Sunday, July 6, 2014

Recapping Colorado

Sorry it's taking me this long to get writing again. Yeah, I never scheduled any posts while I was gone, and I got back more than a week ago and I'm finally really writing something of substance, thought and wit.

Yeah, I pretty confident you will have this many of those three when you finish typing.

Yes, there are some cards from this trip, but we'll get to those in time. Now, the first stop along the road was the Bob Feller Museum. Originally we were going to swing by Dyer, IA for the Field of Dreams, but my map reading skills stated a trip like that would add about 5 hours on the driving. The Feller museum was right on the path. Good thing. We left later than I wanted, though. Bad thing. With the driving, we got to the museum after it was closed. I was disappointed in that, but at least got a shot against the iconic wall of the place.


I really wanted to see it, but it wasn't to be. If you get a chance, Google Map the place. The strangest thing is how much it's just a part of a little community. About 50 feet to the left of me in that photo is a clothes line with t-shirts drying on it. It fits in with the folksy persona of Feller.

Anyway, back on the road. We crossed into Nebraska when the nasty storms hit. Luckily, we missed the baseball sized hail. Unlucky, though, was trying to find a hotel for the night. Hotels.com, after using their app, booked us a room at a hotel that was full. Nice. While the customer service and the refund was simple, it took 5 days for the money to get back in my account. Hotel attempt #2 had me going thru the reservation group with Motel 6. Got to the place - they were also full. WTH. Called them back, got a supervisor that was very nice and very helpful. He had to put us another 25 minutes down the road, but he called ahead to make sure the room was available. For future reference, only book rooms with the front desk of a location. Little tip from me to you.

Tip #2: Don't let your mom comb your hair when she is mad at your father.

Alright, woke up in the middle of Nebraska and headed out. I was told Nebraska is a boring ride. Holy crap is it ever. Lot of nothing to look at. Flat and unexciting. And wide. Is Nebraska ever a wide state. I drove about 3.5 hours of it the night before, and spent another 3 hours finishing up the state. The one highlight, though, was pulling in for gas. Little station that had a restaurant attached. Went in to use the bathroom and there was a group of about 40 people or so sitting around playing music. Average age was about 65. Guitar, violin, tambourine, washboard, mouth harp. And no - I am not kidding about those last two instruments.  Just playing old timey back woods country music in one section of the restaurant while people ate in another. It wasn't like live music as it was more a community thing. I'm poking a little fun at the instruments, but the whole scene looked really nice and sweet.

Ok - rolled into Colorado, found my son and had fun. Monday night we had tickets to the Rockies game. Cards shut them out 8-0, but I just went to see a game in the park. Nice seats about 10 rows up in left center. 


A good time was had, and Coors Field is a nice place for a game. Bench seating in the outfield, which is something you don't usually see at newer parks. 


We got emissions on the car ($25 and you have to pay every other year - seriously?) and got it registered for my son. Wed we hit up Golden for the free Coors tour. Coors sucks, but at least they make Blue Moon, and they own Leinenkugal, so they save themselves with that. Leinie's is only made in Wisconsin, so I sampled some of their small batch stuff. Too hoppy, but the Blue Moon cleared the pallet. 


Also while in Golden we drove up to Lookout Mountain. It's not the Rocky Mountains, but you still have nice views of the low lands. 


Plus, we saw the grave of Buffalo Bill Cody. Touristy for sure, but this was in the gift shop by his grave.


Since I am already big, I had no idea what to ask for. I'll take suggestions for the next trip out west.

Alright, enough of the vacation pics - let's get to the cards. I did pay a visit to Bill's Sports Collectables. Huge shop with soooooooo much stuff. Books, magazines, caps, toys, autographs, jerseys - you name it. They have a little of everything. Prices in my mind are a bit high there, plus they could really use air conditioning. I did get to go alone, so I spent about 3 hours digging through some boxes. I didn't spend much, but I found some good things. 


These are a couple of Exhibit cards reprints. They put these out in 1980. I have the 1947 original, and these are two color variation reprints. Fifty cents each. 


On card auto of Jim Parque. I always thought he could have been a bigger star in the league, but numerous arm injuries shortened his career. 


Going to send the Pierce for a TTM. The Fox/Killebrew, while a bit miscut, will go into the '64 set. 


Here is the last card I bought. The four cards cost me a total of $10, so 2.50 each. While a little water damaged, this '50 Bowman of Virgil Trucks was way too good to pass up. 

So there's the recap. I came home to a bunch of packages, and I will get those scanned, posted and gratitude given. Plus I have some mailings to send out. Back to the regular bump and grind.

9 comments:

  1. Nice recap. I've done the Feller Museum, Coors brewery, and Coors Field on my trips to Denver. The feller Museum was better than the Babe Ruth Museum I saw recently in Baltimore; you should make another effort next time you head that way. Nebraska is not a fun state to try to cross. B-O-R-I-N-G. Although, one of these summers I'll time it up right so that I'll hit Omaha when the college world series is in full swing.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sounds like a great trip! You should've asked Zoltar for a '52 Mantle.

    Looks like you stopped at a fun card shop as well. I have that very same '50 Bowman Virgil Trucks in my collection, it's a beauty.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Man, that is a cool pic by the Feller wall. We take the family back to San Diego from Texas about twice a year, and it's about a 20 hour drive, right through nothing interesting from west Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. Glad you were able to stay awake. Other than that, sounds like it was a great trip! Reminds me that I need to expand my MLB stadium resume, only have US Cellular and all the California teams (well, sort of, I haven't been to AT&T, but I went to Candlestick).

    ReplyDelete
  4. i had no idea coors owned leinie's. honeyweiss used to be heavy in my beer rotation. stupid sconies made me think they were a little ol' chippewa falls brewery. i'll stick with my surly and liftbridge, thank you very much.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Zoltar! So cool!
    Nice trip ;)

    ReplyDelete
  6. I have a big box of cards waiting to send to you. Can you send me your address?
    Thanks
    Bo

    ReplyDelete
  7. What a great sounding road trip.Glad you could grab some Billy Pierces and the Trucks is another sweet pick up..Glad to hear it was a safe trip..

    ReplyDelete
  8. Great recap! My wife and I are headed to Colorado later this month for the first time and so I really enjoyed seeing what you had done. We're going to a Rockies game, but other than that we don't have anything really planned.

    ReplyDelete