Road Trip: October 6,7,8 2011

Dear husband,

This morning we open our eyes in yet another place we didn't plan to be.  Then again, we didn't plan to be a certain anywhere for this whole trip.  How did we find this place? We are in the grandest room we've stayed in all week and I think this was the first time we turned on a TV the entire trip.

I love that.

We spent the day mozying around Boulder...realizing we had no desire to live there.
Just not what we thought.
But we did stop in lululemon.  Duh.
We drove into Denver, past the Red Rocks, but we didn't get to go see it.  I couldn't believe that there was a highway right next to it.
And that highway had about an hour + of traffic to get to the amphitheater.

From Denver, we went south to Colorado Springs.  This is more our style- a town small enough to feel small, but big enough to feel big.  People were walking!  Can you believe it?!  They were WALKING from here to there!  And riding their bikes!

We left CO Springs to head toward home,  At this point, we were on a time schedule which would get completely thrown off later.  We drove through horrendous weather and finally rolled into Raton.

The Melody Inn Motel would be our home for the night. I didn't get a picture of the room, but think 1950 motel deluxe.  The best of the best in those days.  I can see families of 4 rolling up in their Bel Airs, parking right in front of their motel room door, dad gets out, looks around, puts his cigarette out, the kids run into the room to find state of the art wooden walls, vintage furniture, and oh...oh yes.

A steam shower.  The bathroom's shower could seal and switch to the "steam" feature.  There was a vintage vinyl graphic on the door of the shower that said something like STEAM - O - RAMA!!!

You were stoked.

The Melody Lane Motel turned out to be one of the cleanest motels I have ever been to, and was as close to a time machine as you can get.

The next morning we went for some coffee as Tim at Melody Lane has not mastered that part yet.  We checked out of our room (and while doing so I peaked in the door behind Tim at the desk and saw a very old lady sitting in a rocking chair in what appeared to be a bedroom.  Weird.) and found this beauty.

In a town like Raton, NM, you don't expect to find an espresso bar.  We threw the screen door open to find one barista and 2 blue-collar gentlemen at the bar.  One older man sat at a lone table in the back corner reading, and Enchanted Grounds made one of the best Americanos I've tasted.  We sort of got some of those "You're not from Raton" looks and made our way out.  We had a long drive ahead anyway.

And the rest of the trip was a blur.
Rolled into Amarillo to see Nanny

Dog bites Nanny, I take her to the ER, you go see Ian
Mexican food before we leave town
Late night drive to Dallas
in the rain
like...
torrential downpour.
Stop at 1am in Dallas to crash on Rhonda's floor
Wake up
drive home
in the rain
like...
torrential downpour.

And it seemed like I blinked and our trip was over.  I told you the entire time that it was the best trip of my life, but truly, it was the. best. trip. of. my. life.

I can't wait to do it again.
Maybe we'll drive the other way.
Or Maybe not.