if you stay on it long enough you'll end up in the Grand Canyon down in Arizona, and eventually into Mexico.				Loved every minute of it.

The next day was Kristina and my 10th wedding anniversary. Yup, that poor woman has tolerated me in marriage for a whole decade! We left Glenwood Springs in the morning and drove through the Roaring Fork Valley to the little winter resort of Snowmass Village, home to about 3,000. This is yet another popular ski area, and although I'd be keen to get my snowboard on again, I'm pretty sure the girls would last about ten minutes in the Colorado winter cold and that would be the end of that.

A little further up the road is Aspen, home to 7,000 and the most expensive real estate in the United States, with the median sales price of a single family home shooting up to almost $10 million during COVID. Ouch!		Jade picked out a nice appropriate memento to take home with her.		And so did Siena, appropriate for her anyway.

After a bit of lunch and wandering in Aspen, we continued east out of town a short distance along a highway that we would be traversing in a couple days back over the Continental Divide towards Denver. More on that later, but for now it was another opportunity to screw the Tesla along some awesome winding roads!

This is part of the Grottos Trail, a decent hike in the middle of nowhere if you're up for it, but we of course opted for a shorter, easier stroll. This area is full of huge boulders and cliffs, as well as waterfalls, swimming holes, and ice caves if you venture a little further. Very cool!

Happy birthday to me! The next day we did the easy drive from Snowmass up to see the Maroon Bells, the two big mountain peaks back there overlooking Maroon Lake. It all looked a little more impressive when Kristina and I were here on the road trip which was in the middle of summer, but cool to see them with snow this time.
Buried deep in White River National Forest and a couple valleys over from the Maroon Bells is the ghost town of Ashcroft, once a bustling mining town in the early 1880s due to the discovery of silver deposits in the area. The silver ran dry before long and almost everybody up and left. As quickly as the town went boom it went bust, but a few buildings remain standing as a testament to the town's past. The girls assumed there were actual ghosts living here now, and they spent our time here convincing themselves they were hearing weird noises hehe.

We woke to pissing rain the next morning for our final full day of the trip. Our only plans for the day were to drive to yet another popular ski destination called Breckenridge to position us closer to Denver for our flight out.		We got back on the winding highway I mentioned earlier that took us to the Grottos Trail, and continued on and up to the Continental Divide via Independence Pass. Before long, pissing rain turned into pissing snow!

The top of the Divide was a winter wonderland, and Jade made the most of it after missing out on the snow on the first day of the trip because we was too sick to leave the car.

Back down the other side and no snow whatsoever.		Further on as we neared Breckenridge it was sunny and warm again. Multiple seasons in one day around these parts.
After arriving in Breckenridge, Kristina and I left the girls to relax in the hotel while we went for a walk through the town. Breckenridge is a really great wee spot with wineries and whiskey tasting rooms scattered about, lots of restaurants and bars, and we plonked ourselves down in one of them for a couple drinks before spending our final night in the hotel's hot tubs with the girls.		The next day we headed back to Denver, charged up the Tesla, screwed it one last time, then flew back home to hot, flat Texas.

So that was a fun anniversary and birthday week to revisit some spots from years ago, this time with two kiddos in tow. And although it wasn't the beach, I think they had a good time overall. We're off to Mexico again next month anyway, so they've got plenty of beach time coming up (courtesy of having a travel agent for a mom with all the sweet hookups!). As for me, I had a great time putting a Tesla through its paces and it was pretty awesome, especially for being the slowest model of Tesla's range of vehicles at the moment. Those electric motors are quick, responsive, and thanks to a low center of gravity due to the battery packs being installed so low to the ground, the car rips around corners like it's on rails! The tech side of it is pretty cool too. This car didn't have Tesla's full self-driving feature, but did have the standard adaptive cruise control and auto-steering to keep the car centered in the lane. This allowed me to (more-or-less) leave it to do its thing while I grabbed a few photos as we were cruising along. The auto-steering feature does require clear lane markings, however. In a few spots where the road was rough and the paint had worn away, the car kinda freaked out and jerked a little as it looked for painted lines to center itself between. Anyway, I'm impressed. I won't be running out to buy one, not least of all because they're expensive and overall it's still a maturing technology (and industry), but it's something to keep in mind. In terms of charging it we didn't have any problems. We used a couple of Tesla's superchargers (which are everywhere), and Snowmass had a (slower) charging station that was free. We drove about 700 miles (~1,100km), the superchargers charged us $35 in total, and if the Snowmass charger wasn't free it probably would've charged about $10. That $45 is about what it costs to fill our tanks in Texas which gets us about 400 miles. So, 700 miles versus 400 miles for $45. I'll let you do the math :)

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