We struck out at our usual time 9:30 ish which usually gets us to our next stop mid afternoon. The weather continued to be beautiful and without difficulty made it to Denver.
I thought we had seen traffic but even though it was Sunday the roads were packed. But no fender benders or near misses and despite a few left on ramps now get off on the right in 0.2 miles we made it to the entrance of Cherry Creek State Park. It was very well marked and had a nice winding road to the gatehouse who told us where to go to register and off we went. Cherry Creek State Park is on the banks of the same named reservoir built by the Army Corp of Engineers. The reservoir is massive and has a boat launch and allows fishing for all types of fish from Trout that are stocked, Bass and pike, and Walleyes! which I’ve never caught but would love to someday. I didn’t bring my pole this trip trying to pack less.
I was also a little taken aback by the language used to describe reservoir access roads.
The campground was huge and spread out so we had more privacy than recent campgrounds. Lots of places to walk Mocha. And all this in Aurora within view of the Denver skyline and the Mountains. Absolutely a gem of a state park with all sorts of spaces for picnics, a swimming beach that was huge and 4227 acres of fields and trees. Very nice stay.
Our first morning at Cherry Creek we headed to the Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini Shrine in the mountains west of Denver. We had recently watched a movie about her truly remarkable life battling prejudice and hardships to provide homes for needy children starting in NYC where there were hundreds of orphaned Italian immigrant children many of whom didn’t speak English yet and lived in basements and sewers being taken advantage of and often dying from malnutrition and disease. Her story is too long and amazing to adequately hear. One of her miracles was curing a baby whose eyes were burned by medical malpractice where a solution of silver nitrate used to prevent eye infections in newborns was not diluted as instructed and was given at a 50 times stronger concentration. No medical malpractice lawyers just faith in Sister Cabrini who cured the badly burned eyes. Even if you don’t believe in miracles (which Jo and I do for so many reasons) her work that expanded from NYC despite incredible anti-Italian American prejudice (sounds similar to today) to Denver and other areas around the world was simply awe inspiring. All this despite a small stature and chronic debilitating lung disease. You should see the movie about her. It is definitely worth your time no matter your faith.
Stones placed by and with Sr Cabrini at the top of the mountain
Walking up the 370 steps to the statue of Jesus and a heart shaped display made by Saint Cabrini was a challenge at almost 8000 ft above sea level. Not sure why they don’t have AEDs on the trail. One man in particular thankfully turned around. He was pretty grey and out of breath but refusing help. Hope he is OK.
One complicating factor to my climb and stay in general was my unbelievable allergy attack. Even Jo’s nose was runny. I had been in Denver once before years ago and had the same experience. When I looked the pollen count sage was at the top of the list and mentions it as highly allergenic. That coupled with smoke from the wildfires in California made us both decide that despite its beauty Denver will never be on our list for a new home.
We did not see any Venezuelan gangs crazy rumors of which have gone around about Aurora where we stayed. People were friendly and it looked like a vibrant community as long as you don’t have my allergy prone respiratory system lol.
We only had a two day stay so packed it in early (aside from the altitude we also needed to get used to not just Central time but now Mountain time. Eight o’clock at night felt like 10 PM bedtime and Mocha was not happy about his new dinner time).
Next stop Grand Junction on our way to Bryce Canyon.
Bill and Jo’s Road Trip 