Up in Denver

Twenty plus hours in the Volvo listening to the smooth and steady drone of the straight five as we rolled over the least interesting parts of five states and we were finally inserted into the weekday afternoon Denver interstate gridlock. We spent last night at a little motel somewhere north of Oklahoma City and were back on the road around 6:30 am scanning the countryside of the emerald Starbucks orb. Somewhere in Kansas we spotted a roadside billboard advertising one of them. Just 59 miles ahead! The wife nervously counted down the miles and the landscape outside the window scrolled repetitively past as if it was an old-time cartoon. Somewhere along the way we started seeing signs advertising the world's largest ground hog. I kept trying to get a photo of it, but the best I got was the sign about other animals that were apparently part of the same show. Go figure... Finally, way off in the hazy distance, I could see the skyline of downtown Denver.

So after some intense negotiations involving discrepancies between advertising, reservations and reality, we got into a nice little room at the Residence Inn. With hours left to kill before dark I went out in the car to scout out a place to ride. We're just a mile or two from the Cherry Creek Reservoir, and I knew there was a park with a bike path there, so we took a lap around. It looked like it might suffice for a ride or two so we headed back to the hotel. Still restless, we took a little walk. The area around the hotel is basically an endless string of retail operations interspersed with cozy little clusters of consumers. It reminds me of parts of Dallas. As we're walking back I spot a Performance Bicycle shop directly across the street from the hotel and figure I'll stop in and see if I can get some local intelligence about where to ride. The staff were generally clueless, but one of the customers overhears me and mentions a long bike path along C-470. It sounds pretty good and so we start heading for the door. I had noticed a nice small size Orbea Orca on the roof of a car out front, and just then I see a guy who must be the owner. He turned out to be a font of information and runs out to his car to get a Denver Bicycle Touring Club map that highlights in red every bike path and bike route in the entire metro area. I'm amazed. He insists I keep the map since the bike shop is sold out of them. So anyway I'm thinking I'll head up the Cherry Creek bike path, which I can get to easily from the hotel, and see where it takes me. I should be free all morning tomorrow, so there will be ample time for getting bilssfully lost. I can see the possibility of making a big loop by connecting three of the longer bike paths. We'll see.