Family. Family and the Cincinnati Reds.
You know that part where I said road trips were kinda fun?... well, for the first 10 hours they are. But then, when you realize you've still got 10 more hours of driving ahead of you, you start to get a little discouraged.
I spent more time in the car getting to Denver than I actually spent in Denver. It's pretty sad really.
Luckily though, stopping at New Belgium Brewery in Ft Collins CO helped ease some of the boredom I call Wyoming. Having little sampler of Ranger IPA was like a little silver lining at the end of a long....dull... brown cloud.
Also, who can complain when they have traveling companions as good as these?
So... pretty much long story short... I have a cousin that I haven't seen in ages who lives in Denver and was getting married. The whole extended family was going to be there, including my parents who live in Ohio. When you live in places like Ohio, you start thinking that the whole west is so closely connected and the possibility that someone can just drive... from, I don't know... Oregon to Colorado for the weekend seems like a reasonable thing. So, if you can get that to happen, well... you might as well throw some things in the car to give that person making the long drive to sweeten the deal.
(For example, my mom threw in my Ronald McDonald phone that I won when I was 3yrs old. Thanks mom)
(and my baseball card collection...)
The biggest sweetener though, was a pair of stadium seats from the Cincinnati Reds Crosley Field. My grandparents received them after the stadium was torn down in 1970. While I was growing up and would visit them out in rural Clinton County, I'd see the seats sitting in some back dark corner of the garage. The red C emblazoned on the side let me know they were more than just decorative objects, they were a treasure to my young sports memorabilia collector mind. I'd often ask my grandparents about the seats, but they never really told me too much more than where they were from... which was all the information I needed to fall madly in love with them. So, in my grandparents later years, I made it known to them and my parents... that when they passed... that was the one object I wanted. It's been many years since my grandfather passed in 89 and my grandmother passed just a few years ago while I've been out here in Oregon. When I've gone home since, it's always been via airplane and the thought of getting the seats to me out in Oregon seemed nearly impossible till my mom hatched the idea that we should meet halfway. That halfway point was Denver.
Sadly, it just so happened that this trip happened a week after my cousin (who was an uncle to the Groom) was brutally murdered in Florida while trying to stop people from breaking into his neighbors car. Not only did this trip give my family a chance to share in the joy of a new union, but they also got to grieve the loss of a loved one together.
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