Day Five of the Honeymoon
9/8/2016
I woke earlier than intended or expected this morning. Stupid internal clock. The morning was spent getting ready for our day trip out and about Colorado. We packed up water and maps, had a cold pizza for breakfast (and was, honestly, the first time I’ve had cold pizza and not thought it was at least on par, if not better, than when it was hot) and shipped out.
First destination? The Bookworm in Edwards, Colorado.
We claimed our rental from the valet and went on our merry way. In less than half an hour, we’d arrived in Edwards and navigated our way to The Bookworm.
Edwards is a quaint little town with a delightful downtown area (or at least what I assume was a downtown area). The Bookworm was also a cute little bookstore/wine shop/café/? That had a bunch of stuff in it outside of the books the name implies. We browsed the selection, and, initially, I was delighted to find little notes left by, I assume, folk who work there recommending various books.
My delight faded when I found them recommending “A Song of Fire and Ice” by George R.R. Martin and described it as “living up to the hype.” A statement which I thoroughly disagree on, but that’s a simple difference in opinions.
I, however, truly lost any desire to trust the little notes when I found one beneath “Eye of the World” by Robert Jordan. The novel is the first of fourteen in his “Wheel of Time” series and is among my favorite books from my childhood, even though I haven’t managed to power through the dreg-books of seven and eight to finish reading the series. The note erroneously labeled the series as the first of fourteen in the “Eye of the World” series.
I let out an exasperated sigh and found Nicole. She’d not found the book she’d been looking for either and so, using the valiant idea of human contact, we asked the clerk who just so happened to share Nicole’s name.
A handful of minutes later and we had some research and a new place to search (art gallery in Beaver Creek Village) from the helpful clerk Nicole.
We left the store and got on the road to our true destination: Fairplay, the real South Park. We kicked on the directions, “World War Z,” and drove. Again, I enjoyed the scenic drive and the gorgeous surroundings, with a reaffirmed conviction to have Nicole drive some so I could properly look around instead of staring at the road when it truly got interesting.
A little over an hour and a half later and we rolled into the tiny, rustic town of Fairplay and immediately hung a right into the parking lot of the museum for South Park City.
We spent the next few hours marveling at a recreated mining town and wandering through original buildings (most of them moved from somewhere else in Colorado) situated to make up a small town. It was a delightful experience, though not quite what I was hoping for in a ghost tour.
Ghost town? Yes… sort of. Ghost tour? Nope.
That being said. I do like that I can say I’ve been to the Real South Park.
We wandered around Fairplay for a short time before settling on lunch at the South Park Steakhouse. We had the entire interior to ourselves and the food was a delight. The staff was sharply dressed and a pleasure to interact with and we left the place in high spirits.
We wandered the artist’s street and even ducked into a pottery shop with some specific South Park (the show) merchandise and had a couple chuckles.
We wrapped up our trip and started back toward Beaver Creek with a slight detour through Silverthorne to stop at their Target for a couple minor supplies (juice and batteries and some trail mix) at a reasonable price. Various supplies acquired, and a picture taken of the rustic, log entrance of the Target, we sped back to Beaver Creek.
We got back in time to discuss dinner, decide that nothing that could be ordered and delivered up to the room seemed terrifically appealing, and wandered down to the bar area of the resort to order an appetizer and collect a couple of S’Mores kits.
Still trying to figure out why they’re called gourmet.
We finished our “meal” and retreated out to the wood fire pit. We had a quick chat about timeliness and the dropping temperature and I opted to run back up to the room for my tablet, hoodie, and Nicole’s heavier hoodie.
I returned and we waited patiently for someone to come out and light the fire pit.
When twenty minutes had passed, we threw in the towel and moved over to a gas operated fire pit. My annoyance with the lack of decorum and timeliness (the wood fire pit was lit 15-20 minutes after we left and it drew a small crowd of little humans with big humans to look on at the fire) of the event was evident in my discussion with Nicole. I’m a firm believer of sticking to timetables when something is listed. I like my organization, my outlines,
and sticking to a schedule.
If someone tells me something is going to happen at a specific time, I kind of expect it to happen at that time. Not nearly an hour (and when such an event was listed to end) late.
It’s just something about professionalism that should be done.
Oh well.
No point in being sour our last night here. Overall, it’s been a delightful experience and a wonderful trip and we’ve already listed it as a place to return to as there’s things we’d like to do that we didn’t get around to/have time to do this time around.
Tomorrow? Exploration on our way back to Denver.
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