Not much motorcycle on Friday. It was a day for some sight seeing and visiting friends. I woke up after a GREAT night's sleep. It was the first really restful night that I'd had on the journey since the Super 8 hotel on Tuesday night. The guest bed at uncle Dick's is really comfortable and I'm someplace where I feel that I can relax and let my guard down a little. Travelling alone is great but I feel like I'm always "on alert." Here in Lafayette I'm with family, my bike is in a garage and there aren't a bunch of strangers staying in the same building with me.
Uncle Dick and I got a jump on things early today. We had breakfast of bagels and coffee and then were out the door at 8:30. He first took me to see the Red Rocks Amphitheater. That has to be without a doubt the most gorgeous outdoor musical venue ever. We walked around for a bit and took some pictures. Then we went into the visitors center which is essentially a little museum dedicated to the venue. It outlines the history, how it was constructed, the geological features, and how it came to be. There are also plaques which enumerate every artist who has played there since it's opening. It's interesting to see the ebb and flow of the number of acts and the vast variety of artists that have been there. After visiting Red Rocks, we went across the road to see the dinosaur tracks that are preserved in the side of the mountain. Unfortunately the road was closed to vehicles and it was a steep enough climb that I did not feel up to walking it. They had an exhibit in the museum which had molds of the tracks and I figured that was a reasonable facsimile so I'd save my energy for what was to come.
We next went to the LoDo (Lower Downtown) section of Denver. There, we got tickets to take a tour of Coors Field, home of the National League's Colorado Rockies. Coors Field was constructed in 1995 and is the fourth oldest ballpark in the National League. I found that statistic amazing. I didn't realize that many ball parks had been constructed within the last decade, but after I thought about it, it made sense. One of the interesting features of the park is the row of purple seats that are in the upper deck. All of the other seats in the ballpark are green except for one row. The purple row is (within inches) one mile above sea level. I thought that was a really cool way for them to depict that. Another stat that I found interesting is that no ball has ever been hit out of the ballpark in fair territory during a regulation game. (Two balls have been fouled out of the park) For as much complaining as everyone does about how the ball carries at Coors Field I found it amazing that there hasn't been one that has left the yard. The Coors Field tour starts on the fourth level and works it's way down to the field level and finally ends up on the field. You are allowed to walk around on the warning track and in the dugouts, but not on the actual grass. This is pretty standard for all tours of major league ballparks. We took some photos and then we went back to uncle Dick's house for some lunch.
After lunch I laid down and took a quick catnap before I headed to Ft. Collins to meet my friend Bill for dinner. Ft. Collins is about an hour from Lafayette and I had planned on leaving at 3:30 allowing myself some time for wiggle room if I got lost. I overslept a little and didn't actually get on the road until 4:00, had to gear up and get gas thusly didn't get to FoCo until 5:45. Bill is recording Rise Against's new album at the Blasting Room studio and they had taken a break at around 5:00. When I got there Bill and I debated for a few minutes about the type of food we'd eat and ended up choosing Chinese. We went to a restaurant called Tiger Lily which is a few blocks away from the studio. Bill's family swung by the restaurant for a little bit. It was a pleasant visit with Stacie, Maddie, and Miles. Miles recently took up skateboarding and was regaling me with his feats on the stuntwood. Stacie had taken some videos of him at the Ft. Collins skate park and he was eager to share them with me. The kids had some teenage shenanigan type commitments to attend to so they left after a short while. Zach, Brandon, Tim, and Joe joined Bill and me to break bread. We had a good meal and a nice visit (other than the appetizer mix up that was full of shrimp and some kind of wacky sausage because they were supposed to be vegetarian). Zach and I are acquainted from his days in Hagfish and Armstrong. He and his brother Doni had stayed at our house a few times when they were on tour and it was nice to be able to catch up with him. It was a pleasure to meet Brandon, Tim, and Joe as well. They're a terrific group of guys and fun to hang out with.
After eating we went back to the studio and Bill gave me the tour, showed me the two studios and the mixing room. He also showed me how the different instruments were mixed. It's a fascinating and complex art form and Bill is fantastic at it. After hanging out at the studio for a bit I followed Bill back to his house and we hung out there for a while. We'd both had long days so we called it a night around midnight.
My ride back to Lafayette was uneventful except for missing the turn to Uncle Dick's house and going about 10 miles out of my way. I had gotten a little cocky about my navigational steeze and not turned on my GPS. The problem was thatI hadn't seen the area at night before so I rode right past the intersection I needed.
