pps - I just wanted to add some things about boulder. it looks like burlington, vt if someone gave burlington some miracle grow or something. their pedestrian mall, Pearl St. (name sound familiar?) is like church street, but way longer, way wider and with shade trees and little gardens in the middle of the street. also, i’m really glad we got to hang out with robin because i went way too long without seeing one of my best friends.

staying with jason, josh and sarah was great too, so i know next time i visit boulder i have plenty of people to see and things to do.

 

 

tp:  We woke up pretty early this morning to make the most of our brief time in Boulder.  Everyone in the house was already awake and off to work / orientation.  We met Robin Wiles-Skeels and Scott Minkoff, two Skidmore friends, for breakfast.  Downtown Boulder is very much like dt Burlington, but I’ll let Evan tell you about that.  Afterwards, we went to their house and play with Annie, their new puppy.  Annie is 3 months old and very cute.  Since we bought a national parks pass at the Grand Canyon, we decided to head to Rocky Mountain National Park and explore.  The heat discouraged us from doing an actual hike, so we decided to just do the drive.  Even so, it was pretty amazing.  Within 50 feet of entering the park, we saw a bull elk grazing in a field next to the road.  We also saw a dumb american trying to get the perfect photo and being dangerously close to the elk.  The main attraction was the drive.  RMNP has the highest point you can drive to in a national park.  We took the mountain road which had incredible views and sheer drop offs.  Over the course of about an hour, we drove to over 12,000 ft.  The air was certainly thinner there...not as thin as it was on Kilimanjaro, but still noticeable.  We got out at the “summit” and hiked up a little ways to a sign that said we were at 2.3 miles high.  Pretty cool!  On the way down we saw some more elk on the side of the mountain.  We came down and went back to Robin’s place to collect our freshly washed clothes.  Then it was off to Mountain Sun Brewery to have dinner.  It brought back memories of the old Saratoga Brew Pub, but with more  choices on tap.  Jason got the sampler, which was 6 8oz. glasses of different beers.  They looked way more intimidating in person than they did on the menu.  Then, out of the blue, who should I see but John Deary and Eve Folden.  I know them from Pomfret, CT and they both just moved out to Boulder.  Small world!  After dinner we went back to the apartment to hang out and have an early night.  Tomorrow we head off towards Minneapolis to visit with out friend Bond from college, but it is far.  We won’t be there until Friday the earliest.