Coldplay and Colorado !

Ah, what a week it's been! This time last Saturday, I was at a friend's place in Fort Collins for dinner, also meeting their sweet six-month-old boy, who was cheerfully vocal and super active. We chattered away through the softly lit evening about life after moving to the US, cross-country driving, how different Indian communities preserve their culture, cross-generational healing and breaking old generational habits. We mock-debated about whether the printed art on their wall, a scene from Pulp Fiction, depicted John Travolta and Uma Thurman dancing, or arguing. Haha! I learnt a new Kashmiri word - 'Totma' - that evening and had warmed up ras malai for the first time ever and it was soo good! It felt good to have a relaxed evening of just heartfelt conversations. We also talked about the day's exploration me and my cousin sister took on that day - Trail Ridge road through Rocky Mountain National Park, being late for our timed entry to Bear Lake and then planning to see it another day. We'd been told the road was closed due to bad weather but as we drove up we were lucky enough for it to open up and we managed to make the pit stop at Alpine Visitor center for a bite of Elk bratwurst, some souvenir shopping, before turning around. We both picked up a sand painting (each) in the Native American tradition for ourselves. Before leaving the park that day we'd seen four elk up close within about 15 ft for a lovely half hour (until we decided to drive off), down a road that was supposed to take us to Chasm falls but was closed. We talked about the Airbnb we were staying at, how the large windows let in the light at dawn which rendered our alarms useless for the most part, and how despite our host owning eight golden retrievers, two little brown terriers, a cat and a Mustang (her daughter's race-horse), the place was both picturesque and peaceful. We were so into the evening that we absolutely forgot to take a group picture until after we'd said our goodnights! 

Day 2

This was just day 1! The next morning, us cousin sisters continued our deep conversations over a two-hour drive to the bottom of Pike's Peak, from where we had booked a cog railway ride up the mountain. That was a first for me, to ride a train up a mountain and back. The weather was playing spoil sport for visibility but the ride was very relaxing and a great choice over driving up and down the steep slopes, of which we'd heard warnings of the risk of tire overheating. It was quite cold at the top though not as windy as the top of Trail Ridge road the previous day where only a few minutes outside the car at a time were tolerable. We went straight into the visitor center at the top, got ourselves some coffee/hot cocoa and then caught some gorgeous views as the clouds parted right as we boarded the train to descend. We spotted some marmots similar to the day before and chatted with a mother of three young kids on our way down the mountain. Between us sisters, we talked about everything from music, cuisines we like & love, relationships, therapy, our wishlists, fashion tips, fitness and nutrition, oh boy I can't think of a topic we didn't meander into at some point! We walked through a light drizzle at the Garden of the Gods, feeling like we were walking on a Mars landscape, before starting the drive over to another friend's place for dinner that evening. On the way there we saw a huuuge vivid rainbow that totally distracted us with it's splendor, and I missed my exit and had to turn around and drive back across three exits! Generally on this trip I needed my sis to remind me about freeway exits and turns because while I enjoy driving I am too used to Google prompts which were turned off most of this trip. I think overall we made great travel companions, both being a little easy-going and enjoying each moment instead of trying to rush through a crazy itinerary. Dinner at our friend's place was again lovely and we reached our beds with a satisfying exhaustion, promising ourselves to catch up on sleep properly that night. The almost-full strawberry moon was our nightly travel companion.

Day 3

The next day's route map keyed into our apps, we set off over the Peak-to-peak scenic byway, driving first over our favorite section to Estes Park & Lake Estes, then after a quick stop at Lily Lake on to Allenspark village where we decided to stop at a tiny cafe for breakfast. The cafe would only accept cash though, and we thought we were out of all cash until my cousin found a two crumpled notes in a pocket of her bag and we walked back in for our omelettes! I tried a sourdough pancake for the first time that day out of curiousity. A little more chewy than buttermilk pancakes. From there we went on through Nederland to the Flagstaff Mountain Overlook that gave us a lovely view of the city of Boulder, Colorado. We walked around a bit to different viewpoints and enjoyed the spring flowers at the spot. After a quick drive through Boulder we started to head back to Estes Park to visit Bear Lake as we'd booked another Timed entry slot for that evening, hoping to make up for our miss on Day 1. 

And so we saw Bear Lake, Sprague Lake, and Nymph Lake. We found Bear Lake rather unimpressive for the hype (or maybe we came at the wrong time of day!). Sprague Lake and Nymph lake were more enjoyable short hikes for the views. We caught some lazily grazing elk on the way there and back too. The highlight of the day though was on our way back out of the park from Bear lake - a small black bear ran across the road right in front of our car and off into the woods! Right before leaving Rocky Mountain National park we stopped on the roadside to pick some flowers to bring home and preserve, dried and pressed. I now wish I'd also found an orange flower to pick. My favorite flowers from this trip were these large-ish vivid orange flowers with wide soft petals - they stood out as pops of bright color against the greenery from a long distance. Need to find out what kind they are.

Dinner was at a Mexican place in the town of Estes Park. Tried Ceviche for the first time and liked it's citrusy flavors. 

Day 4

We'd spent a good portion of the previous evening picking out a hot spring resort that was not prohibitively far from Denver. We were really psyched to try out a hot spring before leaving Colorado if possible, neither of us having had this experience before. We settled on this place called the Hot Sulphur springs resort, which had natural hot spring water and 10-12 small outdoor pools for soaking and planned the day such that we could get from there to our Coldplay concert venue in under 2 hours. At one of the pools there was a small waterfall pouring over some natural rock. An friendly elderly lady who was there told us a lot about how the hot springs worked. A few minutes later she dropped a healing crystal into the pool by accident and I was able to find it for her which was kind of fun since I tend to enjoy treasure hunts in pools. :) She was very relieved to have it back. Later on my cousin and I also enjoyed the Magnesium spring pool, she said her pulled neck muscle felt rather soothed after time spent in that pool. 

While driving that day we spotted one of the zip-line spots we'd researched a bit before our trip, but had decided against doing since it didn't appear to be a particularly exhilarating route. A quick bite on the way to the concert and then more breathtaking mountain drives, watching slanting lines of a raincloud pouring way in the distance as we made our way back to Denver. To our dismay this same raincloud threatened to disrupt the Coldplay concert we arrived at an hour later! Parking was slightly tricky but managed off-site and we got into the Empower stadium in time. The looming thunderstorm did delay the start of the concert by about 15 mins but then the euphoria kicked in and neither wind nor rain nudged us even an inch off of our seats which were about 15 stories above the stage in a stadium of about 80 thousand people. The energy in the place was incredible. Voices singing and feet stomping to beats in unison, and the visual spectacle of the programmed wristbands to the rhythm of the music was awesome. As it got dark our strawberry moon rose like a spotlight to join in. The weather was lovely for the rest of the evening, good for us to comfortably walk back to our parking lot about half a mile away in our Coldplay souvenir bucket hats and then drive home humming and singing. 

Day 5

Reluctantly we had to accept it was the last day of a very memorable trip. We drove to the Red Rocks amphitheatre the next morning, and half-hiked a beautiful grassy and flowery trail before realizing we had to drive further up the hill to get closer to the entrance, haha! The amphitheatre is simply magnificent - I'd love to go back and attend a concert there sometime. We stopped for lunch at a restaurant in the nearby town called Morrison, and after lunch wandered into a quaint little gift shop which had really unique crafts for home decor. We selected a few things we liked that were within budget and then realized we had to head straight to the airport to get there in time to return our car rental and take the shuttle to the terminal. On the way there, of course I missed an exit but it didn't affect our ETA thankfully. :) 

Pretty sure we're going to be back, probably in the winter to try out skiing, more hot springs, and more mountain views that us Kashmiri girls can't seem to get enough of!