Unfortunately I didn’t have a chance to blog this morning before we headed out so I am being forced to regurgitate two days of the trip instead of one. This will be more interesting since I just ingested my first ever 10mg THC red gummy fish, although from our research it could be up to two hours until it kicks in.
So the drive from Kansas City to Colorado Springs was long. We got on the road around 7:15 and didn’t get here until close to 5. The drive didn’t have a ton of highlights other than a random stop in a town named Quinter in Kansas. From the highway we say that Quinter supposedly had an old style soda fountain. That sounded cool to us and since we didn’t have lunch yet we thought it would be fun.
Quinter was a ridiculously small town literally in the middle of nowhere. As we pulled onto Main Street I could count the amount of cars parked on one hand. We parked in what was marked as the hardware store parking lot. We walked down the sidewalk to the front of the soda fountain shop next door.
Well once we walked on we saw what looked like pharmacy shelves to our left. WTF? Well when we talked to one of the two employees that were there we were told this building had three things in it that didn’t seem to really go together, a pharmacy, a hardware store and a soda fountain. Funny.
The bar of the soda fountain was incredible. It was from the early 1900’s. The business owner bought it on EBAY and had it brought in, wow. The women told us how the building has been many things over the years including a car dealership, a movie theater and a big warehouse. I think it’s current configuration is the coolest.
Now unfortunately the food menu was rather slim if you are a pescatarian. Cindy and I both ordered side salads with a side of macaroni salad. It was not the most nutritious lunch but it tasted good and handled our hunger. Now of course we had to have some sort of ice cream treat while we were there. I opted for a delicious old style chocolate milk shake and Cindy had something called a Blondie. Both of us enjoyed our respective treats a lot.
I had forgot a nut I need for the GoPro rig on my Phantom. I figured I was going to have to track down a Best Buy or someplace like that which sold GoPro accessories. Well instead I was able to buy a small nut and lockwasher at the hardware part of the place for exactly 14 cents. Sweet. Both Cindy and I enjoyed just hanging out and talking with the two ladies that were working all three sections of the business. The lifestyle in Quinter Kansas is just so different and slow paced it felt like I stepped into a time machine that instantly shot me back to 1965. I appreciated and in some ways was envious of the simple life these people choose to lead.
When we pulled into Colorado Springs we were checked in by a guy that simply seemed perturbed that he was a desk clerk at a hotel. He made no effort to make us feel welcome, a skill that most people in his position are instructed to do. Luckily our check in was possibly the shortest in history. In the span of 90 seconds we were in and out of the lobby. Maybe the guy ran out of weed.
Our room was acceptable based on what I paid for it. I am always nervous when we stay in a room with exterior facing doors. The room was clean enough. The biggest complaints I have are the neck high shower head with hot and cold water controls that require the precision of a safecracker to get dialed in to a temperature that is not too hot or cold. The toilet may be the weakest flushing unit I have ever seen. You have to flush it twice just to get pee to go down.
On Tuesday night we were looking at various food options. We stumbled across a place called Trinity Brewing Company. Cindy saw online that they had a pretty big vegetarian menu and it was close by. The place also brewed their own beer which was cool.
Cindy and I sat down at the bar and we were greeted by a young guy bartender that immediately gave us a good vibe about the place. Cindy sampled a few beers before ordering herself a Pale Ale. I went with some dark pumpkin beer with a very high alcohol content. I typically hate dark beers but this particular variety actually went down pretty smoothly.
For our meal Cindy had a quinoa burger that she said was fantastic and I had some crab cakes that I really enjoyed as well. I also had two additional beers, by the end of which I was feeling quite, happy. We wound up the meal by splitting some raspberry cheesecake which was good as well.
While we were sitting there we asked one of the female bartenders advice on where to go if we wanted to try some of the marijuana edible products that are now legal in Colorado. She advised us to check out a place called Maggie Farms. She said that despite marijuana being legalized for recreational use, certain areas have actually continued to restrict the recreational use of it. Colorado Springs just got on board a few months ago, the place we were directed to only opened up in July. Cindy and I figured we would check it out sometime on Wednesday.
We received some bad news, the Manitou Incline, which was supposed to be the athletic accomplishment for this trip has been shut down since mid-August and will continue to be shut down until December for repairs. I had no idea just how popular this climb has become. I saw on the news that in the span of roughly a year there have over 200,000 people that have made the climb, HOLY SHIT. Well evidently all of these feet combined with some severe flooding has really screwed up certain sections of the climb. The closure is to allow them to make a number of improvements which will make the incline safer long term, good news for others, not so good for us. Oh well.
So we woke up this morning from our 3rd consecutive night of poor sleep. I fall asleep easily enough but later I start waking up time and again which leaves me just feeling like shit. That feeling was amplified by those three pumpkin beers. I was tired, had a headache and felt horribly dehydrated.
Cindy and I hit the free continental breakfast. Luckily, Mr Pissed in my Cheerios was no longer behind the desk, replaced by two staff that had a better disposition. After breakfast we folded the laundry we started and then headed out. The weather was overcast, rainy and cool. We decided it would be best to start our day with an indoor activity. We chose to head over to the US Olympic Training Center, I saw in a brochure that they offered tours to the public, sweet.
As we pulled into the center we had to wait several minutes while a tour bus of old people very slowly unloaded. Well since they only do the tours once an hour that meant that we would be stuck in this group. The guy that was running the tour warned us ahead of time that we would be stuck with the old people and was nice enough to tell Cindy and I to stop back at the desk afterward and he would give us some free totes for hanging in there.
The tour was cool. It was interesting seeing the training facilities our athletes prepare in. The coolest parts of the tour were when we watched a few gymnasts go through practice and a few dozen swimmers doing their training in the 1 million gallon Olympic indoor training pool.
I picked up a cool souvenir while I was there, a USA Curling Team shirt. I have some sort of weird fascination with the “sport”.
The weather had improved so we decided we would head into Manitou to do our hiking/sight seeing, but before there we had a pit stop to make at Maggie’s Farms. The second we pulled into the parking lot we were directed to another further away lot, they said there were no spots in the main lot even though I am pretty sure I saw a couple. They had a rent a cop directing us up to the upper lot and when we parked up there, another rent a cop was watching the lot. There was a sign posted in that lot saying it was illegal to actual consume marijuana products on the premises.
Going into the trip I had what turns out to be a very big misconception about how available recreational marijuana products were going to be. I thought you could practically walk into any store and pick some up. Wow, was I wrong. We stepped in the door of what looked to be an old store and are greeted by yet another rent a cop. He hands a pull tag with a number on it like we were walking into a deli. We are told to have a seat until we are called. There is another hallway to our right behind a door with a line of chairs along the wall that are filled with more people, weird.
As we sat there we got a handle on the process. You get called up to the desk in the main waiting room. You are then asked for your id, there are different rules if you are from Colorado versus somewhere else. If you live here you are limited to a total of one ounce of product per person per day. If you are an out of stater the limit is much stricter, only 1/4 ounce per person per day. I also found it interesting it was an all cash business, no credit cards allowed. Damn they must be rolling in cash, no pun intended.
So once we showed our id’s we were directed into the narrow hallway. There were maybe 25 people in there, all on chairs. Ever minute or two a guy who totally looked like he should work at a marijuana shop, would poke his head out the door and tell the next person to come in. Each time a person was called in the rest of the people would all shift their rear ends down one chair at a time, it was pretty funny.
To me it was an odd feeling sitting there. I almost felt dirty. I didn’t really look around at the other people much, I just felt a bit weird being there. Finally after waiting at least 30 minutes we got inside the magic door. We were again asked for our ids and again told of the restrictions on out of staters. We explained that neither of us were marijuana users and we were just interested in trying out a couple of edible products. Our clerk was very consultative, explaining our options and stressing the importance of using small doses since we aren’t sure how sensitive we will be to it.
Cindy and I hoped they would have pot brownies or cookies there but they didn’t, perhaps because they are too perishable. Instead our options were various THC infused candies and granola products. We decided to get 10 – 10 milligram red gummy fish and one 100 milligram granola bar. That added up to the 1/4 ounce allowed for one person. We could have doubled up our order but figured we should just try it out and see how it goes. Plus, this stuff was damn expensive, $68 cash.
We were directed around a corner where a woman fulfilled our order like a pharmacist at CVS. She told us to keep the bag sealed and stapled shut until we were at someplace “safe”. Cindy and I walked out with our score, unsure of how it will affect us. We found a hole in the wall pizza/sandwich shop to eat lunch at. We split a small pizza which was pretty good.
We then hit the Manitou Cliff Dwellings, something Cindy had found online that she thought looked interesting. It’s very old caves that were crafted by indians some 700 years ago. The pictures looked cool and seeing them in person was kind of cool too. The main problem I had with it is there isn’t much to see. You can see everything in 15 minutes if you are going slow, not really worth the $10 a head admission price if you ask me. We spent longer in the gift shop tahn we did in the caves.
We had decided that since we couldn’t hike the Manitou Incline that we would instead hike some of the Barr Trail which eventually leads up to Pike’s Peak. We figured it would be a good compromise. We certainly were not prepared for any huge hike, we had a couple bottles of water and Cindy brought her rain coat. The temp in the 60’s with mostly overcast skies were pretty great for hiking.
When we got started Cindy was struggling more than I expected. The high altitude, we were starting at 6700 feet, was making it hard for her to breathe. The trail itself was nicely maintained and easy to follow. It was also quite challenging, rated as “difficult” in the rating guide I saw earlier. I thought that if Cindy and I would have done the Manitou Incline it would have taken us maybe an hour to trek the .8 mile, 2000 foot trail. I applied that to our Barr Trail hike, figuring we would hike upward for that same hour and see where it gets us.
The one hour of hiking time got us to 8000 feet of elevation and 2 miles into the 12.1 mile trail. It was plenty far for both of us, it was some pretty strenuous climbing, especially since neither Cindy or I are at a high level with our cardio endurance right now.
The hike was beautiful with plentiful views of the glory of nature all around us. I commented to Cindy that it felt like we had been on our trip for much longer than 4 days. We have already seen and done so many things. The good news is there is much more to come.
We made it back to the parking lot after a little more than two hours on the mountainside. Before we left I put my Phantom up in the air for two unique aerial video sessions. It was a bit windy but nothing I couldn’t control. I look forward to getting the footage online.
After the hike we decided to walk around down in Manitou Springs. We stopped in a number of unique shops and then had dinner at a cool little place on a corner. The corner also apparently is a big hang out spot for young kids that seem to be avid drug users. Watching them out the window was better than most reality tv.
When we got back to the room, as I mentioned, we tried the red gummy THC fish, each doing one fish per person as advised. 20 minutes later we decided to do another half a fish each since we didn’t feel anything. At this point we crossed the two hour mark and neither of us feel any serious effects from the stuff. We are both tired but that is more from our poor sleep I am sure. For about 30 seconds I had a weird sensation float through my brain that went as quickly as it came. Cindy said she has had a few weird feelings in her chest almost like palpitations but other than that she is just tired too.
Maybe tomorrow we need to up our intake.
We pulled out of Colorado Springs pretty early so we could get to Durango at a reasonable time. The 315 miles we had to travel was by far our shortest driving day in the trip but it took awhile. The reason is the terrain we were covering was very mountainous. We noticed the Prius sounded like it was really struggling towards the top of a series of inclines. I already knew from previous road trips that vehicles that spend most of their lives at sea level do very poorly when forced to suck in the thinner air at elevation.
Tomorrow will be all about the train ride. I am a little worried that the novelty of riding on an old fashioned train will wear off after a total of 5-6 hours on board.
