Alkaline Trio are one of my favourite bands in the whole wide world. Months before our departure from Australia we found out they were playing all 8 of their albums over 4 nights in only a handful of cities. We quickly went online to purchase tickets and Denver was our only viable option. We basically planned our whole west coast jaunt around this event.

We decided to take a couple of days to get to Denver and stopped in 2 towns along the way in Utah. This state has some of the best scenery I’ve ever encountered. We only chose one park to explore which was Arches National Park and it did not disappoint. Thankfully, because our accommodations did. Jaymin’s ultimate wish was to stay in “one of those motels like in the movies where you park in front of your room”. The first night we ended up at a little motel in Cedar City and boy did it deliver. The following night was at the Robbers Roost in Green River which was a huge improvement, but that may have been due to relativity.

Onto bigger and better things…Denver. Such a cool city! We had a great basement suite that we got through airbnb in an up and coming area to the north of the city. Only in town the 4 nights of the show, we did most of our touring by day. We visited the Red Rock Ampitheatre where Jaymin discovered that running up hundreds of stairs at high altitude was a bad idea, we did a tour of some microbreweries, ate some great Mexican food and indulged in a bottomless pint for $10. But the highlight of course was 4 nights of amazing music that left us almost voiceless and happy we had remembered to bring our earplugs.

It was getting pretty cold in Denver so we decided last minute to do a long haul and drive ourselves back to Vegas where we could get a room at the Hard Rock for $30/nt and be back in 30 degree weather. As we were leaving that morning the weather started turning ugly, we saw a Fedex truck in a ditch and a temperature gauge that continued to drop. When we started seeing cars coming from the other direction covered in snow, we knew we were in for it. Within minutes we were in white out conditions, barely recognising the existence of a road and seeing car after car sliding off the road. Jaymin and the tire chain-less Yaris held fast though and after hours of expert driving we made it out of Colorado and back onto the dry Utah roads. It was then my turn to take over and ensure we make it to Vegas before midnight.

T & J