I met my wife (Liz) while she was in college in Florida around the summer of 2012. We decided that year I would fly to Colorado for Christmas to meet her family for the first time. Her mom decided to plan a family trip during my two-week stay and told me the whole family was going to Glenwood Springs. I had never been to a hot spring before as I grew up in Florida for most of my life so I didn’t know what to expect. To my surprise, we had an amazing time being together in the hot springs, the lodge, and exploring all the cool shops and restaurants that downtown had to offer.
Fast forward to the winter of 2014, I decided to propose to my Girlfriend during our annual Colorado Christmas vacation. Her parents gave me the approval and luckily she said yes! I gave her the ring I picked out and within 24 hours we were off to Glenwood Hot Springs for the semi-annual family trip. We were having as much fun as we’ve ever had in the hot springs when my wife looked at her ring and noticed a huge gaping hole where the diamond used to be :(… luckily I got insurance on the diamond so we were covered and it didn’t ruin our trip.
Fast forward to September of 2015, we just got married and decided it would only be fitting to spend our honeymoon at a place we both loved and had sentimental meaning no other place could replicate, Glenwood Springs. We stayed at the lodge for a week and had a ball, we went rafting, to the Adventure Park, we both got massages at the lodge’s spa, and of course, we had to go to the Hot Springs 2/3 times a day minimum. It was during all these adventures I realized in our room at the lodge that my wedding band was gone :(… We backtracked everywhere, the Wendy’s we ate lunch at, the Safeway we stopped at, I couldn’t find my ring anywhere. In a last ditch effort of pure desperation I decided to get the lodge’s trash can from the floor’s main hall and dumped it into our bathtub. So there’s me, swimming in a bathtub full of garbage as my wife is sobbing in the other room slowly accepting the fact that my ring is gone forever, and then BOOM! I found it… there was a hole in the bag and the ring had somehow fallen thru the entire bag into the bin. The honeymoon could continue and all was well.
You might think these traumatic events may have made us reconsider Glenwood and the Hot Springs as our go-to destination but you would be wrong. Since moving to Colorado from Florida in 2019, we have been to Glenwood Hot Springs for every one of our anniversaries and random family get-togethers. There is no place in the world that is more special to my wife and I than Glenwood Springs. It might be a small town that others say doesn’t have a ton to offer outside of the Hot Springs but we don’t care! Glenwood and the Hot Springs represent the evolution of my relationship with my wife and her (our) family! It’s a special place that will never be replicated or replaced and a place we hope to bring our future kids to someday. So there’s my manifesto… if you don’t want to award us for being Glenwood loyalists then do it for the lost diamond and the heartbreak of nearly losing my wedding band. Kidding … we love you guys and are always coming back no matter what.
Adam H. - Colorado Springs, CO