Day 11: Rock Springs, WY to Denver, CO

We woke up and went down the four or so steps to the breakfast, at which you have a menu of items from which to select three. Abe got scrambled eggs, potatoes, and a fruit cocktail, and Arielle got scrambled eggs, a muffin, and a fruit cocktail. The eggs and potatoes were particularly good, accompanied by less-than-terrific orange juice for Abe and a more satisfying apple-cranberry blend for Arielle.

We left one of our favorite hotels yet for the relatively low-key five-hour drive to Denver. We stopped three hours in at a restaurant in Laramie, WY called Jeffrey’s Bistro. The (vegetarian!) Hungarian mushroom soup we got to start was delicious, and Arielle liked her half (grilled) avocado sandwich much more than Abe enjoyed his tofu stir fry which wasn’t all that flavorful, nor did it settle well in his stomach.

It only took us about half an hour to get to Colorado, a state we had both already been to but were nonetheless excited to cross into since it represented the midpoint of our first big trip.

We celebrated by stopping at Mountain States Toyota to pick up the New York license plates that had been sent there for us. Melissa was very nice and even took our car through the car wash before we drove away. Our next stop was at East Side Kosher Deli to pick up dinner. Arielle got oven fried chicken, Abe got barbecue chicken, and we shared a piece of butternut squash kugel. We drove to our friends Jeff, Talia, and Yona’s home just a few minutes away and enjoyed our delicious dinner outside in their backyard in the perfect Denver air. We also gave them the box of dishes we had been transporting for them in our car from Westchester, where Jeff’s parents, who are friendly with Abe’s parents from synagogue, had given them to us to bring.

We drove about fifteen minutes into downtown Denver, where we pulled up to what ranks as our absolute favorite hotel yet, the Homewood Suites Denver Downtown. Cousin Kenny from Indiana had recommended it highly (and got us a great deal), and it did not disappoint. The building is shared with a Hampton Inn, with adjacent check-in counters on the ground floor. We unloaded so much of what was in our car and took it upstairs, opting to forgo the $42 nightly valet and park the car one block away in the Tremont Garage using SpotHero for just $19 for the first night. We made it down to the pool just minutes before it closed at 11pm and settled in to our massive suite.

Approximate number of miles covered: 349