Day 5 - Denver

Today was yet another great day. I must say, I'm pretty proud of my planning - so far everything I've done has been really great.

I started out this morning with a tour of the Hammond's Candy Factory. I forgot to take a picture of the building, and we weren't allowed to take pictures inside, so oops. I got there just before the 9:30 tour. There were 3 of us on the tour. All of Hammond's Candies are handmade at this one factory and they ship all over the world. It's amazing how much they're able to make by hand. They make a TON of various types of candy canes as well as ribbons and lollipops and other assorted sugar based candies. They also make chocolates and truffles. We saw 2 rooms - the cook room and the packaging room. In the cook room, it is always quite warm, about 85-90 degrees all the time. They make a batch of candy in a copper pot and heat it up to 324 degrees. Then they pour it onto a tray and add color and flavoring. They may put it on the pulling machine in order to modify the color if necessary. Then they mold the various colors into a block and it goes over to the twisting station. There, a pair of people will twist, cut, and form the candy into its shape. The candy then proceeds into the packaging room.

The packaging room is much cooler - around 66 degrees. In this room, the candies are individually packaged and sealed by hand. The appropriate stickers are applied to each candy and then the candies are packaged into shipping containers. They work on getting ready for the Christmas season all year round. There were no chocolates being made while I was there. Everything I saw was incredibly interesting. I had a ton of questions about process and forecasting. Also, the tour was free! You can't beat that. Although I did end up buying $20 worth of chocolates afterwards.

I was at the candy factory for about an hour, and then I drove downtown for the capitol volksmarch. This was a really good walk. It started with a loop through the Auraria campus.

Then it went over to Centennial and Confluence Parks. That area reminded me a lot of the Town Lake trail. Lots of trails around the river with a lot of joggers and cyclists. Biggest difference is that the whole path here was paved.

I stopped for lunch at My Brother's Bar and had a jalapeno cream cheese burger with fries and onion rings. Super tasty!!! The hefeweizen helped too. From there, the walk took me over Millennium Bridge:

Where I saw one of my favorite signs ever:

From there, it was up to Coors field, where I was super excited to take a tour. We got to see suites, the press box, the press club, the club level, the visiting clubhouse, and go out to field level through the umpires' tunnel. We weren't allowed on the grass, but we were allowed to go into the dugout and everything. It was amazing!!!! I got so excited to see the visitors' clubhouse especially - knowing that that's where my Phillies are when they're in town.

After the Coors Field tour, I continued on the rest of the Volksmarch, which essentially consisted of getting over to the Capitol building. Once again, I didn't get to take a tour of the Capitol (last tour was at 3:00 and I didn't get there until about 4:30), but I walked around and took a bunch of pictures.

After finishing up the walk (which claimed to be 11km, but according to my calculations was more like 12.5km), I drove over to Michelle's work and met her and her boyfriend there. The three of us went out to dinner, drove back to her house, and walked over for ice cream at Dairy Queen. A really really great day.

Tomorrow, I'm driving to the west of Denver, hitting up a few wineries in Clifton and Palisade and spending the night in Grand junction. It should be a pretty easy day.

Day 4 - Denver

Good day today. A good variety of visiting with Michelle & doing touristy things.

This morning, Michelle, her boyfriend, and I went to a place called "The Egg and I" for breakfast. We knew it was Mothers Day, but, for some reason, it did not occur to us that the restaurant would be crowded. Oops. Well, it wasn't too long of a wait at least. The food was really good.

After breakfast, I went off to downtown, picked up a map for the volksmarch that I'm doing tomorrow, and then went to the Molly Brown Museum House. Today was my only chance to see it, since it's closed on Mondays. My mother tells me that I went there as a kid, but I have no memory of it, and they've redone a lot of it, so even if I did remember it, it would have still been a new experience for me. It opened at noon today, so I got my ticket for that first tour. We started the tour, and it was really interesting. The house has gone through a few different owners since Molly Brown died around 1932, and many of her belongings were scattered, so the historical preservation society here has had to do a lot of work to recreate how the house looked around 1910. We weren't allowed to take any pictures inside, so I don't have any of those, but here's a picture from the front:

Well, anyway, we were about 2/3 of the way through the tour when the file alarm went off. Apparently, they were doing a Mothers Day tea up on the 3rd floor and someone had set a plastic bag on the stove. So we had to all evacuate and the fire department showed up to deal with the situation:

Good times. So we were all given the choice of a refund or a ticket for a later tour. I chose the latter. Because of timing, I chose to get a 2:00 ticket. So to kill the time in between, I went over to Sweet Action Ice Cream, which opened at 1:00. I don't know how the place ended up on my list, but I'm glad it did. It was quite good. And I'm glad that I went right when it opened because when I drove by a couple hours later, the line was out the door.

After Sweet Action, I went back to the Molly Brown house and got the full tour this time. Molly Brown was a very interesting woman. She was involved in so many causes and is so much more than just the loud woman from Titanic.

After the tour (the whole tour this time - no interrupting fire alarms), Michelle and I met back up and we headed out for the evening. We first went to karaoke. I couldn't decide what to sing, but saw they had a couple Carbon Leaf songs (my favorite band), so I had to do one. And I knew that it would likely be completely out of my range, but I did it anyway and totally butchered "What About Everything?". From there, we headed over to the Denver Performing Arts Center to see Sense & Sensibility, the Musical.

Sense & Sensibility, the Musical was something I had really been looking forward to. It is a new show that's premiering here. I had high hopes for it. Now, when I see shows, I see many things that most people don't. I get distracted really easily by all sorts of stuff, from "where is that special light coming from" to "Her hem doesn't match everyone else's" to "This song is derivative of Les Mis." Seriously. I know it can be annoying to people around me - hell, it's annoying to me. But I can't do anything about it. So what did I think of this show? Well, I have a list of things that I could nit-pick: one girl's accent didn't match everyone else's, which I didn't understand, and she kept going in and out of the accent; there were a couple light cues which I totally didn't understand; a couple of the transitions seemed awkward for some of the actors; and a couple songs were superfluous and should have been cut. The first act was very old school: scene, song, scene, song, scene, song. It got a little repetitive. But the second act - wow. It was amazing. Save for one scene that I didn't care for at all, the second act was phenomenal - so honest and so beautify. Overall, the show was really well done. Really interesting scene transitions, a great use of the space, good movement on stage, beautiful lighting, near flawless sound execution, generally great casting. I highly recommend it if you get the chance to see it.

I guess that's pretty much it for today. Tomorrow, Hammond's Candies Factory Tour and Capitol Volksmarch.

Day 3 - Oklahoma City to Denver

So today was a long day of driving. I left Oklahoma City at 9 AM (right on schedule again) and headed north. Not a lot to do between Oklahoma City and Denver, so I knew I'd have my work cut out for me in terms of keeping myself entertained. I did find one winery just outside of Wichita and I hit that up around noon. It was decent - lots of sweet wines, which I'm not big on, but they had a couple that I liked. I bought one to enjoy in Denver.

From Wichita, I continued to head north to Salina and turned west toward Denver. Kansas is not the most interesting state to drive across, not a lot to look at, so I entertained myself with listening to the 2nd Harry Potter book. I'm not done yet, but I got through a good portion of it. A couple observations from today's drive:
1. People that do not use cruise control on vehicles that obviously have it annoy the shit out of me. Seriously people - pick a speed and stick with it. We end up playing tag for miles and miles on end.
2. The clock on my car automatically adjusted when I crossed into a new time zone. So cool!

I arrived at my friend Michelle's house right on schedule at 6:30 (that's a 10 hour drive plus 2 stops along the way if you're counting). We hung out for a bit to visit and then went to see an 80's band she knows with her boyfriend. Had a great time, but now am pretty tired.

Plan for tomorrow is to get breakfast and then check out a couple places downtown - the Molly Brown House specifically. My mother tells me that I went there once as a kid, but I don't remember it. I was going to do a volksmarch tomorrow, but I think I'm going to skip it and only do the Capitol one on Monday - that's the one I really wanted to do anyway. Tomorrow night, Michelle and I are going to go to karaoke and then we're going to see a performance of Sense & Sensibility, The Musical. I'm excited for that!

I also have to deal with upgrading my flickr account apparently. I have apparently hit my limit of 300 MB of uploads per month. Considering looking for a different service, but I already have everything organized on flickr. grrrrr.

Day 2 - Oklahoma City

Today was a study in packing as much as possible into one day. I was excited to get started today, so I got out of the house about 15 minutes ahead of schedule. I went to the start point for today's Volksmarch and got the directions for the walk. I wasn't yet sure if I was going to do the 10km or 13km option, figuring I'd decide later (I ended up doing the 13km option). I headed out and it was absolutely perfect walking weather - about 65 degrees when I started, but with the sun peaking out and a slight breeze. About a mile into the walk was the Oklahoma City Bombing Museum & Memorial. That was the main reason I came here, so I took my time in checking it all out. It was very well done. Because I got there about 15 minutes after they opened, it was pretty empty, but quickly started filling up with school groups. Ugh. I forgot that most "tourists" on school days are often large groups of children. Here's one of my pictures from the memorial:

Anyway, after I finished up with the memorial, I continued on with the walk, heading down through Bricktown, the old warehouse district of the city that has undergone a major revitalization and is now the main entertainment district. I stopped in Brickhouse Burgers for lunch and got an onion burger with bacon and cheese. It was gigantic!

From there, it was a long walk up to the capitol area. It was at this point that I made the decision to do the 13km option and did a 3km loop to see the Governor's mansion and the Oklahoma History Center.

I skipped the tour of the Capitol, planning to come back after the walk was over because my timing was such that I had to keep moving in order to make the last tour at the Overholser Mansion. I had really been looking forward to that, and it didn't disappoint. If you're in Oklahoma City, I highly recommend checking it out. It was built around 1903, had 2 owners (same family) and then was donated to the historical preservation society. All of the furnishings throughout the house are originals. The house is undergoing some renovations on the outside, but the inside is STUNNING. A very friendly couple and I were the only ones on our tour and the tour guide, Lisa, was super sweet and knowledgeable. Seriously, go check it out.

Then my phone battery died - grrrrrr. But I finished up the last half mile of the walk and got my stamps. I could feel the lactic acid coursing through my legs, but my feet didn't hurt!

So at this point, I was tired and needed some downtime. I considered going back to the Capitol, but it was 4:00 and the last tour was scheduled at 3:00. I could have gone and done a self-guided tour, but like I said, I was tired and in need of refreshment. So I decided to skip the Capitol (Austin has one and it's pretty great) and instead, I drove down to Bricktown again. I set up camp at the bar of the Bricktown Brewery, had 2 beers that I loved (similar to St. Arnold's Lawnmower) and a plate of nachos. I relaxed, caught up on facebook and email (I had charged my phone in the car) and refueled. I then made my way down to the Bricktown canal and decided to be a super tourist. I got a ticket for the water taxi and took a nice relaxing ride.

After the ride, I decided to hit the ballpark right next door and take in a little minor league baseball. I knew I was tired, so I knew I likely wouldn't make it through the whole game (I didn't), but I wanted to go for some of it. When I left in the 7th inning, the hometown Redhawks were up 1-0. It was a good game.

So it was a long day. Was out and about for about 13 hours. Tomorrow I drive to Denver, where I get to stay with my friend Michelle. I'm super excited to see her. (I need to find a new word for "super" - I'm sick of hearing myself "say" it.) It'll be a long day of driving. I leave here at 9AM and I'll get to Michelle's place around 6:30, and that includes a 1 hour time change, so it's about 10 and a half hours. Long day. Better get some rest.

Day 1 - Austin to Oklahoma City

My parents were both teachers as I was growing up, so they both had summers off with my brother and I. We utilized this time to do yearly road trips. We would go for about 3 weeks each August. We kept an extensive log of every trip, including details regarding departure, arrival, and stopping information. We always logged the first day of the trip as Day 0 because we didn't do much - it was a purely driving day. But today was a full day for me, definitely not a Day 0. I'm counting yesterday as Day 0. It was the day I moved out. Today was the day I started.

I left Doreen's right on schedule at 9AM, headed north. I went to the Czech Stop in West, TX - good to support the town in even the smallest way possible. I then drove to Burleston, TX, where I planned to hit up 2 wineries. Apparently, I didn't check my spreadsheet, cause I planned to arrive at the first one around 11:45, even though it didn't open until noon. I actually arrived 10 minutes earlier than planned, but the woman was nice enough to invite me in before they opened. She was super nice and showed me around the house that they had converted into the winery. I had never seen anything like that. That was Sunset Winery. I then headed over to Lost Oak Winery, also in Burleston. Everyone that I interacted with all day was super excited about my adventure, especially the ladies at Lost Oak. They were also incredibly impressed with wine journal and amazed that I made it myself. 

After Burleston, I made my way over to Lawton, OK. I planned to do a Volksmarch in Medicine Park. I went to the Days Inn and got the directions for the walk, but, for the life of me, I couldn't find the start point from the directions, and it was raining, and I made a game time decision to not do it. I did drive through Medicine Park and then spent a while driving through the nearby Wildlife Refuge. And from there, I headed up to Oklahoma City. I have a whole house to myself while I'm here, which is really cool.

Tomorrow I'll be checkout out Oklahoma City - I've never been here before, so I'm looking forward to checking out the town. For tonight, I'm totally exhausted and headed to bed soon.

The Threshold

I have described the start of my trip as both a start line and a finish line. So many things had to get accomplished in order to get here. My to-do list was extensive (and categorized, of course). I didn't actually think I'd get it all done. But I knew that no matter what, on May 9 at 9 AM, I'd be leaving. It's the finishing of so many tasks and the starting of a new chapter for me. My dad described it today as a threshold. I find that so descriptive. It's a big change. I don't consider this trip to be a vacation, but a semi-long-term lifestyle change. It is a chapter in my life. I had to close out the previous chapter in order to begin this one.

Somehow, I got it all done. Somehow, every single item on my to-do list is crossed off. I credit my meticulous calendar planning skills. Yesterday was my last day at work. This morning I moved out of my apartment. And now, I'm sitting in my friend's house in Round Rock with a glass of wine in hand, ready to head north in the morning.

I'm at the threshold and I'm ready to cross it. Follow me as I journey.

The final countdown

Well, it's 2 weeks left before I leave. So many things to get done before I go. I feel like my to-do list is never ending. My calendar is booked with every little errand that needs to be run. Stuff for the cats, last minute supplies, dropping stuff off here, dropping stuff off there, finishing packing - it's stressing me out. But I know there's a light at the end of the tunnel. In 2 weeks and 16 hours, I'll be getting in my car and heading north out of Austin to begin my journey. I can't wait for that feeling - that feeling of relief, of anticipation, of excitement, and of a little dread. It's scary. I don't know what awaits me on the journey. As much as I plan, I don't really know what to expect. But I know that it'll be good.

So my move-out schedule is this:
Saturday 5/4 I'm loading up the cats, taking them to the vet, and then taking them to my friend's house. She's going to watch them for me this summer. Getting that figured out was a huge relief.
Tuesday 5/7 is my last day at work (I do plan to come back to my job at the end of the trip). Then I'll go home, finish up the last minute packing stuff, and load up my car.
Wednesday morning, the movers show up around 8:30 and take all my stuff. They're putting it all in their storage, so I don't even need to deal with it on the other end. They'll just pack it into the truck and take it all. Then I'll spend about 4 hours cleaning the apartment and putting the last items into my car. I'll turn in my keys and drive north, where I'll get a car wash and get my hair colored. Then over to do some grocery shopping for sodas and snacks. Wednesday night I'm staying with a friend up in Round Rock. I'm sure we'll drink a glass of wine and just relax.
Then Thursday at 9AM, I load up the car and I'm off.

The first day of my trip is a pretty massive driving day. I'm driving from Austin to Oklahoma City, with a few stops along the way. First stop is the Czech Stop in West, TX, which is the town that was recently devastated with the fertilizer plant explosion. For me, I figure the best way to support them is to actually go and support the businesses in the town. From there, I'll drive another hour north where there are 2 wineries I'd like to check out in Burleson, TX. And from there, I'm doing a bit of a detour to drive out to Medicine Park, OK for my first Volksmarch of the trip and then continue up to Oklahoma City. I expect to arrive in Oklahoma City around 9:30 on Thursday night.

So that's my first day. Many more days after that. Can't wait for the journey to begin!