Walt@walt-n-ingrid.com wrote:
: These are just a few attractions I found in and around the Denver area.
[...]
: Coors Brewing Company tours. The world’s largest single brewing facility
: located just 12 miles west of Denver. Free tours. Open Monday through Saturday
: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. (WF: being a collector of beer steins and a moderate beer
: drinker, I would be up for a tour)
I don't drink myself but I do find distillation fascinating, not to
mention large mechanical assembly lines. :-) I went to Busch Gardens in
Tampa several years ago and that was pretty cool, something like the Coors
brewery would probably be even better.
: Funplex, Enjoy family fun at this 3 and 1/2 acre indoor entertainment mall with
: four main them areas.
Sounds like a larger version of the Toronto Playdium meets. :-)
I'm certainly open to some of the Museum type places, though I know
interest in that sort of thing can vary widely. :-) Might not be a
bad idea to keep some places in mind as "incliment weather" destinations.
Some people probably would prefer to be outdoors, offroading or whatever
in nice weather, but if we get hit by a thunderstorm, passing time in
a museum or something sure beats huddling around in tents. :-)
The museum talk made me remember that there is supposed to be a
first class facility in Cody, WY. The Buffalo Bill Historical Center
or something like that - its actually 5 museums on the same property,
one of which is a firearms museum with one of the largest collections
of firearms in the world. I think its all geared towards the western
pioneer times though, so there probably wouldn't be any modern stuff
there which is something of a bummer, but could still be cool. However,
I looked it up on a map and Cody is up in Northern WY, just a little
bit south of the Montana border, about 9-10 hours north of Denver or
Salt Lake City, so its probably too far out there anyway. I guess
it just depends on where we end up.
I've got a AAA membership, I wonder if I stop in the local AAA
office, they might have some free service I could take advantage of
to see what sort of destinations and attractions are "out west"?
(I'm sure they just love vague questions like that.) ;-)
AAA: Where do you want to go?
DML: We dunno - somewhere west-like, maybe with some mountains
and camping and stuff? And other stuff too?
AAA: Ummm, ok, what would you like to do out there?
DML: Dunno. Look at trucks and do stuff. Give us stuff to do.
;-)
I think a list of things to do like Walt posted is a good idea -
we just need to figure out what there is to do in general, we
also need to get some ideas as far as what we want to do which
will help to narrow down a location... I mean, we wouldn't want
to plan part of the meet around something that nobody actually
wanted to do but didn't want to say anything because they thought
everybody else was on board. ;-)
I wonder if we should just collect a huge list of things we could
do and post them on one of those free "poll" type web sites so that
we could get an idea about what people want to do? Then try to
find a location based on that? Picking a location first and then
looking around for things to do at that location is easier, but
what do you use to choose the location in the first place? :-)
The trouble is that there might be some really good ideas out
there but nobody has thought of them yet. :-)
Just off the top of my head, here are some activities that come
to mind that I would personally find enjoyable:
- Having most of the group camped together in a pretty cool location
- Doing some hiking, etc. assuming we are in a location where it is
worthwhile to do so (neat stuff to look at, interesting places to
go.)
- A sort of subset of the hiking idea would be rather than just
setting off to see what is out there (which can be fun in its
own right) would be to set off with some sort of goal. For
example, picking a spot or a feature on a topographic map
(waterfall, lake, scenic view, etc.), and using GPS and/or
old fashioned dead reckoning and orienteering to get there, etc.
Or, if there are any geocaches near by, it might be fun to try to
find them - I've never done that before. (I just did a quick search
and there are over 1200 geocaches listed in the Denver, CO area
alone. (I didn't realize how popular these were - there are over
100 just within a 25 mile radius of me here out in the boonies!) :-)
- Another possible subset of the above might be (if enough people
were interested) would be for a group to head out on an overnight
hiking expedition. I don't know if there would be as much interest
in this since we would probably be camping out anyway, just thought
it might allow for a little more range and an additional level of
interest.
- Museums would be OK (though my personal interest level would vary
depending on what kind of museum it was.) :-)
- An amusement/water park could also be fun. (Though as Ed can no
doubt attest, I'm no roller coaster fan.) ;-)
- Offroading - as we know from the BBQ, this is usually a lot of fun :-)
even if it wasn't anything hard core, just trail riding, this could be
fun. And this could also be similar to the hiking ideas above - except
that instead of being on foot, we would be in vehicles.
- Drag racing - This isn't really a requirement for me, though I would
certainly be happy to come along and possibly even participate in my
rental car. ;-) This option can be a little tricky... I assume
that we are looking at doing some racing ourselves, as opposed to
just spectating at a sanctioned event? If so, we would need to
coordinate with the track's schedule to go on a day when they
have open bracket racing or time trials. Related to that, how much
"fun" this is will depend on the size of the crowd, we might end up
just getting a couple of runs each and spend the rest of the time
standing around in the staging lanes with the hoods popped.
(Fortunately we are professionals in that regard.) ;-) We could
probably rent a track if we had enough people, but I suspect this
probably isn't going to be financially feasable for us. Tied in with
this is, like with the offroading, I suspect that after driving such a
long distance, some/most people would be a bit hesitant to run all
out for fear of parts breakage. So anyway, at this point, I don't
know if I get lumped in with the drag racers or the offroaders or
both or neither, but as far as the drag racing goes during the
national meet, I can take it or leave it; no opinion either way here;
I'll go along with the group on this one but if it worked out such that
we didn't manage to get out to a track, I wouldn't be horrendously
dissapointed or anything. :-)
- Shooting ranges?
- There might be some things we can do at "base camp", assuming of
course that we do decide to camp in a group and thus actually
*have* a "base camp". Things like lawn jenga, possibly things like
"capture the flag", or paintball, etc?
I'm sure there must be other things we can do, but my brain is
broken and I can't think of them at the moment. :-) I guess I'll
just send this rambling mess off to the list and see what results.
If I think of any other activities I'll spew 'em to the list. :-)
--
-Jon-
.-- Jon Steiger ---- jon@dakota-truck.net or jon@jonsteiger.com --.
| 1970 Barracuda - 1990 Dakota 'vert - 1992 Ram 4x4 - 1996 Dakota |
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