This wasn’t my first cave, but this stalactite was possibly the longest I’ve ever seen.
I had to kill a few hours in the morning puttering around free areas while waiting for other Colorado Springs businesses to open. Eventually I made my way west through the Rockies, up the side of a mountain, then down inside it.
Crawfish beignets: in which New Orleans cuisine achieves its ultimate form.
For this year’s scenic tour of the American South, even if everything else went wrong or turned out boring, we kept our hopes high that the cooking would prove to delight our senses and heap shame upon our own meager kitchen skills. On Day Four we found two restaurants — one a fine-dining restaurant, the other an open-air market booth — that delivered the goods and won the week.
The title sounds like some sad attempt at a pun, but it’s technically not. Not on my part, anyway. Pictured above is America the Beautiful Park, one of the more scenic public spaces I found in Colorado Springs. Even without the Rocky Mountains backing it up, the park has a few classy touches of its own, which you can appreciate if you can first find the park.
This garage door used as a desperate message board is one of several Hurricane Katrina fragments on exhibit at the Presbytere.
The Louisiana State Museum is no single building, but rather a statewide aegis for several full-size museums and a few structures of historical significance. Over half are in New Orleans; one of those, the Old U.S. Mint, sits near the north end of the French Market. After lunch on Day Four we sped through three such locations bordering Jackson Square — two on either side of St. Louis Cathedral, the third nestled in one of the quaint strip malls, cleverly disguised as one of many gift shops.
Last call for Rocky Mountain National Park photos!
Eventually we had to leave Rocky Mountain National Park, and so we did. On our way out, we saw animals, picked up supplies, drove till after nightfall, and found a few things besides mountains to photograph. But mostly we wanted to hang on to the mountains for as long as we could.
Right this way for some natural bystanders and one (1) random football stadium!
This glass-hawking gator in a fedora thinks you need to drink more. What could possibly go wrong?
The French Market strives to attract your attention for all your New Orleans souvenir needs, but French Quarter shopping and culture don’t end there. Across the street, around the block, art and commerce dot the sidewalks and lure in tourists starved for a change of pace from their milder, blander hometowns.
Right this way for hot sauce, snacks, voodoo, and another gator!
Last Saturday, November 21st, Indiana got its first snowfall of the 2015-2016 winter season, a month ahead of its official kickoff. Three weeks earlier, I drove my wife up the side of a Colorado mountain just so she could throw a snowball.
Right this way for teaser photos of precipitation coming soon!
The French Market may seem empty around 10 a.m., but the calm and the extra personal space don’t last.
Day Four was spent walking here, there, everywhere around the French Quarter — gawking at random sights, browsing festive shops, learning history from museums, weaving through crowds, and trying our best to withstand the 90-degree heat that kept hammering at us all along the way. Fortunately a few places offered respite from melting.
As we promised last time: MOUNTAINS. We saw some.
Welcome back to Rocky Mountain National Park in beautiful Estes Park, Colorado.
Right this way for mountains! And clouds! And mountains with clouds on them!
Soon as you enter the nave of St. Louis Cathedral, on one side of you Joan of Arc is risen above.
Our first indoor stop on Day Four that wasn’t a restaurant was the grand St. Louis Cathedral, centerpiece of New Orleans’ Jackson Square and one of the oldest cathedrals in America. The outside id distinct in its own right, but the interior decorations and designs were impressive in their own right, even the parts identical to what you see in other, newer, more modest churches. There’s something about such a venerable structure that elevates even the most mundane details toward a greater spiritual presence.
I sure hope y’all like mountains because we took roughly six million photos of the Rockies on this trip.
On Sunday we landed in Denver shortly after 9:30 their time. Our Colorado Springs hotel was seventy minutes south of the airport. We couldn’t check in till 3 p.m. With plenty of time on our hands, we decided to follow up our short flight with a long drive — two hours northwest of the airport for an encore in a little town we last visited in 2012 called Estes Park, snug inside the Rocky Mountains.
It’s like a prettier Disneyland without the rides or kids or paid stuffed animal cosplayers.
At the end of Day Three, we first laid eyes upon Jackson Square when the sun was on its way out of sight. Some clouds had lingered after a light drizzle that had peppered the city while we were inside Mardi Gras World. The world generally looked gray everywhere we turned. Then we got a good night’s sleep, commenced Day Four, and walked into the idealized sky-blue morning you see above, beckoning us with its possibilities and begging for a photographic do-over.
Our Indianapolis International Airport welcome committee: WWI flying ace Harvey Weir Cook, who flew for the Army Signal Corps with seven victories to his credit, then later for the newly invented transcontinental airmail service. He was a colonel when he died in 1943 while training other men to be just like him. The terminal and major airport thoroughfares are named after him.
Each year my wife and I take a road trip to a different part of the United States and see what sorts of historical landmarks, natural wonders, man-made oddities, unexplored restaurants, and cautionary tales await us. We began the tradition in 1999 during our best-friend years as an excuse to attend geek conventions and fan gatherings outside Indianapolis. After four years of narrowly focused hijinks, the tradition evolved through our happily married years into an ongoing project to visit as many other states as possible, see what they have that we don’t, and filter the results through our peculiar sensibilities.
From November 1-6, 2015, we racked up a number of personal firsts. My wife Anne was invited on her first business trip to Colorado Springs, all expenses paid from flight to food to lodging to rental car, to assist with cross-training at a distant affiliate. Her supervisor gave me permission to attend as her personal travel companion as long as I bought my own plane ticket and food. Neither of us had ever flown before, largely because we each grew up in families too poor for such extravagance. We’ve also never taken two week-long vacations in a single year. Thanks to our unforeseen circumstances, we were shocked to find such things no longer inconceivable.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover, I posted one photo for each of the six days while we were on location. With this series, we delve into selections from the 500+ other photos we took along the way.
On the morning of our second full day in New Orleans, one of our first stops was St. Louis Cathedral. The majority of the structure dates back to 1850, with minute portions integrated from still older predecessors. It’s the centerpiece of Jackson Square (as you’ll notice in the preceding chapter), free for tourists to visit (donations are suggested), serves an active congregation, and remains the seat of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans.
Jackson Square in the French Quarter in early evening. Where tourists, beggars, and horses vie for control of New Orleans.
Bordering one side of the French Quarter is our old friend the Mississippi River, which we last saw in Minneapolis on our 2014 road trip. We’ve effectively now seen both ends of it. After dinner at the Royal House, we ended our day of too much walking with even more walking, checking out the art, the businesses, and the life teeming and scheming along its banks.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: we took our first plane ride and arrived unharmed. While my wife spent the week working in Colorado, I spending the week as a bonus vacation in Colorado Springs, trying to find new things to do that we didn’t already do on our 2012 road trip. Short, on-location MCC entries have consequently been this week’s theme.
Tonight we flew home from Denver, and boy, are my everythings tired.
MCC readers may recall my wife Anne and I visited the National WWII Museum as part of our 2015 road trip to New Orleans back in July. When I researched possible stops for this week’s trip to Colorado Springs, I was surprised to find they have a logical companion attraction, the National Museum of WWII Aviation. The latter isn’t owned by the same people, hasn’t been given the same official accreditation, and definitely doesn’t have the same ginormous funding, but it serves as a local hands-on educational center for students and aficionados specifically interested in World War II air combat history. Like the National WWII Museum’s Boeing Center, this one boasts its own collection of vintage WWII planes in various states of flight readiness. Unlike its rival, this one isn’t afraid to get into the nitty-gritty of engine design, aviation mechanics, comparison/contrast studies with Axis aircraft, carburetor logistics, and related vocabulary such as “pitch” and “ailerons” and “sorties”. But the important thing is you still get to look at real planes.
Pictured above is their F7F Tigercat, one of the largest intact planes on site. This particular model wasn’t deemed ready for war use until August 1945, by which time the Allies had everything pretty much under control. The Tigercat came in handy years later as a night-flying option during the Korean War. Its development occurred during WWII, but it just missed out on any real action against Nazis or Zeros. It wasn’t the Tigercat’s fault that it couldn’t be there.
Anne, major WWII history buff that she is, might’ve appreciated the museum more than I did, if only she could’ve had that chance in person.
This week my wife and I have been taking advantage of our hotel’s complimentary breakfasts to save as much money as possible (their modest, cook-to-order omelet bar is a nice touch), but sometimes a guy needs a change of pace. For lunch today I drove an hour north to check out the Denver Biscuit Company, part of a restaurant triumvirate that was featured in a 2013 episode of Guy Fieri’s Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives. That’s not a show we usually consult for travel reference (thanks to a 2012 disappointment in Topeka), but this particular joint had other incentives to lure me away from Colorado Springs.
Pictured above is the Dahlia — sausage, egg over-easy, apple butter, and maple syrup on “biscuit French toast”. It’s one of several creative biscuit sandwiches they serve for breakfast and lunch. For that “Triple-D” episode the esteemed Mr. Fieri sampled their “Elmer”, topped with pulled pork, barbecue sauce, coleslaw, onions, and homemade pickles. For him I imagine it was the only logical option. But I’m a big fan of imaginative breakfasts and knew I had to try it once I confirmed it was real.
The other incentive for my mini-road trip was an invitation from an old friend.
Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover: we took our first plane ride and walked away from the landing without a scratch. While my wife is holding up the “business” end of her “business trip” travel deal, I’m spending the week running around Colorado Springs and the surrounding areas to see new sights that didn’t make the cut on our 2012 road trip.
After she was released from duty today a few hours early, we spent some bonus quality time together and visited a few places we’d never been before. One of those was Bass Pro Shops, which has zero locations within 100 miles of our hometown. We don’t hunt, fish, boat, seriously hike, go camping, stock up on assault gear, or participate in most other functions supported by the products we saw, so it’s not as though we’d personally have a good use for one. But we know they’re a big deal to some folks, and we just so happened to be in a convenient position to peek inside one. We decided to browse for our own curiosity.
As I expected, we saw animal taxidermy, assorted weapons, outdoor clothing for outdoor people, fish capturing mechanisms, and so forth. In other words, much like our Dick’s Sporting Goods back home, or the Cabela’s we’ve seen in other states. That makes sense to me. Not our demographic, but we have plenty of friends and family who’d consider such places a great reason for an all-day shopping trip.
And then there was the big guy in the above photo. I stared and I stared, and I don’t get him. I just don’t understand his existence. At all.
Life must be easy for Colorado residents. Whenever you need money, just walk outside, take a photo, turn it into postcards, sit back and wait for tourists either onsite or faraway by internet to make your payday. I don’t see how they can get used to walking out the front door without saying “WOW” every ten minutes and getting on each other’s nerves. Then again, I live in a state where mountains are more or less against the law. To me, mountains are a such staggering part of Creation, and yet in other states live people who think of mountains the same way I think of maple trees. Your everyday context determines what’s mundane and what’s extraordinary, I guess.
Midlife Crisis Crossover! 