Date: Fri, 11 May 2007 10:54:53 -0400
Reply-To: Bill Glenn <idahobill@GMAIL.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Bill Glenn <idahobill@GMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: NVC - Denver Co, Info - Trip Planned - What to see
On Sun, 6 May 2007 01:01:53 +0000, David Wilhite <dlwilhite@COMCAST.NET>
wrote:
>All,
>
>I will be taking my 4th grade daughter to a Future Problem solving
conference @ Colorado State University in Ft. Collins at the end of the
month. I plan on renting a car after arriving at Denver by plane, and
since we have most all of Wednesday and most of Thursday morning available,
I was wondering what is worth seeing in the time available.
>
>I've got a wild hair to drive over towards Moab Wednesday and see what we
can and either start heading back, or stay the night in the area. We don't
have to be at the college until around 5:00 on Thursday. I may be nuts,
since it does seem to be a bit of a ride to do this, but who knows if we'll
ever head that way again.
>
> My daugther has never been there and I lived in Colorado Springs as a
young child for only 6 months, so I really don't remember much more than
seeing snow in the mountains during the summer.
>
>If you have any thoughts or suggestions please pmail me.
>
>Thanks,
>
>David Wilhite
>84' Westy
>Middle TN
David,
It's been a long time since I was in fourth grade, and times do change, but
I can't imagine a fourth grader enjoying what you propose: a
minimum of seven hundred miles in a day and a half, and that's just the
round trip from Denver to Moab without any time or distance alloted to
actually visit some of the more-accessible, notable sites. If you had the
whole day and a half to tour just the vicinity of Moab, you still would
barely scratch the surface, and you would spend too much time in the car
driving from place to place. You don't have the time to go to Moab.
What you do have is a small window of time with a daughter who is growing
through childhood and is now becoming a "little person", but not yet old
enough to be pushing you away in favor of spending time with her friends;
that will happen soon enough. With the benefit of hindsight, if I were in
your shoes, I would focus on just being with your daughter, one on one;
what you do is not all that important, but I should try to formulate travel
plans from the perspective of a nine-year-old.
Take advantage of being in Colorado by getting up into the mountains, and
do some things your daughter would enjoy. I don't presume to tell you what
to do; maybe the two of you would enjoy riding the replica steam train from
Georgetown to Silver Plume, or drive over Berthoud Pass for the view,
stopping on top to have a snowball fight in Summer (though you will be a
bit early for Summer at 12,000 feet.
Maybe soak in a hot springs; experiencing thousands of gallons of hot water
endlessly issuing from the earth is rather special, possibly more so for a
nine-year-old experiencing it for the first time. The hot springs having
the most-immediate access from Denver would be in Idaho Springs (a bit old
and funky), and Hot Sulphur Springs (renovated over the past ten years and
recently sold). Visiting the latter would put you in position to enter
Rocky Mountain National Park from the west side at Grand Lake. The end of
May is rather early for the high elevations of the park, as much of it will
still be under cover of snow, and the wild flowers will be evident only at
the lower elevations. In traversing the park from west to east, you will
exit at Estes Park, which is not too far from your final destination, Fort
Collins.
P-mail me if you would like more-specific ideas/information/directions.
Bill
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