Colorful Colorado

We spent our last weekend with the suburban in Colorado. In many ways the highway welcome sign accurately describes our experience – Welcome to Colorful Colorado. Beyond the awesome landscape and varying weather, I’m pretty sure our antics had something to do with it. We had two games for the weekend, Army @ Air Force in Colorado Springs and Pittsburgh @ Denver on Monday night.

We arrived in Denver to unseasonably hot weather. In fact it was a record high of 79 degrees. This wasn’t really shocking considering our previous anomalies such as the blizzard like conditions in early October. I’m definitely not complaining since it was excellent weather to get in some training for the marathon.

The Army game was difficult to watch on Saturday. They kept it close at first, but after endless mistakes it got out of hand. The bigger distraction though was the fact that a friend brought a Green Man costume. If you don’t know who/what that is then you’re missing one of the best shows on television – It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Needless to say he was getting a lot of attention. A couple of the highlights include him leading a cadet rocket cheer on the edge of the field and later crowd surfing up the cadet section. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that you can’t see the wearer’s face, but Green Man does what he wants, when he wants. No one was complaining, just lots of fans.

We closed out the game with some more tailgating with Nate’s friends brother, Ross. He came with a group of friends in a RV and had a pretty impressive setup, including some excellent food. We’ll probably steal their jalapeno popper idea in the future. As we drove off they even lined up to salute us on our way out – awesome.

It was nice to not have a game on Sunday. Just relaxing and watching football without having to go through the tailgating routine was a welcomed change. We even went hiking with our hosts Chris and Steve, checking out nearby Lookout Mountain. Denver reminds me of San Diego in that everyone seems to be healthy and enjoy making use of the natural beauty around them. We also got to see the striking Red Rocks amphitheater. I need to go back and see a show there one day.

I was excited for Monday night after seeing the Mile High Stadium a few times during the weekend. It helps that we were well rested and didn’t have to travel far to get there. The game was fun to watch, especially with how loud it is there. We were in the upper section, but it’s pretty steep so you still feel close.

Earlier in the week I heard a radio DJ complaining about the number of Steelers fans that appear in town for their games. I’m not sure how many are visiting and how many just live there, but he wasn’t kidding. Everywhere you looked there were Pittsburgh jerseys, almost giving the impression that they were the home team. At the game it seemed like half the fans were waving around their yellow terrible towels. Pretty impressive considering Denver is half way across the country.

On Tuesday we left for Vegas where Nate’s parents kindly met us with the RV to make an exchange. It will take a little readjusting, but I’m already enjoying it. I had almost forgotten how comfortable it is to ride around in the beast. Hopefully things run a little smoother this time around.