Road Trip Day 2: Lincoln to Denver

Friday morning I awoke in my hotel room in Lincoln, Nebraska, the furthest west I had ever traveled. When I checked out the clerk tried to charge me for an extra night’s pet fee because my dog “has a lot of fur”, but when I pointed out the extra charge he removed it. I’m certain he had already jacked up the room price $10 per night from what he told me when I checked in (which was already $15 more than the sign outside said the rooms were), but I couldn’t find the sheet of paper with the rates on it from check-in, so I was forced to cough up nearly twice what I had expected to pay when I first walked into the hotel. If you’re ever in Lincoln, don’t get ripped off by the Microtel Inn there.  Excited to get to Denver and foolishly unaware of my budgetary constraints, I put the situation behind me and headed out Interstate 80 across Nebraska.

I didn’t find Nebraska too challenging of a drive. The scenery wasn’t much, but I was excited about Colorado and passed some of the time talking to my dad on the phone. He drives a semi truck for a living and had plenty of advice about which routes I should take and what scenery to look out for. Nevertheless, I was thrilled to see the eternally flat Nebraska turn into low hills in Colorado.  Soon I got bored with the low hills and was ready to see some mountains. True to my prediction, the first glimpse I caught of the Rocky Mountains brought tears to my eyes. I had to use a little cleverness to get to my hotel without paying tolls, but I managed it. It was still fairly early, so I headed downtown to see Mile High Stadium, which to be honest, was half the reason I drove 200 miles out of my way to Denver instead of continuing along I80. Attending a Broncos game at Mile High is on my bucket list, but seeing the outside of the stadium is as close as I’ll be able to get for a while. After walking the perimeter and taking pictures, I stopped in the shop and bought a Broncos t-shirt.

I had planned to visit the 16^th Street Mall (it’s a pedestrian mall and big attraction in Denver) while I was downtown, but I couldn’t find a place to park and driving downtown was stressing me out, so I went back to the hotel. The sun was setting as I neared my hotel on the outskirts of Denver, near the airport. I drove down a back road and got out of my car to snap a few pictures of it.

I loved the sunset and the mountains in the distance, but I was disappointed in Denver. I don’t know what I expected it to look like exactly, but I thought it would be unique, that it would sweep me off my feet and I would never want to leave. It was a city not unlike Indianapolis, just with a better horizon.