"There And Back Again"

Here are some more tales from the trip, which I have unfortunately returned home to real life from.

After I posted on Saturday afternoon, we went out to another Albannach show Saturday night. Both nights, we tailgated in the parking lot while waiting for them to take their turn on stage, as the venue did not allow alcoholic beverages inside and the other bands weren't all that good. On Saturday, we went out to a few bars afterward and continued to honor our Scottish roots...by drinking Irish Car Bombs?...anyway, we continued drinking. I guess technically I'm not really Scottish and one of the guys WAS Irish.

At the first bar we reconnected with a group of women that we had met on the first day of hiking. There were a couple of pretty good looking twins in this group that myself and the Irishman were looking to hook up with. That didn't quite workout as planned and we ended up at a table with a few other women. The Irishman has a pickup line that is fantastic. I will not give it out here though. Needless to say, he had them eating out of the palms of his hands. He also had chipmunks eating out of the palms of his hands, but that comes later. Back on track, we finished drinking ourselves stupid, said our goodbyes and headed to another bar.

The other bar was at The Stanley Hotel, which was the inspiration for The Overlook Hotel in Stephen King's "The Shining". It appears in the movie Dumb and Dumber as Hotel Danbury. We encountered a wedding party there, finishing their night also. The Irishman's pickup line was also used there, on a married woman, while her husband and I became drunken pals. The husband knew about it, and actually told him to use it on her. It was brilliant. Twice in one night. The man is a genius.

Sunday morning, we had breakfast with Aya and Donny from the band, and then went out to show our "solidarity", and watched them perform at Noon. Which we could not do after the first night of drinking due to our massive hangovers. When Aya saw us Saturday afternoon at their third performance, he was a bit disappointed that we didn't show our solidarity that day. I just couldn't bring myself to disappoint him again. Either that, or I wanted to hear them one last time before we went hiking for the afternoon. Since they don't come anywhere near St. Louis. I think there is going to have to be a trip to Philly planned for February, when they perform there. It will give me a chance to visit some old and new friends.

Sunday afternoon, three of us went hiking again. We started out by climbing some waterfalls at the bottom of the mountains. Then we started driving up Old Fall River Road, which is a one lane gravel track that winds its way up toward the highest drivable point in the U.S. We stopped and hiked a few places along the way. One such place, while trying to get out into the middle of a stream near a waterfall, I fell in. Oops. I was cold for the rest of the day, but it was only my feet and my butt that got wet. We worked our way up to the top and hiked as high as we could go. The three of us sat up top and talked for a while, then had to head back into town to meet some folks. There was no real drinking on Sunday night.

We got up Monday, packed up and headed back out to the park for one more morning of hiking, before having to head into Denver to catch our flights. We hiked Alberta Falls, where we took turns feeding a cute little chipmunk. I feel a bit guilty, but the little thing was too damn cute. He would reach into our hands and take the sunflower seeds. From there we went to Bear Lake and found a large boulder that sat out in the lake. We climbed out to it, had a picnic in the sun, surrounded by crystal clear water, surrounded by trees, surrounded by towering peaks, surrounded by a deep blue sky. What a way to end a trip.

Hopefully, between exchanged emails and finding a way to retrieve the pics from my broken phone, I will have some pictures from the last few days. I will post some from the first few days, when I get a chance to go through them.