4.

I have finally been having some adventures, so here's a catch-up post, with pics from spring through early summer.

Above, a close-up of some snowflakes. As "spring" came to Denver, it just kept snowing. One storm had particularly large and well-formed snowflakes, and I got several photos of them. And here is a shot of a tree in the park.

This is Sarah. Together, we have been having adventures. We went to the little resort town of Manitou Springs...

I don't know what this is... er, I guess the sign on the building says it is the Miramont Castle Museum... but I lack photos from the more interesting parts of the trip, like when the car broke down on the highway in a blizzard.

Here we go on a spring snowshoeing trip at Echo Lake, with 70 degree weather and lovely sunshine.

Then, we went camping at White Ranch, the lovely park outside Denver with free hike-in campsites. While we were there, Sarah stumbled on a letterbox. From reading the materials inside, we learned that letterboxing is NOT geocaching (in which participants use their GPSes and a set of clues to find boxes filled with trinkets -- take a trinket, leave a trinket). The letterbox contained a book, a stamp and pad, and some pot.

Many people had written in the book and added their own stamps. Many people expressed that they weren't looking for the box when they found it (wedged in some rocks at the campsite). A couple people expressed that they were upset that it wasn't a secret drug stash. And someone else indicated that they were adding drugs, so no more disappointment would result.

We relaxed, and went on a hike and saw some cactus flowers.

And we went on a hike outside Boulder, yay! In the distance you can see the red tile roofs of the university. The end.

Catching up

"I had a whole conversation with him in the office before he turned around and went away and I finally realized he was wearing rollerblades. I thought he'd seemed taller."

It's 94 degrees in the apartment, so I'm here in the coffee shop (where I just overheard the above) to write. I have had many adventures this spring, and haven't posted about any of them. So here's a start.

 

A shot of Boulder from a hike I did while the trails were all still ice.

  

A strange cloud over North Table Mountain, outside work, one morning.

  

Abby consenting to pose for a picture with the familiar restroom-quiz in New Mexico, where we did in fact go to Santa Fe, stay in a hotel and eat at restaurants, none of which made for very interesting photos.

  

A woman practices slacklining at Cheesman Park, which is my new favorite place. I was lying in my hammock reading a book at the time.

  

Relaxing at Cheesman Park with Kris, and hammocks.

  

One night Kris and I went up to White Ranch Open Space Park to camp. We had our hammocks and ended up setting them up in the horse corral, so that we could see the stars at night. Or possibly just to be silly.

 I went for a couple days up to Fort Collins, where I did two long day hikes in the new open space areas north of the town. Red Mountain Open Space is colorful and dramatic and I recommend it for hiking... it's too bad they don't let you do backcountry camping. I did a 12-mile loop to be back to my car by dark.

 

  

  

  

Pronghorn running away, above.

  

Soapstone Prairie Natural Area, to the east, is another new open space that is probably better suited for mountain biking. It's a bit tedious for hiking, as the trails snaked across the open prairie, taking the longest route to go from one place to another and making detours to go over mounds of dirt. As a hiker I did not want to walk 20 feet out of the way so I could plod over a 1-foot-high mound of dirt. It was a bit silly. However, some photos:

 

  

  

  

  

  

 I had hiked 20 miles on the second day. Above, my feet at the end of the day. They didn't hurt, but they'd been rubbing in my boots and I didn't want any blisters to develop. Unfortunately, after the first few miles, the sticky moleskin pads I put on my heels were coming unstuck, so I resorted to holding them on with tape. I look like an invalid. Mostly I was very hungry and proceeded to eat a can of chili and can of spinach in about 5 minutes once I got back to Jess's apartment.

 I returned to White Ranch to camp on another night, and did some night photography. You can see the lights of Denver.

 

  

 And a cool bug on my hat.

Next, the backpacking trip that Jess and I took to Dominguez Canyons.

The 13th configuration

Hello. I haven't written lately because I haven't been doing anything lately. I guess I could write about making supper and going to Target, but it would take a better author than me to make anything out of that.

Well, of course, I haven't been doing nothing at all. One weekend I went to a "jazz in the park" thing in Denver. The bandstand is shown here with one of the area's ubiquitous rainbows:



And, with some of my budding acquaintances:


Note the other side of the rainbow in this picture.

Well. Guess who came for a visit? Katie and I did not do anything extraordinarily adventurous this time, preferring instead to enjoy the more civilized pleasures of the metro area. I was going to start with a description of the diner we visited for breakfast, but I realized there are also diners in Montrose, and my town's Golden Skillet did not stand out in any way except for the memorable aggression with which a young boy fired marshmallows into the street from a marshmallow gun during the entirety of our meal, which we were foolish enough to take outdoors.

However, the Dushanbe Teahouse in Boulder... this building was gifted to Boulder by its sister city of Dushanbe, Tajikistan. It was carted over in pieces and assembled here. I have one somewhat lame picture of (part of) the outside...


While I stole this photo of the inside off the web:

We did actually have afternoon tea in here. Another famous sight of Boulder is its array of street performers.


This is a guy getting into an acrylic box. There were many other performers who did such things as play the harp, juggle fire, and ride unicycles, but if your talent is getting into a box, I say make the most of it.

Also in Boulder, we visited the Celestial Seasonings factory for a tour, despite the fact that I do not like tea (I know I had just recently paid for the privilege of drinking it in ostentatious surroundings). The tour was at least interesting and you can drink free tea samples all day long, if you like that sort of thing.


This is the Denver Art Museum, which was cool, though we got there late enough in the day that it was half closed. We took some pictures on the rooftop sculpture garden. It was very difficult not to take Artsy pictures there.


Then we decided to have supper at a Belgian place down the street, which had $10 beers and which I liked very much, and then went for a stroll on the downtown mall.


Sometime in the evening Katie pointed out that our destinations that day had been on 13th street or avenue. We had breakfast on 13th in Golden, tea at Dushanbe on 13th in Boulder, then the art museum on 13th in Denver. Imagine our horror when, upon returning to the car, we found we'd parked at meter BA-1313!


Now, as if all this weren't enough, I kid you not, it was FRIDAY THE 13TH that day. However, nothing unlucky happened. In fact, we had a very special treat ahead of us... North America's (self-proclaimed) largest liquor store.


It is called Applejack... as you can see... and walking into it is like walking into a grocery store in which every food item has been replaced by a bottle. They even have full-sized shopping carts, because, you know, if you've driven down from Wyoming to go to the continent's largest liquor store, I guess you might as well stock up. We were only 10 minutes from my home, however, and thus restrained ourselves to two six-packs and a bottle of port.

On our last day together, we climbed Lookout Mountain, which I had already climbed twice, but being right behind my house, it's just too convenient. There were many parasailers who had launched from the mountain.


And then Katie went back to Montrose.

Things have been changing here. The creek runs so low that the people going tubing keep having to stand up and waddle to deeper areas, Green mountain is definitely no longer green, and wasps have replaced hummingbirds at the hummingbird feeder.


Also:


This is not my guitar... this is somebody on the internet's guitar... but it's the same as the one I just bought in a Denver pawnshop and was too lazy to take a picture of. A Yamaha classical guitar from the 70s, nylon strings. It's much easier to play than the one I used to have. I was compelled to go out and get a guitar after a friend brought hers over a couple times and I played and then couldn't stop thinking about playing.

Another change:


Colorado plates on my car. This was purely for the sake of practicality. My internship has ended and I will only be in Colorado for another week. But you will all have to wait to find out where I'm going.