The Summer of '95: Our Rocky Mountain high vacation

On August 2, 1995, I attended my first MLB game: Dodgers-Rockies at the brand-new Coors Field in Denver.

There were seven of us—my family of four plus my aunt, uncle, and cousin—and we sat in the only seven seats available together: high above right field in the highest row of the stadium, way above the row of purple seats that marked one mile above sea level. We joked that it was just our luck: we splurge to go to a baseball game and end up sitting in the very last row. It was both sad and funny. Nonetheless, I was in awe of not only the stadium and the game, but also of the view of Denver’s skyline and the mountains in the distance.

The Dodgers won, 10–7, which made my mom happy (she’s a Dodgers fan). After the game, as we were inching our way through traffic, our Dodge Grand Caravan filled downtown Denver with smoke. Someone walking by us quipped, “Hey, your van’s on fire!”

The Dodgers-Rockies game was the climax to our vacation in the Centennial State. I think it was only 10 days, but it made a lasting impression on me, mostly because it was our first big family vacation, the first time we ventured outside of the Midwest as a foursome. My parents and I flew to LA when I was three, but we stayed close to home after my sister was born. Besides a trip to the Wisconsin Dells in 1991, our summer vacations consisted of Adventureland, the Iowa State Fair, and short trips to visit family in central and northeast Iowa. Driving to and touring Colorado was like nothing I had ever experienced.

It was also my first return to my birth state. We moved to Iowa City when I was two, so I have no memory of living in Colorado. I was very eager to see the Centennial State for what felt like the first time.

The trip did not disappoint, and I vividly remember a lot of it—especially driving there and back.

We left in the afternoon, after my parents got off work. My dad decided to take Highway 6 to Tiffin to get on Interstate 80. As we passed the VA hospital in Iowa City, probably four or five miles from our house, my eight-year-old sister ask, “Are we there yet?”

I was in the very back seat of our van, my Sony Walkman and a collection of tapes nearby. I had a notebook to keep track of each “big” city we passed through and what radio station we listened to. (This was during the days when I wanted to be a deejay and was obsessed with the radio.) I had a camera ready to take pictures of tall buildings, and was eager to photograph the buildings in downtown Des Moines. However, my dad followed 80 around the north side of the city instead of going downtown, so I was super bummed. We passed the North Des Moines Girls softball complex, where games were being played in the evening light, the peak of the Principle Building visible just above the trees. (I may have taken a picture of it.) We followed 80 along the steep ramp at the interchange with 680 at sunset, drove through Omaha after dark (meaning I could not see any tall buildings), and stopped in Lincoln for the night.

We endured the drive across Nebraska the next day. We stopped a lot because something was wrong with our van. I remember hanging out in the parking lot of an auto shop in either Kearney or North Platte, our van in the garage and my dad talking to a mechanic. I expected to see mountains when we finally entered Colorado, but found a nearly 200-mile extension of Nebraska instead. (Colorado is such a tease!) I remember the wall of blocks that support an E-470 ramp outside of Denver because we were stuck in traffic there. I noticed that all the other drivers and passengers were looking at us, as if they had never seen Iowans before. I marveled at the Front Range as we navigated a cloverleaf loop and made our way to my aunt and uncle’s house in Morrison.

The next however many days was a whirlwind of discovery. Red Rocks, downtown Denver, the peaks of the Front Range, driving through the mountains, the Eisenhower Tunnel, Glenwood Canyon, the hot springs at Glenwood Springs, the Book Cliffs, Grand Junction, the Garden of the Gods, the Olympic training center. We packed in a lot of sightseeing during our time there. We stopped along the side of the road a lot, and I assumed it was to admire the scenery. I later learned it was to let our van’s engine cool down. (According to my dad, the valve guides were “shot,” so we were constantly burning oil, hence the smoke in downtown Denver. After we got home, he learned that the motor mounts were broken, so we were lucky the engine did not fall out.) The baseball game was the last big event. We rested for a day, then hit the road back to Iowa City on August 4.

Much like the trip there, I vividly remember a couple things about our trip home. We left a box of my sister’s favorite cereal at my aunt and uncle’s (maybe Peanut Butter Crunch), and my mom wrote a note that said they should feed it to the squirrels. (I think my sister had been feeding it to the squirrels, so we knew they liked it.) I remember watching the warehouses and factories of Denver make way for the country, and the Front Range dipping below the horizon behind us. I remember sitting in the front seat between Lincoln and Omaha, hearing “Escape (The Piña Colada Song)” for the first time. We stopped for gas in Council Bluffs at sunset, and the family decided to get home that night no matter how long it took. There was a lot of traffic on 80 between Des Moines and Iowa City, even long after dark, a steady stream of taillights and headlights. Traffic shifted to one lane each on one side in a construction zone, and the sound of “West End Girls” thumped out of the speakers, becoming a fitting and hypnotic soundtrack to the scene. We reached home around midnight.

I was obsessed with Colorado for a long time after. I became a Rockies fan (for a short period; it was one of many stops along my journey of baseball fandom), wanted to subscribe to the Denver Post, and dreamed of moving to Denver and becoming a deejay. (I even knew I had to get a smog test for my car when I moved there.) But though my obsession faded, the trip stayed with me. It was epic compared to anything else that came before it, and still is epic compared to what came afterward. That’s why it has stuck with me, why it always comes to mind when I drive Interstate 80 between Iowa City and Des Moines. It was the first of just a few big family vacations, so it stands out among all the staycations. It is one of the things that made the summer of 1995 so memorable.