Colorado
After a week-long stint in Texas, a cancelled project in Oklahoma left me sitting in a hotel room with a request to let my manager make it up to me. Later that day, I was driving to Colorado. The drive was beautiful, the road winding in amongst the mountains and no interruptions from the cell phone (reception was terrible, as you might assume). Upon arrival, I called a friend to catch up since I had a few days before I needed to be on site. His parents had moved to Colorado sometime after we graduated high school and he followed as the job market in Ohio dried up.
We had grown up as part of each others' extended family. I called his mother "Mom" and vice versa, as with most of my childhood friends. Well, you never go to visit your mother and plan on staying in a hotel. It's an affront to basic decency or something, so "Momma Lucy" decided I would stay in the spare bedroom and I would get pictures of the kids for her to ooh and ahh over. I still owe her pictures of the kids, but it was the nicest month and a half I have ever spent anywhere.
After work most days I would sit up with her and her husband and talk politics, power generation, education plans, you name it! On the weekends I would chauffeur her son and another childhood friend of ours around to the local bars for some darts, pool and other assorted shenanigans. We'd usually fetch up at the local Denny's and hassle the night shift for an hour or more as my friends sobered up. We went to Royal Gorge, once my buddies found out I wanted to check out the local scenery, and took a harrowing ride up Skyline Drive that actually prepared me for driving in Greece.
We had grown up as part of each others' extended family. I called his mother "Mom" and vice versa, as with most of my childhood friends. Well, you never go to visit your mother and plan on staying in a hotel. It's an affront to basic decency or something, so "Momma Lucy" decided I would stay in the spare bedroom and I would get pictures of the kids for her to ooh and ahh over. I still owe her pictures of the kids, but it was the nicest month and a half I have ever spent anywhere.
After work most days I would sit up with her and her husband and talk politics, power generation, education plans, you name it! On the weekends I would chauffeur her son and another childhood friend of ours around to the local bars for some darts, pool and other assorted shenanigans. We'd usually fetch up at the local Denny's and hassle the night shift for an hour or more as my friends sobered up. We went to Royal Gorge, once my buddies found out I wanted to check out the local scenery, and took a harrowing ride up Skyline Drive that actually prepared me for driving in Greece.
Fun Facts
Colorado has the highest elevation of any state, with more than 1,000 Rocky Mountain peaks over 10,000 ft high and 54 towering above 14,000 ft. Pikes Peak, the most famous of these mountains, was discovered by U.S. Army lieutenant Zebulon M. Pike in 1806.