The Wrong Way

"Get a picture of the skyline!" she shouted from the back seat. Our Colorado road trip hadn't turned out quite like we imagined it. Four inches of snow in the middle of May with no boots or cold weather gear meant that instead of spending our last two days hiking, we were stuck inside. Determined to make the best of the unusual weather, Lindsey, Dan and I drove into downtown Denver for the day with no real plan but to explore the city.

We maneuvered our way through the city streets, searching for a cheap place to park. We oohed and ahed at the buildings, saying how cute the apartments looked and deciding which 16th street store we would visit first. Our quest for a parking lot was more difficult than expected, somehow we got twisted around near Union Station and before we knew it, we were on the one-way I-25 express lane. To the horror of our faithful navigator, TomTom, we were driving down the middle of the highway, barricaded on both sides and pointed in the wrong direction. When I glanced in the rearview mirror, Denver looked impossibly small. We drove for several more miles before the express lane ended and we steered ourselves back toward the city.

Frustrated by our accidental detour, we decided to try a different off-ramp for our "second try." The exit brought us alongside Coors Field, home of the Rockies. Police directed pedestrians to cross the street near the stadium. Fans sported their Rockies garb and little kids carried baseball gloves. "Let's go to the game!" someone suggested. I turned into an event parking lot and we discussed how much we would be willing to pay for tickets. As college students on a tight road-trip budget, we knew we didn't want to spend more than $10. (Less, if possible!)

We flagged down a scalper who flashed us three club-level tickets priced at $25 each. After a little bartering, we walked into the game with three tickets for $5 each--not a bad deal! We convinced Eugene (the old-man usher--what a sweetie!) to let us sit wherever we wanted, and enjoyed the game from the eighth row. The Rockies beat the Phillies in the bottom of the tenth with a walk-off home run, just in time for the rain to start.

After the game, we spent the rest of the afternoon riding up and down 16th street on the free hybrid city buses. We ate at the Rockbottom Brewery and then sipped coffee after dinner while perusing the shelves of the Tattered Cover bookstore. It was a rainy afternoon, but incredibly relaxing and maybe one of my favorite parts of the whole week. As we sloshed down the street to our car, we laughed about how the I-25 wrong turn had led us to the perfect day, one we never could have planned on our own.

Maybe I'm trying to be too deep (forgive me), but I think that our wrong turn is a lot like real life. Sometimes mistakes shape us into the people we're supposed to be. Sometimes plans are better when they're stuffed away in the glove compartment. Sometimes the unexpected is what makes life beautiful. Sometimes wrong turns lead us to the perfect afternoon.

To Lindsey, Dan, and Nick-- Thanks for a great week in Colorado! And Nebraska, you're still the worst state in the US.