The Denver Trip - Part one, The ride out there

We weren't really going to take a vacation this year, but we had an opportunity to take a short vacation relatively cheaply. So we decided to drive out to Denver for a few days to do several things: go to Casa Banitas, go to the Water World amusement park, go to the Rocky Mountain National Park and go to the Denver Natural History Museum.

Laura was afraid that Julia would be impatient in the car, so it was decided to split up the trip into three legs.

Leg one was to drive from Omaha to Kearney and stay the night, which we did.

Leg two was setting out for Imperial, Nebraska.

Imperial is where Laura grew up from second grade on. She has said on many occasions that she really loved growing up in a small town and misses it a lot. She has also said that she would move back there in a heartbeat if she thought we'd both be able to live there with jobs. I, on the other hand, am very ambivalent about moving to the middle of BFE.

I grew up in Grand Island, which isn't exactly the mecca of awesomeness, but it did have a lot to do. It had seven screens of movies. There were two malls, a roller skating rink, many parks, an arcade, bowling alleys, and many more things to do.

I've been to Imperial before and not to knock it, there wasn't much to do. I'm sure if I had grown up there I'd be fine with that. But I didn't, so I'm biased.

Laura had me take pictures of the fields as we were approaching Imperial. She said she missed the scenery.

As we got closer to Imperial, I mentioned to Julia that her Mom said that she'd love to move back to Imperial.

Julia looked a little dubious at this.

"Does it have a Burger King?"

"No," Laura said.

"Does it have a Target?"

"No," Laura said.

"Does it have a Walgreens?"

"No," Laura said.

"Does it have a Walmart?"

"No," Laura said.

"Does it have anything?!" Julia exclaimed.

Laura laughed, "Yes! It has a Subway and a Pizza Hut."

Julia still looked a little dubious. I thought about giving her the impression that we were going to move there, but didn't want to scar her.

We stopped and ate at a local eatery that was pretty good.

Laura warned me not to post this on Facebook because a lot of Imperial people are on Facebook. My feeling on this is that it's not my fault that she and others lived in a town that was so soul-crushing boring that they're that sensitive about it. Just kidding!

As I mentioned before, Grand Island isn't exactly good time central. It's all based on what you're used to and what you missed. I regularly mock my home town.

I wouldn't exactly be against moving there if we had that rare opportunity to do so, but I've said only on the condition that we have a big acreage with plenty of room to do stuff on. Not sure how realistic that would be.

The third leg was to drive from Imperial to Denver, which wasn't as easy as it sounded. Julia and I finally had to prod Laura away from Imperial. We were very impatient to get back on the road and get to Denver.