The room we were in was pitch black at night. When we woke up in the morning there was a little window that was shut and shaded making me figure it was about 7am or so. It was 11:10. Shocked at how late we slept in, and feeling anxious to get back on the road and make our way out of the Denver area, we started packing up. Bob made us some coffee and we hung out a bit before shoving off again at about 1pm.
It was another dive back out into the suburbs, and looking at the map it was going to be quite a plunge to swim our way out of all the stripmalls and country clubs so we could camp in open air. Angie has only been camping twice in her life, and the two times the tent has been set up since we bought it I had done it, so she was anxious to be able to put it up tonight.
Pretty much we went straight north, zagging west only twice on our way out. When we hit 120th St. it was all stripmalls loaded with Applebee’s, Taco Bell, and other such places. We weren’t really into that and kept insisting we’d find more down the road as it seemed to go on into eternity. As soon as we decided this it came to a staggering halt of mechanic shop after mechanic shop as is always the demise of a proper strip mall. Thinking we’d pushed our luck too far we finally spotted a little biker bar at the very end of the strip called Riley’s.
Coming in to the place there was only the bartender and us. We chatted a bit then ordered some cheeseburgers and Cokes for breakfast. Soon after another guy came in, Gary, who got to talking with us as well. We handed out our cards and went over some stories from the trip then dug into our meal filling out sweepstakes as we went. Angie is a firm believer in sweepstakes, scratch cards, and slot machine money. It proved well for us while in Denver so I figured it’s a good shot here as well. The sweepstakes was to win $25,000 from Dave and Busters for the perfect recess.
Anyway, so I wrote a postcard as well to my old shop in NYC then relaxed as we chatted with some of the other folks that had filed in. Finally around 4:30 we shuffled off and headed north again on US-287.
Finally we’d wandered into the out country of Denver and were now passing open fields on one side and Edward Scissorhands suburbs on the other. We figured we had it made as 7 started around coming into Lafayette as horses grazed in the pastures south of town and then stripmalls popped up again. I began to get slightly nervous. Angie’s feet were beginning to die and my bones were aching unused to carrying the pack in so long. We stopped in at a gas station and refilled our water as well as got some coffee asking what lay up ahead for us. Apparently a mixture of trees, open grasslands, and housing settlements. That didn’t help.
The sun was touching the mountains when we set off again through the town. Roller bladders were out carrying their dogs, cyclists were getting in their evening run, and walkers were sucking down ice cream. We simply picked up our step and kept our eyes sharp for a good camp spot. The horizon looked continually bleak.
Finally we spotted a tree line past a field and figured it was our best hope. We made our way over and crossed the field to find a ditch within the tree line and started thinking we were sunk. Then I looked at it and remembered the tents not near as wide as old blue and the ditch I’d camped out in back in Missouri by the train tracks was about as wide. I laid out the tarp and rolled on it checking for rocks or twigs and it seemed fine. Angie, with great joy, set up the tent and hidden away from our outlying suburbs we slept, passed out from exhaustion.
