COLORADO REVISITED

by John Evicci

In December 2009 I finally went out to visit my friends Rich & Mona in Colorado.  I was supposed to go out there earlier to do some production work on my band's album, but that all went to hell, so I just dragged my ass out there for a friendly visit over my Christmas vacation.

All pictures by me unless otherwise noted.

Thursday, 24 December

Had no problems whatsoever with the flights. I don’t know how that’s possible considering the recent major snowstorm in the midwest had caused hundreds of flights to be cancelled, but despite a short delay in Chicago, I somehow got into Denver 20 minutes ahead of schedule. I was gonna call Rich when I got to the pickup area, but they were already waiting for me. As I ascended the escalator that brings you to the meeting area, the first thing I saw as I scanned the crowd of people there waiting to meet the arrivals was Rich & Mona wearing Jim Lahey-style plastic shopping bag beards and Santa hats. What a welcome! Brilliant! We then drive all the way across Denver to their house in Arvada, a pleasant suburb just northwest of Denver and celery capital of the world! By the time we get there it’s already a bit late so we don’t stay up too long. Just shoot the shit for a bit and get settled in and go to bed. Their house is really nice and the guest room felt like a 5-star hotel to me.

Friday, 25 December

My first full day there was Christmas Day, so most of the day was spent getting ready for Christmas dinner, including harvesting fresh vegetables from their miniature greenhouses out back. After a quick neighborly visit to their neighbors, the guests arrived: Mona’s parents Horst & Gudrun and Rich’s friends Bob & Kym. Dinner was an unusual affair. It reminded me of Korean barbeque. Two grills were placed in the middle of the table and we grilled our own strips of beef, chicken, and swordfish as we wished, in addition to potatoes and vegetables. It was really nice. By the time the deserts were brought out, we were all pretty stuffed, but managed to find room somehow. It was a really, really nice evening and I was grateful to be a part of it.

Saturday, 26 December

The following day we took a drive out to Idaho Springs, just a short drive west into the foothills. There we had lunch and checked out the quaint, charming little town. On the way back we stopped at Red Rocks, the amazing concert amphitheater set amongst some truly mind-blowing rock formations. Mark & I had tried to check this place out when we were there a couple years ago, but couldn’t because they were setting up for a concert that night or something. The place is very impressive and I can just imagine how amazing it would be to see a concert there on a clear summer night. I’m told the surrounding rock formations provide really good acoustics as well.

Our final stop for the day was a visit to Applejack Liquors in Denver to find some new and exciting forms of liquor. This place is a veritable liquor supermarket. I’ve never seen so much liquor in one place in my entire life. It was staggering. Still, despite the jaw-dropping plenteousness, they didn’t have what we were hoping to find there: Brennivín. I was also disappointed they didn’t have Tyrkisk Peber, possibly the most exciting liquor ever. They did, however, have some Danish Akvavit, which is a pretty close approximation of Brennivín, so we got that. Back home we nearly finished off the bottle watching the brand new Trailer Park Boys movie Countdown To Liquor Day. A more perfect evening I am hard-pressed to conjure.

Idaho Springs

Lunch in Idaho Springs

Red Rocks

Awesome sunset on the way back

The mother of all liquor stores

Sunday, 27 December

My third day there we drove northwest to Rocky Mountain National Park to do some light snowshoeing in the little time we had before it got dark. It was really nice and the winding roads through Roosevelt National Forest were gorgeous. On the way back we stopped for dinner in Boulder and checked out a cool record store that is, sadly, closing next month. That night we went back and watched Shaun Of The Dead and some of 12 Monkeys before calling it a night.

Snowshoeing

Even the parking lot is impressive

Views on the way back

Monday, 28 December

The next day we headed south to the one place I really wanted to check out: Garden Of The Gods. I had seen pictures of this and it looked amazing. Similar to Red Rocks, but more monumental and impressive. First, however, we stopped for lunch in Manitou Springs, then took a sweep through some old mining/ghost towns such as Cripple Creek, Victor, and Goldfield. I was amazed at the almost-farcical old-timey look of Cripple Creek. It’s exactly what you’d expect an old Colorado mining town to look like. There’s still considerable mining going on in the region, especially now that the value of gold has experienced such a surge. Unfortunately by the time we got back to Garden Of The Gods, the light was fading fast and the temperature plummeting so I didn’t get to spend as much time there as I would’ve liked, but it was truly an awesome site.

Manitou Springs	A nice view between Divide and Cripple Creek	Victor
Goldfield	The Balancing Rock at Garden Of The Gods	More Garden Of The Gods

Before heading back home we stopped off at the Skylark Lounge and had a few drinks with Bob & Kym, then ate dinner at the wonderful P.F. Chang’s, made popular (and unfairly besmirched, in my opinion, as the food was fucking unbelievable) by the classic South Park episode More Crap. Inspired, we went home and watched some key South Park episodes that reference Colorado establishments: Butters’ Very Own Episode (Bennigans), Casa Bonita (more on that later), and of course, the aforementioned More Crap.

Tuesday, 29 December

My final full day was a full day indeed. We got up early and drove up to Chautauqua Park, at the base of the Flatirons just outside of Boulder, and hiked up to this rock formation called the Royal Arch. It was only a little over 1200 feet in overall elevation gain, but was rather challenging due to all the hard-packed snow filling in much of the footholds, making many portions of the trail really slippery. The effort was worth it, though, as the Royal Arch was an impressive formation and the views of the expanses to east and the Flatirons were truly remarkable. Rich & I hiked back down and walked to a coffee shop in Boulder where we met Mona, who had spent the day doing research at the town library.

On the way up to the Royal Arch

The Royal Arch

Coming back down

After warming our bones there for a bit, we headed back to Arvada to pick up Bob to have dinner at the infamous Casa Bonita. There had been much talk about this leading up to the trip, and indeed, the whole trip somewhat revolved around it. I, of course, was long-familiar with it through the South Park episode and was looking forward to seeing it for myself. They tried to prepare me for the physical and gastronomical onslaught that is Casa Bonita, but either they underplayed it, or I thought they were exaggerating. Either way, the actual experience left me disoriented and overwhelmed.

Casa Bonita is, I guess technically a restaurant, but in reality, it’s so much more...and less. It’s like an ADHD-riddled child’s dream. The relatively-dignified and classy-looking exterior belies the chaotic madness within. My first shock was that the line was out the door. When we finally got inside, we were split into two lines and herded like cattle through a winding corridor bedecked in various forms of Mexican-related facades and accoutrements. At intermittent points along this process we had our orders taken, issued a form which we handed to someone who entered it into the system, then picked up our food, cafeteria-style, which issued forth in a glut of plates from a hidden kitchen. This all before we’ve even entered the establishment proper.

With bulky trays in hand, we’re led by a waiter into the main area. It’s darker than I expected and abound in fake palm trees covered in Christmas lights. We’re seated behind the waterfall at a table recessed in a damp imitation cave. A hole in the wall gives us a limited view through the waterfall into the main area. The unpleasant smell of chlorine lingers just outside our little cavity. We order a pitcher of beer and begin eating.

The rest of the group ordered taco salads to be on the safe side. I, however, wanted the full experience, so I ordered the #3, which possibly should have been called #2: beef taco, cheese enchilada, beef enchilada, refried beans, and Mexican rice. It also featured a half taco shell sitting in a pool of a runny Cheez Whiz-like substance and god-knows-what-else. OK, they warned me the food was bad. However, I was in fact expecting the food to be somewhat passable due to the fact that my standards are pretty damn low. Not as low as I thought, it would seem, as some of this stuff was absolutely awful. I had to go to the bathroom even before finishing my beer. Probably coincidence...

Of course, no one goes there for the food (at least I hope not). The place is a virtual theme park in miniature. There’s a waterfall with cliff divers, a wandering mariachi band, “actors” portraying gunfights, people in gorilla suits, dancing monkeys (that’s Mexican?), and no doubt more crap that I can’t think of. If all this isn’t enough for your young’un, there’s a video arcade with skee ball, etc., a haunted cave to wander through, one of those photo-op jails. There were also a bunch of other things that weren’t going on at the time we were there such as magicians, a puppet theater... Just when you think there can’t be anything else crammed into this place, you turn a corner and, BAM!, a whole bunch of other crap. It was truly an experience and the perfect cap on the end of my trip. I never want to set foot in there again, though.

Casa Bonita!!

The view from our table looking through the waterfall

Mona & Rich basking in the absurdity

Miscellaneous shots of the main area

Mona, Rich, and Bob watching the entertainment

My flight home the next day was at the ungodly hour of 6:15, so we had to get up at like 4:00 and couldn’t really have a proper final night (i.e. get drunk as fuck). So, I just packed up my shit and said goodbye to Mona before going to bed. Wouldn’t you know I’d have trouble sleeping the one night I have to get up so early the next morning, but I got up, as did Rich, and he got me to the airport on time. Overall it was a good trip and it was great to see and hang out with Rich and Mona again. They were excellent hosts and really went out of their way to show me a good time. Thanks guys! I hope to come out again sometime.

FIN