Denver Part 3

Castlewood Canyon State Park

On Monday morning I hiked the 6.5 mile figure eight loop through Castlewood Canyon State Park. It was a pretty location, and it had varied elevation throughout which I really liked, instead of the straight up and straight down that the last several hikes had been. The canyon has the remains of a dam that failed in the early 1930s that released enough water to flood downtown Denver, approximately 30 miles away:

Red Rocks - Joe Bonamassa

On Monday night my aunt and I went to see Joe Bonamassa at Red Rocks:

This was a much better concert experience than last week, mostly because it was only about two-thirds full when the concert started instead of oversold, plus we had reserved seats this time. Even though Joe Bonamassa isn’t an artist that I had listened to regularly before looking at the Red Rocks concerts, it was still a really cool place to see a concert.

Coors Field

Tuesday I spent the day planning a few more stops towards the end of my trip. Since I will have to be home by the end of October to have the slide on my trailer fixed within the one year warranty period, I now have a deadline to be home, so I know I only have a few more weeks to plan out. Tuesday night I went back to my aunt and uncle’s for one last dinner.

Wednesday night my uncle and I went to the Cardinals-Rockies game at Coors Field: Cardinals fans traveled really well and probably made up close to 50% of the crowd, which helped make it was a pretty great environment, especially compared to most weeknight (or even weekend) Reds games I’ve been to.

Travel Day - Carbondale, CO

Thursday was finally time for me to leave the Denver area - two weeks in one place felt like forever compared to all the hopping around I had been doing, but it was great to spend so much time with family! Thursday morning I made the 3.5 hour, 182 mile drive to Carbondale, Colorado. The layout of sites at this campground is kinda weird, but I do have a nice view of a mountain (Mt. Sopris I think) from the entertainment area of my campsite:

Aspen

The reason I chose Carbondale to stop at was because it was a reasonable drive in to Aspen. I had a couple hikes planned, but I guess I slept wrong Thursday night and woke up Friday morning with a sore neck, so decided to skip them and just headed in to Aspen to check it out. I know the area is famous for skiing, so I wasn’t sure how busy it would be in the summer, but turns out it is busy this time of year too. It was a nice small town where you could park in one place and easily walk the whole thing pretty quickly, or spend a day checking out all the art studios, museums, shops, or bar hopping. I did try a few beers at the Aspen Brewing company, but at $6/hour for street parking I decided to not stay for too long.