Setting the Stage
In early 2022, my brother-in-law announced that his band, Gramatik, would once again be performing at the legendary Red Rocks Amphitheatre outside of Denver, Colorado. Liz and I had a wonderful time watching him perform a few years back at that venue, and we were eager to see him again if possible, since this time they'd be playing several tracks that Adam wrote and did the vocals.
Last time we went to Red Rocks, we went with my cousins. The four of us had fairly loose schedules because our kids were back home with Liz's parents. We went to bed when we wanted, ate wherever we felt like, tailgated for hours before the concert, and did all the irresponsible things that parents so rarely get to do. We were very excited to have such a blissful experience again, turned up to 11 if possible.
Stage 1: Accepting Defeat
This time, however, those hopes quickly died. Liz's parents (understandably) wanted to see their son perform at Red Rocks this time, so they wouldn't be available to watch our kids. We considered asking my mom to watch the girls for a few days, but her job has weird hours, and our girls didn’t always behave well for her, so we didn't love that idea. Liz floated the idea of paying my mom to fly out to Colorado with us just to watch the girls during the concert; I felt that was basically the most expensive babysitting bill ever, and would require my mom to take multiple days off work just for our convenience.
So for several months, we were resigned to the idea that we just wouldn't get to go to Red Rocks this time. Liz would bring up the concert from time to time with wistful resignation ("It sure would be nice if we could go..."), but we agreed it wasn't in the cards. Meanwhile, Liz's cousins decided they'd be going, and we feigned excitement for them. Whenever we’d get together, they kept asking us about Red Rocks, getting more and more pumped as we told them about how awesome it was.
We tried to be adults about the whole thing and remind ourselves that, in the big picture, we were very lucky — missing out on one (amazing, thrilling, life-altering) concert is a first-world problem. After all, we've seen Adam perform half a dozen times now across the US, from NYC to Atlanta, DC to Denver, and even locally in Lancaster and Philly. Not to mention the concert was during the school year, which would mean using up personal days, making sub plans, and then playing catch-up once we got back. Oh, and Liz had another surgery scheduled a few days before the trip, so the practical thing to do would be to just stay home and live with it. We consoled ourselves with the thought that maybe he'd play on the east coast another time, and we could just catch him then. At some boring stadium. In a white-bread town. Fairly close to sea level…
Stage 2: A Glimmer of Hope
Then the craziest idea hit us: Why don't we take care of our own kids? Listen, hear me out: what if we brought our kids along and actually had a fun family trip with them? I mean, what elementary school kid wouldn't want to...hike around some old mountains and maybe tour the Coors Brewery? Surely that would qualify as an educational trip.
And so the dream was revived. We began by looking up airfare: prices had doubled since we last looked. A few hours of researching car rentals yielded similarly depressing results. We considered driving our own vehicle there and back, but then gas prices skyrocketed. Just for kicks, we checked out AirBnbs...and all but the most remote or extravagant were booked for the dates in question. It seemed our window had passed — we should have just given up while we were ahead, right?
Stage 3: Absurd Optimism
Of course not! We spent countless hours scouring the Internet for any glimmer of hope, panning the runoff of a thousand murky streams for some proverbial gold. Through dogged determination and sheer dumb luck, Liz and I cobbled together a trifecta:
- We scored four cheap plane tickets through a low-rent airline
- We locked in an SUV rental at a bargain-basement price
- We secured an AirBnb that sleeps 8...so we could split the price with Liz's parents and cousins!
From there, everything else was gravy. We spent the intervening month planning what we would do, making packing lists, throwing together lesson plans ("Put this DVD in and make sure the students don't snore too loudly"), etc. Before we knew it, it was the end of September and the beginning of our adventure.
Stage 4: Going for it!
Our trip officially began on Thursday morning, when we had to get our girls up and into the van for the drive to the airport. We had a 1PM departure, which should surely give us ample time to wake up, load our luggage, and even enjoy breakfast before hitting the road.
This is probably the point in the story where you would expect our months of well-laid plans to go awry… but you’d be wrong! That’s not until much later. Our girls got up on time, eager to cooperate. We ate breakfast, loaded up, and headed to Middletown right on time. The drive was smooth sailing, with everyone in good spirits. We even parked, got the shuttle, checked our bags, and shuffled through TSA without a hitch. We boarded the plane after snagging some subs for lunch, and so far everything was going as planned.
Touchdown: Denver
Our four-hour flight was blissfully uneventful. Liz and I read and listened to podcasts while the girls were wired up to their Kindles and continually snacking. We landed in Denver at 2:30 local time, deplaned, grabbed our bags, and headed to the shady car rental place. Instead of a long line at some grimy kiosk, we had grab-and-go service at their “VIP” counter, taking our preprinted order form outside to “pick any SUV you want.” We chose a sleek Buick Enclave, loaded up our luggage and children one last time, and headed west.
Our Airbnb was an hour away in the fun little town of Golden, CO, which is where we stayed during our previous Red Rocks visit. On our way through Denver, we were planning to stop at a very unique museum so the girls could get their first taste of fun in Colorado. Even though it was 3 PM at this point, our bodies were telling us it was 5, and that’s dinner time in the Lau household.
We decided to stop at Chook, a local chain serving charcoal-roasted chicken and fancied-up sides. Everything on their menu looked great, so we had a hard time deciding what to get. That resulted in all of us ordering a ton of chicken plus a bunch of extra sides, with me promising to polish off whatever the others didn’t finish.
As the kitchen staff kicked into full gear trying to assemble our feast, we headed outside to their patio to get our first real breaths of fresh Colorado air and to soak up the local vibes. A few couples sat outside, and a car passed every now and then, but it felt very relaxed considering we were in a major US city. Our food was soon delivered, and we enjoyed our sprawling dinner as we basked in the mid-afternoon sun.
Everyone else’s appetites quickly flagged in the face of so much food, but not mine. While Liz and the girls slumped back from their unfinished meals, I continued stuffing chicken and pasta and roasted veggies in my face until it was gone. You would have been so proud.
The First Taste of Trouble?
Once we were done eating, we had a dilemma: it was almost 5 PM local time, but 7 according to our internal clocks. Liz and I started second-guessing the whole museum plan since our girls were already starting to fade. We had all previewed the place to get a feel for it, but you know how different real experiences can be compared to the YouTube trailers. At $40 per person for at-the-door tickets, it wasn’t a decision we took lightly. What if the girls were bored, or annoyed, or just plain freaked out? What if Liz or I hated it, after building it up so much in our heads?
We finally decided to risk it and deal with the consequences later, succumbing to our intense curiosity about this strange “modern art museum.”
Now I know museum isn’t a word that tends to light a fire in people’s loins, and kids’ eyes usually glaze over at the word. But the place we were headed, my friend, was no typical canvas or sculpture gallery. More accurately, it’s an “interactive art installation,” but even that fails to capture the bizarre, magical ambiance of the place.
The Craziest Head Trip in Colorado
From the outside, Meow Wolf Convergence Station looks like an airport designed by Apple, a five-story hulk of white, undulating curves. The lobby was spacious but fairly restrained, with a clean and luminous interior that had a few stylish sculptures on the walls and strange signs apparently written in an alien language.
Then we entered the “human transporter” (elevator) and emerged into the real exhibit.
When the doors opened, we couldn’t even make sense of what we beheld. Before us was a mash-up of dystopian movie sets — Total Recall meets Akira. Everywhere we looked was a riot of colors, shapes, lights, and music in the most delightfully bizarre arrangements.
Trying to describe the actual experience would be like describing a fever dream of David Lynch; it was intense and unpredictable, but in the best ways possible. Headless marionettes danced to ragtime tunes in one room, while election videos for interstellar creatures played in a deformed movie theater next door. Our girls were overwhelmed at first. My youngest wouldn’t let me put her down for about fifteen minutes, and my oldest kept asking questions that were mostly drowned out by the pumping techno and distorted symphony music.
Somewhere between the talking pizza monster and the washing machine filled with Disney Princess Barbies, both girls got over their reservations and dove right in. I was never prouder than when my little girls played Sewer Fighter in a dark, cyperpunk arcade, jamming their joysticks to gleefully knife each other’s rubber rat avatars.
“This place is so creepy but so beautiful,” my ten-year-old raved, wide-eyed.
By the time we transitioned to the third “planet,” going from a subterranean, kaleidoscopic ice palace to a towering cavern swimming with inverted jellyfish and neon llamas, I was totally sold on modern art. “If they charged twice the admission fee, I’d pay it without batting an eye,” I raved.
We spent two hours exploring the various levels of Meow Wolf, and we surely left dozens of rooms unexplored. We could have stayed there a whole day, but alas, we were losing steam, and it was better to leave with some enthusiasm and mystery still intact rather than dragging two tired children through a maze of melting masks and furnaces fueled by butterflies and metro cards.
Gold(en) Rush
So, still high on the fumes of creative excess, the Laus drifted out of Meow Wolf and to our rental vehicle, finally headed for Golden. As the sun sank behind the Rocky Mountains ahead of us, we cruised along the highway and into our sleepy little home base. Liz’s parents were already at the house, having arrived in Colorado the week before to road trip around a bit before the main event at Red Rocks. Liz’s cousins had landed shortly after us, but they wanted to check out Denver as well, so they hadn’t reached the house yet.
Liz and I unpacked, set the girls up in their room, and settled them into bed. When I came upstairs to the main area (the kitchen, dining area, and living room were one vast space), Liz’s cousins had just rolled in. They had some leftover pizza and ice cream to share, so we all noshed while catching up and hammering out plans for the weekend.
Then we slowly drifted our separate ways, tired after a long day and eager to rest up for the next one. We had a great time so far in Colorado, but tomorrow was concert day, and we had high, high hopes indeed.