October 3, 2014 / Day 2 of #ontheroad1014 (written on day 5?)
A day and a half behind, I write this sitting on the floor of a home built in the 1800’s for a doctor in Kansas City, MO. It was one of the couchsurfing situations I set up. I’m really happy I had one lined up since we arrived really late to the city. In Denver, we didn’t know where we were going to sleep but knew we had to get creative.
On October 3, we went from Durango to Denver, with a few hiccups in the morning. Our rental said the tire pressure was off, and Dan needed to get more sustenance than the one oatmeal packet he ate. That led us to trying to find a market that carried natural peanut butter and bread with no sugar. The slow giddy up in our drive, had us racing to Denver to make the Molly Brown house museum’s last tour at 3:30pm. The GPS said our arrival was 3:45pm and I was rehearsing my pitch to get us in mid-tour. I love Molly Brown, she was an intelligent strong Irish women. A feminist spit fire and a women before her time. I’d like to think I have a little Molly Brown in me.
Once we got into Denver, we took a wrong turn and it caused my anxiety to really shoot up. I really wanted to see the Molly Brown House! We got to the house by 3:40, parked the car, and ran to the ticket booth/souvenir shop, and I mean ran. The girl in the tickets heard my desperate plea, and said depending on where they were in the tour she could bring us in but if they were on the second floor we might be out of luck.
The ticket booth girl, fiddled with a lock on the door. It was stuck and the suspension was killing me, are we going to get to see Molly Browns house. Praying to the lord the door would open, it finally budged and we were taken into the dining room where the tour group was getting the last of the info before moving upstairs.
The museum house was everything I could imagine, Victorian, ornate, well designed, I swooned. The tour guide inside, Cat, was really kind to us and said since we came late she’d go through the first few rooms with us and then finish the history outside. We soaked it up, and after enjoying hearing all the additional Molly Brown tid-bits the other tour participants didn’t get to hear, I pushed my luck with Cat.
Having already given so much of her time to us, I felt selfish for asking if she might have a place or know anyone open to hosting two travelers for a night. She informed us she had cats, and since I’m allergic, I informed her I had pills and a nasel spray to handle that. We exchanged numbers and in a few hours after cleaning she called us, and we had an amazing night in Denver.
