Taylor Swift and Alpine Fries

Back in November of 2022 I entered into the lottery system to get access to Taylor Swift tickets. It was a long shot, because everyone in the world wanted these tickets. They had you rank your top three preferred concert cities, and then notified you later if you had been selected for the presale queue for that date/city. By some stroke of luck, I was selected to participate in the presale, but it was my third choice…Denver. I decided not to worry about that detail in the moment because I still needed to join the presale queue and hope that I could find seats for my family.

The virtual presale was a total cluster. Ticketmaster is being sued by everyone in the world over the fiasco, but after 3-4 hours of waiting and hoping I managed to break through. Every time I added tickets to my cart they’d disappear before it could process the charge on my credit card. I had nearly given up hope when my purchase of 4 tickets finally went through. The tickets were $300 each plus another $50 of fees ($1,400 total). While I hoped that I could find tickets to Seattle and sell the Denver tickets, that never came to be. The resale value of the tickets stayed close to $1,500 (each!), but I couldn’t convince my family to sell them. We decided to turn the trip into a combination of concert and national park adventure.

So, what does this have to do with French fries? Let’s start with that, and then I’ll talk about the concert.

The Fries

Over the course of the four day trip, we had fries from the following locations:

1. True Burger – Seatac Airport (A Gates)
2. Freddy’s Frozen Custard & Steakburgers (Broomfield, CO)
3. Steve’s Snappin’ Dogs (Denver, CO)
4. Freddy’s Frozen Custard & Steakburgers (again)
5. Trail Ridge Store (Rocky Mountain National Park, CO)
6. Penelope’s World Famous Burgers and Fries (Estes Park, CO)
7. Shake Shack (Denver International Airport, CO)

I’m going to start with the most interesting of the fries, which coincidentally are the ones served at nearly 12,000 feet of elevation. The Sweet Potato Fries from the Trail Ridge Store in Rocky Mountain National Park.

I thought the park was stunning. We only had one day to explore, and my family are also sea-level altitude wimps that struggled with the reduced oxygen at these heights. If you’re visiting Rocky in the summer make sure that you secure a timed entry reservation (this is relevant in 2023 but may be relevant in future seasons as well). We reserved a 9:00am entry to the main area of the park, and then a 4pm entry to the Bear Lake area. We started out by driving up Old Fall River Road which is a 9 mile one way dirt road of switchbacks that passes by various small hikes and view points. The drive up was terrific, but we kept the hiking to a minimum due to our lung capacity.

The destination at the end of Old Fall River Road is the Alpine visitor center which is the highest altitude visitor center at any national park (just under 12,000) feet. Admittedly, I was a little light headed and hungry, so I searched the Trial Ridge Store for a snack. Their Sweet Potato Fries were an obvious choice.

I tried to find something higher, but I believe that these fries might be highest altitude French fries prepared/served in the United States. Pike’s Peak (also in Colorado) might serve French fries at about 14,000 feet, but I was unable to confirm through their website. It’s also possible that some airline is serving a French fry like product at 30,000 feet, but we can all agree that that doesn’t count. I typically don’t gravitate towards sweet potato fries, but for $5 and very limited other options, these were not a bad choice. I’d say that they were firm, but not crispy. For being a steak fry cut sweet potato I was more impressed that they weren’t gummy. The honey mustard sauce paired terrifically with the simply seasoned ridge cut potatoes, and I was genuinely satisfied with the snack.

Here’s a quick run through of the other fries:

True Burger (Seatac Airport) – Decent burger, decent fries. Service was super slow, but everything was fresh and tasted great. Pretty standard “good” food service precut frozen fries. Not a bad option if you’re in the A gates and want something other than Qdoba.

Freddy’s Frozen Custard & Steakburgers – My family went here twice, but I only went once. It’s a chain that we don’t have access to in Washington. The steakburgers are actually smash burgers, and they’re pretty good. Very sloppily assembled by the teenage evening crew, but solid nonetheless. The fries were HEAVILY seasoned with a salt blend similar to Lawry’s and were essentially shoestring cut. I thought they were executed well and stayed crispy throughout the whole meal. I also loved that they had packets of fry sauce, including a jalapeno fry sauce. The frozen custard is more satisfying than soft serve. I’d come back to this chain if we were on a road trip and this was one of the options.

Steve’s Snappin’ Dogs – I used to sell hot dogs, so I’m no stranger to a sketchy dog joint. Steve’s was an interesting location because it was obviously not a “nice” establishment, but there was a Lamborghini parked outside. Money doesn’t take away some people’s appreciation for a good dog. I whole-heartedly believe that Steve’s serves great hot dogs, but the chimidog that I purchased (a hot dog, chili, etc. wrapped in a flour tortilla and fried) wasn’t very compelling. The fries and onion rings were totally fine, but I wished that I had ordered a smash burger or one of their other dogs. They also have a location at the airport if you aren’t interested in hanging out in this part of town but still want a dog and fries.

Penelope’s World Famous Burgers and Fries – We stopped here on the way out of Rocky Mountain National Park. It’s one of those time capsule nostalgia spots that everyone remembers fondly and returns to, but as a first timer it wasn’t the best impression. The fries were fresh cut in house, medium thickness (I forgot the calipers). Unfortunately, I don’t think that they double fry them, so while they’re hot and salty, they’re not crispy or tender. The fried pickles were great, though. I also snagged some fried cheese curds which are always a win. The burgers were decent, but the staff didn’t give me much time to look at the sprawling menu board and I didn’t notice that there were several specialty burgers on another wall that I might have preferred. Either way, this place fills the need for quick and relatively cheap burgers and fries, and I don’t regret stopping by. The ice cream shop just down the road has a fascinating vintage waffle cone maker that I was mesmerized by. It rotates a series of cast iron plates to cook the batter like a mechanical clock. I was really impressed. The salt water taffy was mediocre.

Shake Shack – I actually dig these crinkle cut fries. Especially with the cheese sauce. Not everyone enjoys them, and maybe they don’t always come out this good, but they hit the spot. This location fried them perfectly so that they were perfectly crispy and steamy/pillowy in the center. Also, it’s airport food in this scenario, and it kept my kids happy.

The Concert

Like I said, we bought the tickets to Taylor Swift back in November, but I didn’t commit to the airfare and hotel until mid June. I couldn’t believe the hysteria around this tour and how much people were willing to pay to get a seat. I say that as a genuine Taylor Swift fan. I think that she’s one of the most talented musical artists of my generation and will leave a massive legacy in the musical industry as she continues through her career. I was converted with her 1989 album when she brought on Jack Antonoff as a producer and incorporated a really mature, but vintage, quality to the songs. I started to appreciate her song writing for the intricacy and vulnerability of the lyrics, and her range as an artist to embrace several different genres and make them her own. Bottom line, I’m a Swiftie, and I’m not ashamed about it.

I found a hotel room in Broomfield/Interlocken which is about 20 minutes north of downtown Denver. This seemed like a good idea because it was much cheaper than the inflated downtown hotels prices, but also because we wanted to visit Boulder and Rocky Mountain National Park during the trip. However, this also meant we needed to drive to the concert and find parking. This is where I screwed up.

I assumed that parking would be available near the stadium, but potentially with a healthy walk. However, the lot that I assumed would be open was actually reserved for ticketmaster reserved parking, and I wasn’t on that list. Lots of other things in that vicinity were closed, so I steered us back towards downtown and found an open business garage with cheap evening rates ($8). It was about a mile walk to the stadium from there and it gave us the opportunity to visit Illegal Pete’s for a burrito bowl before heading over. I trusted our journey over to Google Maps walking directions from there, and everything started off fine…but then it wasn’t. You see, it was hot. Like, 90 degrees hot. We could tell that we were getting close to the stadium, but Google Maps was doing some weird stuff and we decided to follow a crowd of other concert goers under the assumption that they knew where they were going. We discovered later that they had no clue, and we missed a tricky transition to get off the main road and cut over to a pedestrian access path to arrive at the stadium. Instead, we wound up committed to an elevated highway overpass that circled the stadium with no outlet until we were fully past. This added almost a mile to our walk and we were melting by the time we reached the gates. To make matters worse, our specific entry gate was on the exact opposite end of the stadium, so the march had to continue even further.

There was no relief from the sun and heat once we entered the stadium. Our seats were West facing on the top row of the lower bowl which turned into a concrete oven as the sun slowly set over the stadium wall. We powered through the two opening acts (Gracie Ambrams and MUNA) dripping in sweat because the concession area inside was impenetrable to normal humans. Everyone needed the special “mirrorball” souvenir cup, or some special t shirt from the merch counter. It was madness, but by the time Taylor took the stage the sun had dipped down and she cast a spell over the 70,000 attendees for the next 3.5 hours. I believe she played 44 songs from her catalogue which spanned 10 albums. She was incredible, and we had an amazing time. One nitpick about the concert experience for me was the hordes of screaming, crying, flailing fangirls that treated every song as if it was the climax of their personal Hallmark movie. That was extreme, and they were everywhere. And just in case you didn’t see them, they made sure to record their screaming, crying, and flailing for the world of TikTok and Instagram to enjoy. To each their own, but I’m a grumpy old man that gets annoyed by the over-dramatics.

I tried to buy French fries at the concert to help give me a better excuse to write about it in this blog. Unfortunately, when I visited the concession stand they were completely out of food. Tough luck. One other note, I decided to make up for my navigation error earlier by running up to a pedicab after the show and agreeing to pay whatever he’d charge to get us back to our car downtown. Our 5 minute thrill ride was $80, and worth every penny. I even let him keep the change on the even $100 because he saved the day and made me look like the hero.

I could go on and on about the details of the concert, but I can’t write any more or better than the thousands of others that have documented the Eras Tour. One contrarian opinion, though…if you weren’t able to get tickets and feel like you missed out on something huge, don’t worry about it. At the end of the day it was just a concert. It would not have been worth the thousands of dollars a ticket on the resale market to get a seat, and I’m sure that at some point there will be a video documenting the performances with a much better view of Taylor and significantly less audio from the shrieking girls in Row 40. I feel lucky to have gone, but I don’t think that any single concert is worth losing that kind of money (or sleep) over.

People like to know trip costs, so I’ll give my best estimate here:

Concert Tickets – $1,400
Airfare – $1,500 (4 people)
Hotel – $1,150 (5 nights, 1 bedroom suite)
Food – $500. This is a guess, but is probably close. We had free breakfast and then didn’t go anywhere fancy.
Merch – $150. Bought some t shirts online afterwards with a discount code.
Car and Gas – $600. Budget small SUV through Costco Travel.
Odds and Ends – $200.

Total – $5,500. Is that terrible for a concert and a national park visit? Maybe not, but it still feels high. Good memories, though.

Other items of note: We ate at an interesting taco place in Boulder called t/aco. I thought all of the proteins for the tacos were terrific, but the highlight for me was the grilled cotija taco. They griddle circle of cotija cheese until it’s crisped and caramelized on side then load that onto a tortilla with guacamole and other accoutrement. I loved it and I’m going to try to make it at home. They also served a phenomenal virgin margarita called the Waters Marg with lime juice, pineapple juice, and habanero. It was mostly citrusy and bright, but the hot fruitiness of the habanero worked wonders and I would definitely order it again on a return visit. We never ordered anything with Denver’s famous green chili. I’m not sure how that happened, but it’s probably unforgiveable.

I loved a visit to Sweet Cow for ice cream up in Louisville as well as Lucky Pie right next door for a fancy pizza. We stopped by the Denver Museum of Nature and Science before the concert (very fun), and my family visited the Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge without me while I worked one of the days we were there. The greater Denver area has awesome food and I wish that we had had more time to explore it.