Overland Park, Colorado
Benjamin arrived a week ago Monday. At 12, he is the younger of my two boys. Aside from a couple days when I sneaked into Tampa in May, this is the first I’ve been able to spend any time with him since the winter break. Needless to say, I’ve been eagerly awaiting his arrival.
Planning on your kid’s visit can be daunting. You have a month with him before he goes back to mom and the silences take back over the house. You want to get it all in. You also work for the federal government, so getting it all in comes with an asterisk, in that you can’t actually afford all the things. So that means being creative.
I came through Woodland Park recently on my way to and from meetings we held at the Manitou Experimental Forest, a research station operated by the Forest Service where our biologists, ecologists, foresters, and others figure out the best way to steward the landscape. As usual, I was on the look out for cool things to see or do while I live here in Colorado. Woodland Park looked neat and I thought Benjamin might enjoy seeing it.
We drove up on Saturday—well, I drove up while he slept since he decided to play on his phone until the wee hours of the morning. It took about an hour and a half from Pueblo. (If you’ve had younger kids you know the pain of wanting to show them the world while they instead catch up on the sleep they missed.) Naturally, he was so tired that he didn’t want to see or do a lot in town, but we made it work. But the young lad was hungry and after giving him some options he chose a local bbq joint as our destination.
Folks, I am on record for how bad the food is out here in Colorado. For folks wondering about the culture of any particular place, the food is often the gateway towards understanding the locale. Despite being in the shadow of the mountains, much of eastern Colorado is really just the western Plains—Long Kansas if you will. We can make those assertions based on the observation that ketchup is usually the spiciest option available. That and there is an utter lack of sweet tea west of Arkansas. But I’ve come to grudgingly accept that reality.
And then Benjamin chose Roy’s Crew BBQ.
One of the best things about a good bbq joint is how the place smells and by that I mean hits you from a half-mile down the road. And this place hit me in all the feels. Of course, I was still on the defensive. I’ve been hurt before. And as we have established, Colorado is culturally the Plains. And that means Pepsi.
And then we walked in.
BEHOLD.
COCA-COLA.
And sweet tea. This place was showing serious promise.
Benjamin ordered pulled pork (mercifully from the kids’ menu). I gave serious consideration to a four meat thunder sandwich but decided instead on fried catfish, french fries, and mac & cheese. It was phenomenal.
Perhaps you might think ordering catfish in Colorado might sound odd and I must admit it gave me pause. Some of you may look down on the fish. But in my mind it is the People’s Fish. It is the fish of the working class. Generations of my family have harvested this creature from the waters of western Kentucky and western Tennessee. And I wanted some.
Bellies full, we moved on to the Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Museum. This was a place that I’d noticed when I came through town earlier. I thought this might be right up our alley. And god knows I love dinosaurs.
This place was affordable (I think like $22 for the both of us) but mostly targeted at little kids. Not a lot to keep us engaged, but I’m glad we went. Besides, we got some good photos so I was happy about that. Also: there was some Jurassic Park stuff there, so hooray for this trip officially being tax deductible.
I dragged Ben around a little while longer, but when you’re a parent you need to be able to recognize when the kids are tired and just accept the win, even if that means cutting the day short. We headed back to Pueblo where we both crashed hard.
More adventures awaited.
You did good, Dad 👍❤️
When I was a kid, we moved a lot. My parents liked camping, so we went to a lot the nation’s wonders when my father was stationed across country. The biggest fish is kids ever caught anywhere from coast to coast were the gigantic catfish out of the Snake River. They were as big as we were!
We threw some back but ate least one my mother died over the campfire.