Posts from — July 2006

The Long’s Peak preparations continue, and this weekend it was Mount Audubon (our first thirteener!). Once again, the views were amazing and the hike was a huff-and-puff extravaganza as we neared the summit. As usual, the summit revealed views that made it all worthwhile, and something about the effort and the oneness with nature even causes me to eat rice cakes and fresh fruit — and actually enjoy it — while I’m up there. So this hiking thing is really healthy for me, all ‘round.

From the top you could see Long’s Peak, and it sorta just stood there saying “yeah, that’s right, I’m right over here, bitches; whenever…”

Leslie was headed for Peru on the day of the hike (on any given day in Boulder, you probably know someone who is on their way to some hiker’s paradise) so it was just Brenda, Bryce and myself. We had a ball and more pictures are sure to follow, I just need to go to sleep right now.

On the way home we made a quick stop in Nederland, to pick up some acid. (Anyone who knows me knows that this was not for me. The last thing I need to see is a melting floor, or say, a purple rabbit. I merely mention this because I think it’s pretty damned funny.)

Yesterday’s long day was followed by another great day today, where we got to once again see our dear friend Patty who was visiting her brother in Parker, CO and we celebrated her niece Grace’s fourth birthday with presents, cake and amazingly sweet Colorado corn (and yes, Patty once again brought cold cuts!).

Saturday, Brenda & I — along with our friends Bryce and Leslie — hiked to the top of St. Vrain’s Mountain, a 12,000+ summit. It was amazing, the views great and the thin-air experience interesting. All in all, it was a good start in our training regimen…

This all started with an email from my friend Bryce a couple weeks ago. The subject line read “Long’s”, and the message read “you in?”; the rest of the message was a forwarded email from Leslie who was talking about the campsite reservations she was making for an attempt on the Long’s Peak summit in August. Ever since then, vague discussions about trying to hike to the summit of Colorado’s most popular fourteener have evolved into an actual plan to hit Long’s this August.

Hiking is an activity that Brenda & I have discovered is well suited to us; we love the exercise, the views, the challenge, the variety and the companionship. We’ve been exploring the local peaks ever since we both got here, but the higher peaks and their attendant views have interested the both of us, and luckily we have met some people out here that are into the hiking scene as well. Long’s is not exactly the easiest peak to summit, but it’s a popular one and since our friends were already planning this trip and had been to the summit before, it was a great opportunity to tag along.

Doing Long’s will involve camping and a 3AM departure for the summit; it should be interesting. In the meantime Brenda & I just need to get used to altitude, and so Saturday we huffed to the top of St. Vrain’s Mountain:

The view was ok, don’t you think?

More challenges await, and we plan to step up the altitudes and gradients in the coming weeks to get ready for the big ascent. I’ll keep the exact date a secret for now, but it’s in August. We already bought headlamps for the pre-dawn ascent; We’re going.

Floyd Landis won the Tour de France, and Brenda & I hiked our first “12er” in what was a beautiful day. So much to process, I think I need to get out of the house. More later, for sure.

So, Brenda & I headed to Denver today to see the Body Worlds exhibit at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. This is an exhibit of real human cadavers that have been “plastinated”, their solidified remains exposed to reveal the amazing complexity and beauty of the human body and its systems. The show is so insanely popular that they sell tickets to the show and have staged fifteen-minute entries. With the show closing next weekend, I was excited that we had tickets for the exhibit today.

Brenda read in the paper this morning that since there was a power failure in Denver yesterday — the result of the brutal temperatures we’ve been experiencing here lately, no doubt — the ticketholders that were turned away from a dark museum yesterday afternoon would be honored today as well. Great. Thoughts of overly-crowded museum galleries in New York and the attendant hassles of being stuffed into small rooms with large people, long lines and general annoyance with humanity filled my head. But I’ve moved far away from New York City, and surely this experience would be different, right?

We left at 3PM for a 3:45 entry slot, arriving with a nice ten minute cushion. The parking lot was packed, the end result of the anticipated crowds, and we descended to the lowest levels of the parking garage to find a spot. With the car parked, we headed for the doors of the museum. They had kiosks where we could retrieve our prepaid tickets, which was nice for avoiding the lines. We checked in, and the kiosk cheerily printed out one ticket for the two of us, which obviously wasn’t going to work, so we ended up on line anyway. After getting a second ticket, we headed for the ticket takers, just a few minutes past our expected 3:45 p.m. entry time. The gentleman asked: “Body Worlds? What time are your tickets for?” 3:45, said I, and handed the bloke our tickets. He gave us directions for the third floor, and said we were to present our tickets later. On the way to the escalator were were brusquely accosted by a woman in a museum staff shirt, hand out with the universal “halt” signal, and asked us the following question: “Body Worlds? What time are your tickets for?” 3:45 was my answer again, and again I offered the tickets, but we were simply waved through. We entered a doorway, into a darkened gallery, and I thought surely we had arrived at the actual entry to the much-vaunted exhibit. Instead, a long gallery ended with a doorway that had a Body Worlds sign in front; surely that was where we needed to go. We made a beeline for that door and as we passed an older woman who I thought was a patron she shot an arm out with another halting gesture and said: “Excuse me! Body Worlds? What time are your tickets for?”

It was an interesting moment, because I realized how easy I’ve had it for the last year since moving to Boulder. I used to be accustomed to people making me want to kill them, but that had subsided since moving out here. But here was a nice old lady who I wanted to kill with my bare hands. THREE FOURTY FIVE.

“Jesus Christ, how many fucking people are going to ask us what time our fucking tickets are for before one of them actually fucking takes the goddamned things”, I asked my wife, who was growing unhappy with my increasingly intolerant mood. Luckily, shortly after running the ticket time gauntlet (four askers, total) we ended up on the end of what appeared to be a very long line, the Body Worlds Line. But it was moving along pretty well, and as we were actually snaking through a natural history gallery, the exhibits themselves were interesting enough. As we approached a display with a stuffed mountain lion chasing a deer, the lights dimmed a couple times and I thought “uh-oh”. In the next instant, we were in the dark.

Now, I know a thing or two about blackouts, and as soon as we were plunged into darkness I know full well that Brenda & I have should have made a beeline for the car, but we waited. We stood there like idiots, with all the other idiots, hoping the power would magically come back on and we could resume telling people what time our tickets were for. But after about five minutes or so we came to our senses and started heading out the door. Unfortunately by this time a lot of people had the same idea, and worse, the security guards had started to feel the need for taking control of the situation, which of course made everything worse.

By the time we got to to the car, everything was all fucked up, and as an added bonus I could tell that the power had come back on (all the garage lights were on instead of every fourth fixture or so). We tried to leave, but the traffic didn’t move, so we got out and walked around the park surrounding the museum. Still delusional that we were going to see this fucking exhibit today, we walked back to the museum entry only to hear that the museum was now closed for the day. We went back to the car and waited out the Bataan Death March out of the garage.

Finally speeding home to Boulder, we decided to eat at one of our favorite restaurants in town. Turns out we missed happy hour by three minutes and all I wanted a this point was the burger they serve on that very menu. Getting them to serve me one of those burgers was like pulling teeth, but they did comply and I tipped accordingly. Unfortunately the assholes seated next to me ruined everything by being assholes. The one chick had a shrill voice that could remove old lead paint from the side of a barn, and she was stupid and rude to boot. Anyone who mistakes a plate of complimentary cornbread for the shrimp ceviche she ordered (oh, is this the se-veech-eee??”), and then stares at her phone for three really loud and annoying rings as she squints and struggles to figure out who is calling her, and then takes the call at the table, is a stupid asshole, and I didn’t want stupid assholes seated next to me after all we’d been through.

I managed to enjoy dinner and ignore the assholes next to us, but I’m afraid I annoyed Brenda as much with my complaints as the assholes at the next table annoyed me. So in the end, we lost half our Sunday to a crappy museum and a flaky power grid — and my inability to deal with assholes and stupidity. Oh well, some things never change.

We’re gonna try and get tickets for Body Worlds before the thing closes, but I think I’ll wait till the temperature drops below 95 degrees (which may be a few days yet).

Yeah, that’s right, there are trolls guarding the pedestrian bridge over Foothills Parkway just a few hundred yards from my house. This story should give you a good insight to some of the characters that inhabit this fine town of Boulder. I consider these people to be my outdoor pets.

Today marked one year since I moved to Boulder, Colorado. Lots of shit has happened in the last year, and since almost a month has elapsed since I’ve posted a word on this site, I figure I’ll throw down a quick recap.

First off, I am really, really happy living and working here.

Brenda is finally back in Boulder, after spending seven weeks in Santa Fe working for the Santa Fe Opera as a costume draper. She did well, but it’s definitely better to have her here than there.

Some more good sunsets have happened; I have pics.

The drive back from Santa Fe was along route 285, which took us through some of the most beautiful country I have ever seen. After a whole year of living in Colorado, I found myself falling even deeper in love with this part of the country. The mountains and the valleys between them are simply awesome.

I’m back into cycling, a lifelong love, in a big way. I have acquired three bicycles since moving here; one, I ride every day, my on-one singlespeed commuter bike. I scored an Independent Fabrications cyclocross bike on eBay last fall, which is one of the best fitting, best riding bikes I’ve ever owned, but I don’t really ride off-road so it’s been collecting dust since I built up the on-one. Still debating whether to try and fit it out for road riding or just sell it (or start doing more trail riding). Recently I bought another bike on eBay, a vintage Eddy Merckx that I have since taken all my Campy parts from my Zullo and hung on that. It rides like a dream, and it’s a dream come true to finally own and ride a Merckx. (The parts from the Merckx (all Dura Ace) are now hung on my old Zullo frame, and that bike will likely end up on eBay craigslist soon. Wanna buy a 60cm classic steel road bike?)

I have added hiking to my list of hobbies, and it suits me well living out here. But camping and sleeping in the snow, something that everyone seems to do out here, is not gonna happen anytime soon. Hiking a high summit is on my list of things to do this summer, though.

Flying has taken a back seat to my other interests, but remains a deep-seated passion for me. The expense, the fact that I no longer own a plane and the fact that flying in the mountains will require a concerted investment of time and money that I don’t have to spare right now have conspired to put aviation on the back burner for me for the time being. But I get a kick out of watching the gliders being towed to the Front Range right in front of my office window every day, and ride my bike to the Boulder Airport to watch the activities there every once in a while.

I went for a bike ride today. Twenty miles or so, along Arapahoe and 95th Streets. Riding along 95th Street northbound, I looked west at the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains and tried not to cry or run off the road as I took in the majesty of the mountains and pondered the amazing fact that after spending years in New Jersey riding and racing road bikes and reading magazines and catalogs depicting riders enjoying this backdrop, I was actually here (on my Merckx!), barrelling down the road in the thin mountain air.

This is a good place to live. I’m happy to be here, and I’m happier that Brenda, Emma and I are all together again. Twelve months after arriving here, alone, with two suitcases and living in a hotel room, we own a condo here and Brenda & I watched the Folsom Field fireworks from our front porch with Emma blinking inquisitively from the other side of the screen door.

It’s all good.