In March of 2021, I had just relocated to Asheville, NC. Living in the Southeast for most of my adult life, I had been to Asheville many times and fallen in love with its beauty, its history, and the access to abundant nature. The move was somewhat unexpected after some personal upheaval during the tumultuous year that was 2020 and I was so excited to finally call this place home.

In 2018, I decided to experiment with dirt-cheap back-to-back ticketing on Frontier Airlines. I was living in Atlanta, I had a friend in Austin, my sister was in Portland, and I could stitch the destinations together with an overnight in Denver. Knowing Denver had rail from the airport to city center, I figured I could make a fun overnight trip out of the layover.