Forty pounds of wet corn: Colorado Trip, day one and day one, version two

Since moving back to the states from Hawai'i. we've gone on vacation with my dad and Caryn pretty much every years since 2021. In 2021, we went to North Carolina (which I didn't blog about because I wanted to focus my every moment on being with my oldest for the first time since they were 2). In 2022, we went to Ithaca. In 2023 my dad and Caryn came to Missouri, so we didn't go anywhere in 2023. And now, here we are, on our 2024 trip in Colorado. Initially, this trip was supposed to be to Peru, but for many many MANY reasons, we went with Colorado instead. 

This trip was to celebrate my 40th birthday (I turn 40 in two months!), and I planned on taking this trip with just me and Derek. It was not meant to be a family trip at all. Not because I don't love my kids and want to spend time with them, but because I don't love my kids and I hate spending time with them. 

That of course is a lie. I just wanted to do my own thing for my 40th birthday, it's a big birthday, and sometimes I just wanna be with my husband. The compromise was that I would take this trip way early so I could spend my ACTUAL birthday with my children, and I will get to be with all three of them at Anime Iowa, so yay for that! Circling back, Derek talked me into making the trip a full family trip, sans Laurel because she had a con she would be performing at. It took a lot of cajoling, which does not make me a bad mother, but I finally acquiesced about 6 months ago, and we planned on taking the entire brood. Caryn and I booked VRBOs based on 6 of us travelling, and we're staying at several different places because we're going all through the state. I started to get super amped about taking the kids, because as much as I love doing things without my kids, I also love sharing experiences with them. I was most excited to go to MeowWolf with Rhyann. I thought Alex would be more bored than anything until after the fact, but I knew Rhyann would love MeowWolf. I was excited to take Rhyann to Jinya, me and Derek's very favorite ramen restaurant that we've ever been to anywhere in America (and we have been to a startling amount of ramenries. Ramenerias?). I was excited to take both the kids to Bishop's Castle and Great Sand Dunes. I was just all around into sharing this trip with them. It took convincing, but I got there. 

Fast forward to a little under a month ago, in the beginning of May: Rhyann was in a roll-over car accident. They ggot pretty banged up. Concussion, contusions, we were in and out of the ER for a few days because they just could not stop fucking vomiting...which should be a blog entry in and of itself. I am emetephobic, so I am like...nobody's parent if my kids are barfing. Sorry not sorry, but you need to be hyperindependent in that realm when you're my child. I will not cuddle you, I will not rub your back, I will not make you soup. You do not exist until you have been vomit free for three days and you  have gargled all the Lysol on the planet. Those few days were a nightmare for me in every sense of the word. While I know that was also brutal for Rhyann, this is my blog and should be a safe place to center my feelings, and it took every fucking ounce of grit in me to be able to stay with Rhyann at the ER, and manage being in the same home with them and finding compassion to be a present mom, because I am  legitimately afraid of vomit. It is a phobia. Not a dislike, not a gross out, a fucking phobia. Which I full on blame my father for. Getting back on track. 

Once Rhyann was out of the scary woods, we had a lot of conversations about whether or not traveling here would be a good idea. I told them I would cancel the trip in a heartbeat if they didn't want to go and they needed me to be home with them. Would I have been disappointed to do that? Absolutely. However, I know how lucky I am as a parent that my child walked away from that accident rather than being rolled away in a body bag, so I would have happily opted to be with them in Missouri if that was what they wanted. In the end, though, Alex also decided she didn't really want to go, and Rhyann vocalized that Alex staying home would be enough, they just didn't want to be alone at home. Whether ot not they meant that and deep down they still would have preferred I stay home and they only said that because they felt guilty about asking me to not go, I may never know. But fast forward again to present day, and here I am, sans kids, just Derek and I, on day three of the trip. 

So let's talk about it. 

Day one:

We opted to leave a day early and drive to Topeka to shave some time off of our drive. It's a 12 hour drive from our house to the first VRBO, and I just didn't want to leave balls early and be in the car all day. So on Wednesday night, our plan had been to be on the road by 7 to get into Topeka at 11, and rest up for the long drive the next day. Did that happen? Fuck. No. Derek had a bunch of shit he had to do at work, we had a lot of our room left to clean (because Allen will be at the house for a few days while we're gone, staying in our room, which is, by legal definition, a trash heap at the moment), and we didn't actually get on the road until 9:30. I was angry, Derek was tired, it was just a rough night. But we made it, to our hotel that had the veneer of nice, but was heinously uncomfortable. 

We have a ritual when we take long car trips: at the start of the trip, as we pull out of our driveway, we play four songs: Also Sprach Zarathustra, which my mom and step dad used to play at the beginning of trips, so it's a holdover from my childhood; Gotta Fly Now; the Toots and the Maytals version of Take Me Home Country Roads; and Age of Aquarius. It's how we start every fucking road trip we've ever taken for the last ten years. As we pulled out of the house to get on our way to Topeka, we both were like....this doesn't feel like the start of our road trip. So we decided not to play our playlist. We made it to Topeka, checked in to the hotel, and went to sleep in our horrible bed. 

Day two:

Now THIS felt like the start of our roadtrip, so we played our playlist as we left the hotel in Topeka. And we were in a great mood for the 8 hours to Denver. We talked the entire way there, as we always do, I love road trips with my husband. When we crossed into Colorado, I very legitimately cried. I have missed Colorado. Of course, the back side of Colorado up against Kansas still looks like...well. It still looks like flat, ugly Kansas. But as soon as I could see the rockies, I SCREAMED. I took a fucking shitty picture and sent it to my oldest:

Yay!!! We were still a few hours out, but I was driving when you could REALLY see the Rockies, and Derek was asleep, so I didn't get to take a good picture. But like, I was fucking shocked at just how much snow pack is still on the fucking mountains. Like, Derek and I both were like, woah. No wonder the trail we were going to do was closed off still. Oh, because that was something we had definitely planned on doing...Sky Pond. But the road was just announced as closed for another two weeks due to snow pack, so that put the kibosh on that. 

We got to our place in Aurora, and it is just absolutely adorable:

Our host is SO NICE, but my fucking god is that bed uncomfortable. We are staying in the last bedroom photo. The bed is tiny, which isn't so bad, Derek and I sleep pretty fucking close together, so we don't need a lot of sprawl room. But the bed itself is a spring mattress, and fucking yuck. The aesthetic of this place is so cute, though. I wouldn't do a photoshoot here, but it is very photographable. Derek and I got in, cleaned out our shit from the car, and then relaxed, because it was a long ass day of driving. We were, however, excited to go to Jinya for dinner. I just had to go to sprouts first to find some suitable noods that my keto vegan body could manage. I was hoping to find my sea kelp noodles, but no dice. I ended up going with Nu Pasta, because konjac is something I know I can manage. Derek and I did have a massive blowout on the way to Sprouts. We have one every trip we take, and once we got over it, we joked about how good it was to get it out of the way early. Agreed. We got back home and Derek needed to nap, and I had planned on blogging, but instead I took a shower and chatted with my kids a bit before laying down to veg on my phone like the goddess I am. We finally left for Jinya at 8:45, and we couldn't help but notice the incredible storm hovering over Denver on our way downtown. I kept taking shitty videos of the lightning in the clouds, but I finally got a pretty good one:

and I promptly sent it to Rhyann, since that's who I had been taking all of the video for, anyway. I sent a photo of it for good measure:

I was so fucking pleased to be greeted by such a gorgeous cell, and I was more than alittle bit sad that Derek and I couldn't just...hunker down and photograph it as it engulfed the city. But ramen needed to happen. I had cooked my konjac noodles and had them wrapped up in foil in my purse, because that's just what you do. 

Y'all. Jinya did not disappoint. I haven't eaten at Jinya since we were in Hawai'i, and I have been craving it ever since. Derek and I talk about it all the time. This one had a bit more ambience than any of the other ones we've been to, but like, you don't go to Jinya because it looks cool. 

I dig it, though. 

Ramen IS the fucking craze. You are so right, chopsticks. 

Derek ordered tempura brussel sprouts, which really left something to be desired. And that something was flavor. 

We dipped them in gyoza sauce, but that somehow made them worse. They weren't fried hot enough (they were horribly greasy instead of freshy tempura clean, the way they should be), and they were just...bland. I think the lightness of tempura isn't a good fit for the bold cruciferous fart taste of brussels. Two great flavors, one bad flavor combo. 

Derek also ordered his favorite, the Jinya bun:

He loved it, and was like, "oh yeah. That's the taste I've been missing." I should have gotten a picture as he bit into it, the look on his face was pure relief at finding a craving, and joy at eating something delicious. 

I ordered my spicy creamy vegan ramen, sans noodles because I was carrying my own noodles in my purse. Derek ordered the not that. 

This fucking ramen is so god damn delicious. My biggest qualm is the spinach is just...spinach, and it drags down the flavor. If it had been cooked the way that Derek and I cook yu choy or bok choy, it would have been a serious improvement, but it was still delicious. I wanted to order the spicy flying vegan, but I may get that today for lunch. 

Derek's meat filled ramen that he enjoyed every last slurp of:

He ate so much that he had a panic attack on the way home and couuldn't breathe because he was too fucking full of delicious soup. 

On our way out, I took a shitty photo of the front of Union Station:

And then we drove home. 

Once we pulled into the garage, the storm bore down on us. Hail, thunder, lightning, the works. The best of Colorado Summer Storms, with none of the hail damage because our car was indoors. Hooray!

And now here we are, day three. Which I will blog separately this evening, as we have a REALLY packed day.