Ciao Italia!

So we went to Italy...it was great! More on that later...for now pictures will have to suffice.

drumroll, please

Here it is:

Kristen's Whirlwind Visit

Kristen came to town a little over a week ago and I took some time off work to do the whole vacation thing with her. It was actually pretty great timing because there was a Ben Harper show at Red Rocks that we bought tickets to way back in the pre-Boulder days.


The first day, Kristen and I just walked around downtown Boulder and did a little bit of shopping. We went to a few artsy stores and I ended up buying a creepy doll photo (cooler than it sounds, I swear). Kristen bought a Tarot book and something on Feng Shui beauty, if I recal correctly. Anyhow, the obvious highlight was that we got some Ben & Jerry's ice cream for the walk back to the car. We made a quick trip to the grocery store to get provisions for that night's outing to Red Rocks and then took a rest until we were ready to go out.

That night, we headed out to Red Rocks, which is just a bit west of Golden, also known as the hometown of Coors beer. It was a pretty quick drive out there (less than an hour) and we approached the park around dusk to the sounds of Damien Marley in the distance. It seemed like pretty smooth sailing at first, but then we were diverted by the traffic wardens down a side road and, seeing as how we'd never been there before, we parked along the road like everyone else. It turned out alright and, after a quick look at our map, we found a trail that hiked us up to the ampitheater. One slight caveat is that we were probably at about 9,000 feet elevation and hiking up a steep hill, so you can understand how delighted we were when we actually arrived at the ampitheater. Now imagine our dismay when we saw another 10,000 steps. 9,000 steps later, we took a bathroom break and bought a few Coors Lights. We got there just in time to see Damien Marley's last couple songs, settled in, found our seats and enjoyed an amazing performance by Ben Harper.

The next day, Kelly had work off too, so we all headed down to Denver for some big city excitement. Our first stop was 16th Street Mall which is just as it sounds: one gigantic outdoor mall. We wandered around for a bit and eventually Kelly and Kristen settled in at Forever 21 for two hours (I'm not exaggerating...at all). After 45 minutes, I had to bail out and go over to the Virgin Megastore. We grabbed some food and decided to head out for a place called the Santa Fe Art District. Unfortunately, as we were driving over it started to rain, but we decided to tough it out anyways. We saw a few galleries that had some pretty neat stuff. We'll probaby go back again some time when we know all the galleries are going to be open and its not raining. Then, realizing we didn't know what else to do in Denver, we headed back towards Boulder and caught a showing of "Little Miss Sunshine" (six thumbs up). We then headed home to rest up for our big outdoor adventure.

On Friday (also known as my birthday), we headed up to Rocky Mountain National Park, which is only about 45 minutes from Boulder, for a nice mountain hike. Kelly and I had been out there before and took a drive on Trail Ridge Road, as mentioned in a previous post. This time, we wanted to do a bit more hands-on nature action. We got down to the Bear Lake trailhead around 1 o'clock and decided to head up to Dream Lake and then possibly go a bit further to Emerald Lake. If we thought the 9,000 foot elevation was ambitious, we were now around more like 11,000 feet and looking at a 495 foot ascent during the 1.1 mile hike. Contrary to our assumptions that 495 feet is not a great increase in a mile, it turned out to be quite challenging and full of many rest stops (or as we like to call them, "photo ops"). We finally broke all the rules and accepted some candy from a stranger with his assurance that it would help us handle the altitude better. On the way up, we got to see Nymphet Lake, where we had our first encounter with a little duckling and a smattering of rain.










From there, we continued on up to Dream Lake. The lake itself was a beautiful green and was inhabited by more ducks. We hiked around a little further for a more secluded area and settled on a small outcrop of rocks that sloped right into the lake. We busted out our delicious meal of cheese and crackers and sat down for a well-deserved rest. Unwittingly, we attracted the attention of a rather boisterous duck. After doing a little dance for us, his crew decided to come over and swarm us. Our guess is that they probably met the likes of cheese and crackers before. But we didn't give them any, I swear.









After our snack break, we continued up to Emerald Lake, elevation unknown (at the time). It seemed like only 1/2 mile more for something with the word "emerald" in it is probably worth the hike. We headed on up and saw some pretty cool streams and quickly realized that we'd be climbing quite a bit more. Luckily, they were kind enough to provide us with some log and (loose) gravel steps. This is when we realized that hiking shoes were probably a good investment (which we remedied this weekend). We finally made it up there and it was definitely nice, but I imagine on a sunnier day it could've been magnificent.

All in all, it took us about 2.5 hours to get up there (about 1.6 miles total) and about 25 minutes to get back. At this point we decided it was probably about time to head back to civilization, so we drove down to Estes Park for a snack and some art browsing. I got myself a pretty nice ceramic casserole dish so that we could make some proper birthday mac n' cheese. We then took Peak to Peak Highway over to Nederland for a great meal with a not-so-great waitress. We got home and decided to rest up for a grill out that we were hosting the next day.

We woke up nice and late, headed out to the grocery store and bought some grilling supplies and then "borrowed" the Webroot keg. A bunch of our friends showed up and we hung out. I got to do all the grilling and we had a nice porch fire going, thanks to the unseasonably cool weather. We headed downtown for a little nightlife exposure and then Kristen and I woke up bright and early the next morning to get her to the airport.

Kelly and I had a really great time while Kristen was here. We got to do a lot of the touristy things we don't do on our own. Hopefully Kristen had an equally good time and maybe even wants to come back out.

zoo and fondue

This weekend my Aunt Micky was in town visiting. She's considering moving out here once Alex (her youngest) goes off to college in a couple months. Micky is my stepdad John's sister, but we won't hold that against her. Actually his entire family is pretty fantastic. Anyways, since she was in town, I figured it would be as good a time as any to see the sights in Denver. Sure, there is a lot to do in Boulder, but not really so much for someone who doesn't drink or hike or bike or have much interest in seeing beautiful mountain views (she had visited a friend in another part of Colorado before getting here and had seen a lot of mountain scenery). So even though she expected us to show her around, we ended up learning Denver together. Micky, Heather and I headed out on Friday (after lunching at the Dushanbe Teahouse---oh my god that place is a whole other post altogether. Great food.) to see the sights. We ended up on a street called 16th Street Mall, which is exactly what it sounds like. These Coloradans love their outdoor malls. It was pretty nice and just a general happy atmosphere. We stopped in a visitor's center and found a Black Hole exhibit at the Denver Museum of Science and Nature, so we hopped a bus and headed that way.
The exhibit turned out to be a short film on a "planetarium" screen. Now I don't know about you, but no planetarium I'd ever been to looked anything like this. Imagine a giant Imax screen in the shape of a bowl hovering over your head discussing black holes, quantum physics and super novas. It was intense, but I loved it. I'm a big fan of Imax and this was 10 times better. There were times when I had to close my eyes just to stay sane.
After that, we walked through an adjacent park to get back home. It was really quite a beautiful park...it kind of reminded me of Piedmont Park in some ways. There were geese everywhere and also some gorgeous white birds that looked a lot like cranes, but I'm not positive.
I got a shot of one in this tree, but I'm not sure how well it'll turn out. Its kinda hard to see.
There were also some rare birds only found in Colorado. Man I love paddle boats.
Later that night, the boys came up from Boulder and had dinner (they had been working all day but Heather and I had Friday off).
I found a fondue place, which is usually too pricey for me but this one had a summer special going, so it was perfect. The guys met us there and we had a really nice dinner together. The next day, we headed out to the zoo. I'm a pretty big fan of zoos and for completely selfish reasons. I'm sure people get up-in-arms about the cruelty to animals and keeping them in captivity, etc. but I just love to see the animals. It's one of my favorite things to do; just walk around and stare at animals all day. I do it at home, too. This zoo was pretty decent. They had a couple animals I don't believe I've ever seen in real life before, like an ostrich and a musk ox. Unfortunately, we had to rush through it because my "company picnic" was at 4 and we didn't get there until 1:30 (we had to leave at 3 to make it back to Boulder). So we kind of scrimped on the monkeys and the birds (as well as some rhinos, some penguins and some mountain goats). Although Eric and I were both heartbroken (he was really excited about the musk ox), we knew we'd make it back there eventually. It is only 30 minutes away from where we live.
Denver seems to be an okay town, although I must say at this point, I still don't think I've seen a true sampling of what it has to offer. Every place I've mentioned that we've been to (and even places we'd been to before this post) was within about 4 square miles, if that. If Denver is anything like Atlanta, there is loads more for us to experience around the corner.

hiking and nature

Last weekend, we went to Rocky Moutain National Park on Sunday (pictures forthcoming). It was a pretty cool trip, we took Trail Ridge Road through the park, which is the highest continuously paved road in the U.S. It reaches a little more than 12,000 feet and precariously winds through the mountains with a 3 inch shoulder that is actually eroding away. Kelly's camera battery was dead and we left the charger in Chicago, so we have no digital pics of our own, but will get some from Heather to post. It was a pretty amazing view.
We did get to make one stop around 11,000 feet up. We did a quick but steep hike to a few rock outcroppings that we climbed onto to have a snack with an incredible view of the valleys and mountains. We were then going to drive to the end of the trail and do a quick hike to a lake, but by the time we got there, it had begun raining. After finding out there was no logical way to get home from that side of the park, we turned around and drove the same road back, stuck behind a gigantic RV with an equally gigantic boat in tow. This did give us more time to sightsee, as we were going ridiculously slow, so we got to see a herd of elk (?) on the hillside of one of the mountains.
This weekend was equally adventurous. On Saturday, Kelly got to do her maiden bike ride down to the market on the new bike. It went really well; we both had a great time during the ride. The market was flooded with fresh produce and we bought a few things to take with us on our next adventure. A few tamales, a skewer of chicken and a rootbeer float later, we headed home to get our things together for another trip into the mountains.


This time, on the invitation of Matthew Billek (a co-worker at Webroot and a native Coloradan), we headed up to Brainard Lake for a hike and some fishing. We got there a bit later than planned, but just in time to grill out, have a beer, and get ready for the hike. Of course, we were all completely unprepared for a high altitude hike (we were all in shorts, Heather and Kelly were in sandals and it got down to around 50 degrees). The hike up was pretty strenous, mostly due to the altitude (hard on the lungs), but the scenery made it well worth it, especially our final destination, a gorgeous lake.
We hung out there for a few hours, did some fishing and a bit of exploring. We also saw another elk, but it was too far away for a good shot. Kelly was the only one who caught a fish. We threw him back, of course. He had a good story to tell all his fish friends.

the pics, as promised

no real news so far...eric's bike wound is healing, though he hasn't ridden since it happened (but it has been raining for like 2 weeks straight here). ooh yeah, i can tell you about the weather here. it's very interesting to have full days of 67 degrees in the middle of july. eric and i were discussing it and decided that we like it better than the sweltering heat coming off the asphalt of atlanta. it's an oasis of sorts directly in the midst of 90 degree days.
however, we're back to the 90 degree weather now, which means we're readying to go exploring again. as we mentioned several posts ago, our visit to estes park and rocky mountain national park was cut relatively short due to weather, so we're planning on heading out again to check out the good spots (so we'll know where to take you when you come visit, kristen). by the way, if anyone wants to come out and visit, august would be a really great time. kristen is lucking out, there are a lot of cool things going on when she's here.
anyways, here are the pictures:

this is the kitty i was talking about: banjo. she's strange.









this is the bike i was talking about. look, it has shocks. it's the most comfortable bike ever.

sorry jee

It's been forever since we updated, I know. Stuff's been going on, but nothing I deemed worth posting. But I didn't consider how bored Jee is, so I'll give you all the mundane details. We've both been working a lot. That takes up most of our time. Our weekends are dedicated to bike rides, hanging out with pals, and basically enjoying life. I followed Eric's lead and also bought a bike. It's a cruiser and as girly as can be. It's mint green. When I get it, I"ll post a pic (it's on special order so it'll probably come in tomorrow or the day after). Some of you will find it hard to believe, but I biked 8 miles this weekend :). It's true. That was a round trip total of course. Eric fell off his bike on Monday (reaching for his cell phone...what a jerk) and got banged up pretty badly, but I've been taking good care of him, dressing his wounds and whatnot.
What else...we have a new kitty. Four total. Her name is Banjo and we let her live on our porch. She's really sweet and wants very badly to play with our kitties, but we can't let them b/c she may have diseases. I'll post a pic of her as well at some point.
Eric bought a Nintendo DS, which is kinda boring to talk about, but for Jee it will make sense.
Jee: it has a new version of MarioKart on it that is pretty awesome. It incorporates a bunch of courses from the first two and some new ones as well. I beat Andrew on it all the time.
Work is going okay for me...the people I work with aren't what I expected. I thought I'd be able to make friends pretty quickly here because I generally do, but it's difficult with these two (there are only 3 of us that work here). We've come to rely more on Eric's work for friends. We've met some cool people, but so far no real hang-out-all-the-time friends like we used to have (excluding Heather, Andy, Jeff, and Elgn and their respective girlfriends). Anyways, that's all I can muster right now. Maybe cool stuff will happen this weekend and I can more sucessfully entertain you.