Road Trip Recap, Part I: Vegas -> Denver

So me and Mark or Mark and I or whatever the fuck decide to try and visit all the major league ballparks. Not over one summer, but over the course of our lives. Padres, Dodgers, Angels and Giants are all out of the way. Well, I haven't been to Angel Stadium since they reconfigured it, so I don't know the status of that. Anyways, this year we decide to hit Coors Field in Denver, home of the Rockies, and to make it interesting, we decide to drive and make a complete road trip of it.

Now, you're gonna laugh, because when I tell you about our trip, I'm going to sound like Nevada, Utah, Colorado and Wyoming are the names of other planets I visited. You must understand, to me, they are other planets. I've only been out of California to visit Vegas, Reno, and Tijuana, and none of those really count, do they?

First stop: Vegas, baby, Vegas.

Not a lot to tell about Vegas, as, for once, it was not our destination, more of a stopover point to break up the drive to Denver. So basically it was fart jokes and eating. We ate at the Pink Taco, and it was pretty damn good, even if it was in the Hard Rock Casino. I know, it's hard to believe any good food could be associated with the Hard Rock Cafe, but stranger things have happened. And of course, Mark was finished with all of his food before I was halfway done with mine. Yet, I'm the fat one. Dammit.


Also saw the fountain show or whatever the Christ they call it at Bellagio for the 142nd time. Goddamn, Mark, it's just water.


Next morning, it was off to Denver. A twelve hour drive seems reasonable on paper. In reality, it's ass-numbingly long. Once you leave Vegas, there ain't much until you hit Colorado in the way of towns. Desolate as it is, though southern Utah is very pretty.

We hit Colorado in the late afternoon.


For some reason, me and Mark expected the dry, arid landscape to suddenly bloom into green mountains as soon as we hit the Colorado border, the result of our cultural ignorance, much the way people from Nebraska think everyone from California surfs, but it was more of the same desert as Utah. But things would get greener and more Colorado-like soon, although we still have no idea what the Rockies look like, since we passed through them at night. I can tell you that Colorado has rest stops every five seconds. I-5 it was not. Also, the signs for towns indicate the elevation, but not the population. This bugged me. I have a need to know exactly how podunk a podunk town is. One of these mystery towns had the best named mini-mart/whorehouse ever:


Okay, so it wasn't a whorehouse. Anyways, we hit downtown Denver the next morning and farted around until gametime. Mark took a billion more pictures, and thought he saw Ryan Klesko on the 16th Street Mall.

The game was cool. The Padres won (although they would lose three of four in the series) and I got lucky and took a picture on the swing Eric Young hit a home run. The Padres cut him a few days later. Go figure.



The next day was an afternoon game, and hoo-boy it was hot. I live in Sacramento, so I can handle the heat, but these poor Denver-ites...they had no idea what to do. It was so hot, we saw a lady outside bleeding from the heat. Never heard of that before. The heat did not, however, keep Mark from making fart jokes any time someone bent over.

After the game, we headed to the Cherry Cricket, I place I had read about on teh intarweb. Good, big, bloody burger. Just the way I like 'em. The way I was scarfing it down, I thought I'd beat Mark for sure this time. But when I came up for air, doh! Foiled again.


And with the Cherry Cricket, our time in Denver had come to an end.

Denver is a really, really cool town. Everyone was really helpful and nice, and there was tons of stuff going on. Having never really gone anywhere out of California, I didn't realize there was a "California" attitude, but there is, and it obviously didn't exist in Denver, which was a good thing. The city was clean, and everything seemed new, even though there is a historical aspect to the downtown area. I assumed Denver was expensive, but a check of the paper proved me wrong. Homes to be had for under $200K, rents for really nice places for under $600. Compared straight up, Denver is a way, way better city than Sacramento. If I didn't love working for the state and have a psychological need to be relatively close to the ocean, I would absolutely consider moving there.

But I'm a California boy, so I had to end my little fling with the Mile High City, and we headed off to Salt Lake City, via Wyoming.