🦕 The People

Every good wedding trip is really a story about the people. Denver delivered.

Meta — Aimee's Cousin

Meta is Aimee's cousin and they had not seen each other in far too long — the kind of reunion that makes you wonder why it took so long and resolve not to let it happen again. She works as a nurse in the social work field, has two daughters who have children of their own, which makes her a grandmother herself. She looks enough like Aimee that the family connection is immediately obvious across a room. She carries a soft Oklahoma accent — familiar territory for anyone who has spent time around Aimee's mom and that side of the family. She spent time in Texarkana, which is where she met Russell.

Russell — The Groom

Russell is a genuinely great human. Large beard, long hair — not to put too fine a point on it but the Jesus comparison is not an unreasonable one and he would probably take it well. He works in HVAC, refrigeration and appliances — the person who actually understands what is happening inside all those machines with all those mysterious parts. He likes plants. His real passion is his grow room in the rec room, floor to ceiling with peppers and exotic plants, and he explained the whole operation in detail over his beer of choice: PBR. Not ironic PBR. Just PBR. He seems to have been everywhere and knows a bit about a lot of things, and he and Meta together are exceptional conversationalists — more good stories in one evening than most people manage in a year. He met Meta at the gym in Texarkana.

Tommy — Russell's Brother

Tommy is Russell's brother and he is a character in the best possible sense. Originally from western New York like the rest of that side. High energy, always has something to say or a story to tell about essentially everything. Notable physical detail: giant calves. The kind of guy who fills a room without trying and keeps the energy up all night.

Angie — Aimee's Aunt (a.k.a. Walker Texarkana)

Angie is Aimee's aunt by marriage — she is from Germany, very German, and she married Aimee's uncle, which is how that whole side connects. She is in her eighties and lives at an assisted living facility in Colorado, which she approaches the way she appears to approach most things: on her own terms entirely.

The story that was shared at the wedding, and which needs to be documented in full: a PT guy came to Angie's assisted living unit to work with her. He was apparently a mild sort of person. At some point in the session he asked Angie if she felt safe living where she was. Angie looked at him. Pulled a handgun out of her walker. And said: yeah. Are you? The PT guy ran. It became a whole situation. An eighty-something year old woman from Texarkana, handgun out of the walker, at a Colorado assisted living facility. Russell and Meta got the call — because of course they did, they always get the call — and had to deal with it while managing everything else a sandwich generation adult manages. Russell had to explain to Angie that while pulling a handgun out to make a point is perfectly reasonable behavior in Texas for dealing with rattlesnakes or varmints or whatever needs dealing with, it is simply not condoned in Colorado. She is not in Texas anymore. Walker Texas Ranger she is not. She is Walker Texarkana.

At the wedding the following evening, this same woman was dancing to AC/DC and drinking Corona like there was no tomorrow. When she took a break she held the Corona bottle completely sideways — full rock star style — like she had been doing this for sixty years and had no intention of stopping. I had met her just the day before and did not yet know about the handgun. Glad she liked me.

Carol & Mary — Angie's Posse

Carol and Mary came as Angie's posse from the assisted living facility, and they did not disappoint. We thought Carol might have a beer or something mild. She went straight for the Manhattans. No hesitation. Mary is the more calm one of the pair — quieter, but do not let that fool you, there is devious energy underneath. Both are known at the facility for throwing it back on beer and wine while playing cards and talking freely about the other residents. They brought exactly that energy to the Ken Caryl canyon.

Lucas, Eric & Amy — The Supporting Cast

Lucas was Russell's coworker, solid presence at the celebration. Eric was Russell's cousin and pulled double duty as the officiant — performing the ceremony for his own family, which takes a certain kind of comfort with a crowd. Amy was Eric's wife, there for all of it.

🌨️ The Setup

We flew into Denver on a Wednesday in what turned out to be six inches of snow. May in the Rockies. The kind of arrival that resets all expectations immediately — we came for a wedding weekend and got a full Colorado experience from the first step off the plane. Picked up the rental car, navigated through the white-out, and found our way to the hotel near Aurora. Three days, three very different Denver neighborhoods, and a prairie dog running loose at the first hotel.

Prairie Dogs — Colorado's keystone species

The black-tailed prairie dog running loose in the hotel parking lot was not a pest — it was an ecosystem engineer. Prairie dogs build underground cities of interconnected tunnels that aerate the soil, provide habitat for burrowing owls, black-footed ferrets, and rattlesnakes, and whose clipped grazing creates habitat for pronghorn and bison.

Once numbering in the billions across the Great Plains, the prairie dog population declined by 98% in the 20th century due to poisoning, habitat loss, and plague. The colonies surviving in Aurora and around Denver are the remnants of what once covered over 100 million acres. The one in the parking lot was probably wondering who moved in on its territory.

❄️ Wednesday, May 6 — Arrival Day6 inches of snow · classic Denver

Landed in the snow, got the car, and drove to El Meson de Liz near the Best Western Denver East for lunch. Authentic Mexican, solid vegetarian options, the kind of neighborhood spot that earns its regulars. Checked in, joined the wedding party for the rehearsal dinner. Back at the hotel afterward, the prairie dog was running loose in the snow.

🌮 Thursday, May 7 — The Big Day75°F, sunny · best day of the trip

Meow Wolf — Convergence Station

We were at the door at 10am. Convergence Station is four floors of immersive art built by over 350 artists, and the QPASS quest running through it — The Forgotten Four: Chapter 1 — turns the whole place into a scavenger hunt layered on top of an interactive narrative. We picked up the QPASS at the QDOT desk in the lobby for three dollars, took the C-Line elevator straight to the fourth floor, and landed on C Street, the gritty futuristic city hub at the center of the storyline.

The quest asks you to recover memories from four women who vanished during the Convergence by booping MEMports — small devices with glowing swirls that trigger memory fragments. After our second Pam Rodriguez MEM, an account called WHI$TL3BL0W3R made contact and handed over the third fragment directly — zero-point memory of the Convergence unlocked. WHI$TL3BL0W3R is later revealed to be Chya, a QDOT employee who is not what she appears. Venue closes at 5pm for a private event — timed it perfectly, out by 12:15pm. The Ossuary world and Darya Kane storyline are still ahead of us. Reason to go back.

Casa Bonita — Reservation #3ZTDUMHKL9XD

Casa Bonita is a genuine American original. Reopened in 2023 under South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone after years of neglect, it covers 52,000 square feet of themed dining rooms, cliff divers, puppet theater, animatronic skeletons, a haunted cave, a gorilla who roams the floor unannounced, and endless sopaipillas with honey. We had Terrace 1 seating — elevated, good sightlines to the main waterfall. Found the wishing well — throw a coin in, look down, and a holographic monster looks back up. The place is exactly what it should be and South Park got it right.

Best Western Denver Southwest — The Dino Hotel

Checked into the Denver Southwest after Casa Bonita. The dinosaur theme is everywhere — fossil displays in the hallways, murals floor to ceiling, dino art throughout every common area. The pool was open. Brooks did a 1000-meter swim in the dinosaur pool. That is a sentence that needed to be written.

Why Denver has a Dino Hotel

Colorado is one of the richest dinosaur fossil areas on earth — and it starts right on the outskirts of Denver. The Morrison Formation, a layer of Jurassic-age rock running from Montana to New Mexico, was first excavated in the town of Morrison, Colorado in 1877. The fossils that came out of these quarries launched the famous Bone Wars between rival paleontologists Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope — a bitter scientific feud that produced some of the greatest dinosaur discoveries in history, including Stegosaurus (Colorado's state fossil), Apatosaurus, Diplodocus, and Allosaurus.

The formation was deposited 150–157 million years ago when Colorado was a low tropical plain crossed by slow rivers, long before the Rocky Mountains existed. Denver literally sits on top of one of the most dinosaur-rich geologies on earth — hence the dino hotel, Dinosaur Ridge just down the road from Red Rocks, and the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.

The Wedding — Ken Caryl, Littleton

The wedding was outside. Only twenty-four hours earlier Denver had been a whiteout blizzard with six inches of snow on the ground. When we arrived the sun was out and the Front Range was golden in the afternoon light, and there was still snow melt pooling around the wedding altar. Melting snow, golden light, red rock formations, the whole Front Range spread out behind the altar. Genuinely beautiful.

We met a good portion of Russell's family from western New York. Of particular note was a framed photograph of Meta's father — Aimee's uncle Carl — who had passed away a few years ago. Placed with care, a tender moment.

The ceremony was performed by Eric, Russell's cousin, who officiated with real warmth. The flower girls were Meta's grandchildren — they had been absolutely electric about their job for hours beforehand. When the actual moment came they had complete meltdowns and could not do it. Their father stepped in and threw the flowers himself. It was perfect.

The food was more vegetarian than we usually encounter at weddings. The chocolate cherry cake was exceptional. Carol had a few Manhattans. Then a few more. Then she was cut off. Angie worked through the Coronas with her walker, AC/DC playing in the background, bottle sideways, rock star to the end.

Then the first dance. The song was In Spite of Ourselves by John Prine featuring Iris DeMent. Once you figure out the lyrics you realize it is a genuinely funny song — two people cataloguing each other's flaws and loving each other anyway. A perfect choice and very Russell and Meta. Then the real dance party — high energy classic rock, AC/DC, Sweet Home Alabama. Sweet Home Alabama with Angie Walker Texarkana conducting from her walker with a Corona seemed cosmically correct.

One more thing worth recording. The wedding gift was a large painting — roughly four feet by three feet — by Aimee's late aunt Madalene, an artist who had also passed away a few years ago. The painting is called Family Dynamics. Impressionist modern piece, flowing floating figures, embryos, abstract forms, a lot of red. We had shipped it from Lakewood, which turned into its own production. It did not arrive in time for the wedding. It arrived the day after we left. Meta got it eventually. The gift made it. That is what matters.

🏔️ Friday, May 8 — Red Rocks + Golden + Home76°F · best day of the trip

Red Rocks Amphitheatre

After a late wedding night we pushed through, checked out, stopped at Starbucks, and drove to Red Rocks by 10:45am. No concert setup. No crowds. Full amphitheater access on a clear Friday morning with fresh snow still sitting on the peaks behind the formations. We walked the stage, walked the seating, went through the music hall of fame inside the visitor center. The red sandstone in that light, with white snow on the mountains in the background, is as good as it gets.

The amphitheater was not entirely empty. Red Rocks has its own fitness culture that exists completely independent of the concert schedule. People running backwards down the stairs. A dedicated contingent doing stair repeats at full sprint. And then one man — gloves on, fully committed — bear crawling on all fours all the way down the stairs, then standing up and running back up. The full length of the amphitheater. At 6,450 feet above sea level. Like that is a normal thing a person does on a Friday morning. It is apparently a thing. We watched for a while. No notes.

Arriving back at the parking lot around noon we found a line of kids already queuing for the evening show. ALLEYCVT, an EDM act, was playing that night. They looked a little otherworldly and were very serious about their spots. We got the quiet, empty, snow-capped morning version. They got the sweaty afternoon sun version at 6,450 feet. Best trade of the trip.

Red Rocks — 300 million years in the making

The two massive sandstone monoliths flanking the amphitheater — Ship Rock and Creation Rock — belong to the Fountain Formation. It began 300 million years ago when the Ancestral Rocky Mountains, an ancient range that preceded today's Rockies by hundreds of millions of years, began eroding. Those mountains were worn down by rivers and glaciers over 40 million years, their sediments washing eastward to form a mix of red sandstone, conglomerate, and mudstone now visible throughout the Front Range.

The same Fountain Formation created the Flatirons west of Boulder, Garden of the Gods near Colorado Springs, and Roxborough State Park south of Littleton. The present Rocky Mountains formed 65 million years ago during the Laramide Orogeny — the same tectonic uplift that tilted the Fountain Formation bed on its edge to nearly 40 degrees so that water and wind could sculpt it into the formations you see today.

The CCC built the amphitheater on top of this 300-million-year story between 1935 and 1941, using 800 tons of quarried sandstone and 30,000 pounds of reinforced steel. Dedicated June 15, 1941. U2 recorded there in 1983. The Beatles played there in 1964. The bear crawl fitness guy was there in 2026.

Golden, Colorado

Fifteen minutes from Red Rocks and completely different energy. Golden is a charming western mountain town sitting where Clear Creek comes out of the canyon. We ate at Woody's pizza buffet, then found our way to New Terrain Brewing and ordered the Golden Haze, a New England IPA at 6.6% ABV with 3.94 on Untappd and 10,400 check-ins. Hazy, juicy, tropical. Exactly right for a Colorado Friday afternoon after Red Rocks and a wedding. Wandered Washington Avenue, browsed the shops, let the day settle.

Golden, Colorado — more than a beer town

The Colorado School of Mines was founded in Golden in 1874 — it was Arthur Lakes, a professor there, who launched the Dinosaur Ridge excavations three years later. The Coors Brewing Company opened in Golden in 1873 and still operates there, drawing its water from Clear Creek. George Morrison, the Scottish stonemason who homesteaded the town of Morrison, gave his name to both the town and the Morrison Formation that underlies the region's geology. Buffalo Bill is buried on Lookout Mountain above Golden. Golden sits at the precise meeting point of the Great Plains and the Rocky Mountains — the same transitional zone as Red Rocks.

Aurora Visit + DEN + Blucifer

Stopped in Aurora to say goodbye to our people. Dropped the rental car. Checked in. Walking to the gate we passed Blucifer — the Blue Mustang, 32 feet tall, glowing red eyes visible from the highway day and night. Created by New Mexico artist Luis Jimenez. In 2006 while Jimenez was working on it in his studio, a section of the horse broke free and severed an artery in his leg. He died from the injury. His family completed the sculpture. It was installed in 2008. Former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb publicly called it a scary blue horse and tried to block its installation. It cost $650,000 of public money. It represents the wild spirit of the American West. Every detail of that story is correct and it is completely metal.

At the gate: Brooks got a Left Hand Nitro Milk Stout pint. Aimee got a Sauvignon Blanc. The Left Hand came to us in the end — even better than the RiNo taproom would have been.

✈️ Crossover — Captain Vancouver: Denver to Hawaii

The cattle ranches of the Front Range and the Parker Ranch on the Big Island of Hawaii are connected by a single man: Captain George Vancouver. In 1793 and 1794, Vancouver gifted cattle to King Kamehameha I at Kealakekua Bay, Hawaii — the first cattle on the islands. He picked them up from a Spanish mission in Monterey, California on his Pacific expedition.

Vancouver strongly encouraged Kamehameha to place a kapu — a sacred prohibition — on the herd for ten years to let it grow. When the kapu was lifted, the cattle had multiplied across the Hawaiian landscape. John Palmer Parker arrived in 1809, got permission to hunt them, married Kamehameha's granddaughter, and founded the Parker Ranch in 1847 — the 130,000-acre operation still running on the Kohala Coast today. Spanish-Mexican vaqueros were brought from California to teach Hawaiians how to rope and handle cattle — they were called paniolo, a Hawaiian rendering of español.

Denver's cattle and ranching traditions and Hawaii's ranching traditions share the same Pacific explorer ancestor.

🏆 Denver Highlights

📋 What Didn't Happen — Next Time

Six inches of snow on arrival. A prairie dog in the parking lot. A dino pool swim sitting atop 150 million years of Jurassic geology. A multiverse quest. The best Mexican restaurant in a blizzard. Sopaipillas and holographic monsters. A wedding in a canyon. Red Rocks at dawn — 300 million years of Fountain Formation sandstone tilted by the Laramide Orogeny and carved by wind and water. An EDM crowd at noon. Blucifer and his terrible backstory. A Left Hand Milk Stout at the gate. Denver always delivers.

Brooks & Aimee · Denver · May 2026 · 🦕🌮💍🏔️🍺