If this takes me days to write, I am an utter failure, as this is a relatively long travel day and little else.
Derek and I didn't necessarily wake up sunrise early, but we did wake up early enough that the sun hadn't quite risen. We had no intention of heading back into Grand Teton for sunrise photos is what I mean, but we did want to get the fuck out of this heinous hostel and back to a normal hotel.
Our room neighbor to the left must have had a similar idea, as I ran into him in the hallway several times as we were both going in and out to load up the car. Derek asked me what he looked like and I told him if you looked up "rugged, handsome, travel hunter" he's the textbook photo. He was very polite to me, though nowhere near as enthusiastic as our first night young boy neighbors had been. And I will say again (hopefully I said it before, it's been so long I do't remember) that the charm of the hostel stay was not from the hostel itself, but meeting the people who were sharing space with you. I DID enjoy that, seeing what other freaks were willing to save 100 bucks a night to share poop air with strangers. The rest of it I am happy to ferret away into my nightmare hole.
Derek was in a great deal of pain from that heinous bed, so I packed up the car and got it ready for our swift departure. An hour after waking up, we were on the road. Happily, happily, happily on the road. Grand Teton was AMAZING, but I was so happy to be leaving it behind. Maybe I'm pressing the issue too much, but Schwabacher Landing at sunrise had REALLY soured me on the entire park. It's silly, because literally every other interaction I had with people on that trip was lovely, why should one day ruin an otherwise good time? I don't know. It just did. I would go back to Grand Teton in a heartbeat if it was truly off season. Give me a time when it's pretty much just photographers who get it, and I will beeline back. Ansel Adams never had to deal with that shit.
The drive to Estes was largely uneventful. The landscape was quite lovely, ranging from looking like The Black Hills to looking like Badlands to looking like...well...Colorado. I loved living in Hawai'i, it was easily the most beautiful place I've ever lived, but it's an untouchable, surreal kind of beauty. Colorado is beauty that's like...my kind. I miss Colorado in a way that's wholly different from Hawai'i. I miss Colorado in a way that's attainable, and I miss Hawai'i in a way that knows I will never step another foot on those islands again and I don't yearn for that, I just appreciate it. I yearn for Colorado. I told Derek that moving to Colorado was like experiencing an, "oh, so THIS is where I've been meant to be" kind of moment, and discovering who I've been supposed to be this whole time. Colorado is as much my home state as New York is. When Derek and I talk about retirement and forever homes, there is a not so small part of me that wants us to be in Colorado, even though the lifestyle I want is not possible there.
Oh, Colorado. I love you.
I am also very popular with the ladies in Colorado. Missouri where I live is not queer friendly, and I have not really gotten to experience a lot of the queer culture in STL so I have no idea how popular I'd be among femmes in my area. But Colorado I know. Not to brag or anything, but I did have 6 femmes flirt with me at the grocery store when I stopped to get food for myself for the next few days. Even though I did brag about it to Derek when I got back in the car. Well, I wasn't actually bragging, I was just kind of surprise delighted.
We drove from the store we stopped at in FoCo to downtown Estes Park, a place Derek and I actually hadn't really explored much. The first time we went together we didn't stick around long, we grabbed a photo of ourselves in front of the Stanley and then headed off to RMNP (just to be thwarted by winter conditions), and the second time we were with my dad and Caryn and were running horrible late for a tour and then we had to drive the hour and a half back to Denver right after. Not much time for investigating.
And nothing was going to change this time. Very little time to explore, RMNP was a last minute add on so I didn't build in a lot of leisure time.
Derek had found a rock shop and we were wondering if the rough there would be anything of interest to us. It was not, this was pretty much just a crystal shop, though they DID have some beautiful display pieces.
I ALLLLLLLLLLMOST bought this. I bought Derek a knightia fossil block some time ago, he had been telling me how much he'd always wanted one, and since then we've collected quite a few gorgeous fossil blocks that we would like to display on the wall. I am gagging for one I saw in NM that looked like a shrimp somersault triptych, but when I called to see if I could buy it and have it shipped, the person on the phone told me no. Well. So much for that. I did love this one, and the price wasn't bad, but because Derek found us another place to go a little further out of town, I opted to not. Which in retrospect was a mistake.
That is a truly magnificent Dugway geode, but that price tag. Woof. It never fails to boggle my min that this stuff is just free in the earth and we have to pay a premium for it. This is why I enjoy rock hounding, which...might I say that Derek and I did a lot more of than I mentioned and he has not let me forget that I've failed to detail our day in Weta where I found the most superior piece of petrified wood the world (read: Derek and I) have ever seen.
We left the Estes rock shop and headed over to Dick's Rock Museum, a place I actually did not take any pictures at because I was too busy feeding duckies out of my hand and then looking through rocks. So I will offer you this link to check out instead, because I legit would have bought so much more rough from them if we weren't trying to not spend every dime of our travel money and to pay down some debt when we got home. As it was, we spent way more there than we wanted (but got some FANTASTIC agates and petrified wood). Anyway, if you want to see what it looks like, check it out here:
Dick's Rock Museum in Estes Park
With little left to do in our day but eat and get some sleep for a relatively early day (but not sunrise early) in what was a VERY comfortable room (FINALLY!!!!), we headed down to Denver to Seoul BBQ.
This was one of the first places Derek and I went together. Our first big date was to the butterfly pavilion in Denver, and I think this is where we went afterwards. It's sentimental and also delicious. One of my favorite things to eat is kimchijeon. I haven't had one as good as the one I had in Chicago from Kimchi Pop 2, but the one at Seoul BBQ is really dece. So obviously I had a hankering for one.
I am eating it on everything. Sodium levels be damned! I need it! I have POTS!
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