Two tickets to Laradise. That’s how I’d sold our overnight in Laramie to Elizabeth, anyway. Now I faced the important task of making sure that my overwhelmingly positive experience in town in February 2020 translated for Elizabeth. I put my best Laramie Ambassador face on once we’d checked into our room at the Hampton Inn, and drove her to the charming little downtown area just to the west. Laramie’s downtown is only a few blocks long and a few blocks wide, but it has a truly authentic small-town, western, college-town feel.
I had picked out our dinner spot months ago. Altitude Brewhouse brought back pleasant memories of my visit to the University of Wyoming, and I couldn’t wait to share it. There was only one problem, which I realized when we walked up to the restaurant – this was not the place I had eaten at when I visited. Elizabeth was worried that this would disappoint me, but one step inside confirmed to me that this place was going to be our kind of jam. The waiter led us into a nice corner of the establishment. I’d already scoured the beer list, so I knew some of what I was going to get in my flight. What I didn’t know was that Altitude was going to give us flights of full beer glasses. Laramie sits at a cool 7,000 feet above sea level. With this amount of alcohol you could get properly messed up.
The beer was fantastic, too. Look at my color palette! The stout was surprisingly good, there was a spicy beer, and Elizabeth continued her surprising summer romance with pale ales. The winner, though, and the one we got a growler of after the dinner was done, was a classic Nolan and Elizabeth – something called “Tumblewheat”.
Dinner itself was undeniable awesome, too. If I could rank the best of the many, many meals I ate out in Oklahoma, Wyoming, California, Delaware, Missouri, and other places in the summer of 2021, Altitude would be in the top 5, and it wouldn’t be 5th. Their homemade cheese curds slapped.
The street tacos Elizabeth ordered slapped. The hatch green chile lamb meatloaf I ordered went to unspeakable depths of slaptitude.
Even Elizabeth liked it. Elizabeth! She hates meatloaf!
With a growler tucked away in the car and evening approaching, we still had some time to kill before Pam’s flight landed at Laramie Airport (yes, this is somehow a thing). This was good, since Elizabeth needed to sober up from her growler; in the meantime, she wanted ice cream. Fortunately, one ice cream place remained open in downtown Laramie at the hour – The Big Dipper, just two blocks away down Second Street. I never want to be predictable when I pick an ice cream flavor, but I think my mint chocolate chip decision startled even Elizabeth a little bit. It was good. I don’t regret it.
We sat outside the Big Dipper in the perfect evening air, eating our ice cream on a bench and talking to Michael and Irene on the phone. They were merging onto I-80 in Laramie itself and were considering stopping to visit us before continuing on to Rawlins for the night. As it turned out, they missed the turn and we never saw them. Simple decisions.
We still had some time to kill; Pam was in her layover in Laramie and about to board her flight. I decided to give Elizabeth a quick walking tour of the University of Wyoming campus, culminating at their football stadium. We wandered eastward past the Wyoming Union, with me vaguely trying to find the atmospheric science department that I had visited for a weekend 18 months prior. I was unsuccessful, but we just kept moving toward the stadium. When we got there, there was some construction tape around the stadium, but also a wide-open gate. I wanted to walk inside, and Elizabeth didn’t. Out of deference to her rule-following tendencies, I deferred walking right onto the field – until two joggers entered the stadium and started doing laps on the track. Then I was somewhat less cautious.
We started a leisurely stroll back down Wyoming’s Greek row, heading back towards downtown and Elizabeth’s car so we could meet Pam at the airport. Well, as it turned out… Pam’s flight landed while we were still on campus, well ahead of schedule. I guess a flight on a United puddle-jumper between Denver and Laramie, in retrospect, is probably more scenic than it is a long duration. The only issue was that we had to make a long trip back to the car.
It was one step short of a run back to the car. Then, we had to take a funky and roundabout 15 minute drive through the growing dusk toward Laramie Regional Airport, Altitude growler rolling in the backseat. The views outside of downtown were phenomenal – things got dark so quickly, with a red sunset against the Snowy Range in the distance.
Laramie Airport is exactly what it sounds like: tiny. With that said, every parking spot in the lot was taken, so we had to go to the overflow lot, which was just a field on the other side of the entrance road. Pam had been waiting for us for a while, but was far too polite to say anything to us about that. I played some additional Tetris to get her bags to fit into the limited space left in the Subaru, and we headed back toward town. Pam needed some food, so we made a quick stop at Lovejoy’s bar downtown to get her dinner. The highlight of our second meal was when Pam ordered cheese curds of her own, trying to recreate the magic Elizabeth and I had struck at Altitude. They were not as good.
Many big days loomed. Tomorrow loomed bigger than Elizabeth could have possibly known. With that in mind, I was happy to rest my weary head back at the Hampton Inn.
