Rain and Samantha's Excellent Adventure: Boulder, Colorado, hooray!

Samantha: I had the pleasure of visiting my friends Jen and Nate in Boulder CO, recent transplants from New Hampshire. After leaving Rain in Fort Collins, I went south to Mead to pick up a canoe for my step sister Sara (who lives in California), then further south to Boulder. The canoe offered a challenge on route 25 by wriggling left to right enough times to send the blanket it was resting on flying out over the back of the car, shredded and potentially sending me to jail via the accidental manslaughter by bad tie-down scenario. Pulled over quickly, fixed that with some creative thinking, and made it to Jen and Nate’s by about 5. I’d been the car all day, and the weather looked fair enough, and I was in the Rockies afterall, so after happy hellos and some roommate introductions, the three of us loaded into the Jetta and took off for Bear Canyon for a hike. Absolutely incredible, so beautiful, red, and just vastly different from Vermont hiking. Chatting excitedly all the while, we reached a point where we were about 20 minutes from an overlook, then CRACK-BOOM THUNDER. Jen spun right round and had us marching back down the red sandy path. It seemed that the storm was far enough away that we’d make it back safely. I turned around in time to snap a picture of the wall of water driving toward us, inadvertently let out a humble “Uh – oh,” and remembered immediately how small we were in nature’s wake. It poured, we ran, thunder, lightning striking the ridge across from us, hail, slick red mud, and a little hyperventilation. Thank god for Jen’s level head and swift body – she calmly directed us where to go, and then sprinted perhaps a half mile to the car, mud caking her feet. I’m amazed she didn’t fall, in fact it’s quite impressive none of us did. As Nate and I hurried along to the service road, I saw a brilliant bolt of lightning strike quite close by, exclaimed something unique I’m sure, and Nate just giggled his nervous giggle. By the time we reached the road, the rain had nearly stopped, and of course, there was the bright afterthought of a rainbow, instilling that false sense of security, lightening striking all the while to the right of it. Thanks for the warm welcome, Colorado. After all the time I’ve spent in cities and the car, pondering intensely human problems and concerns, the abruptness and force of that weather was all I needed to be reminded that there are such greater things happening all the time, all around me, over which I have very, very little control. I am grateful for the reminder, not soon forgotten.

Jen pulled up beside us, and it was a carload of hysteria back home. All cleaned up, we went out to Pearl street in Boulder for some dinner and to drink all the beers. Interesting thing about Pearl street in Boulder – it was designed by the same fellow who designed Pearl street in Burlington, Vt. It was a funny feeling to be walking down such a similar avenue. We went into a lovely little restaurant, where happy hour is from 3 til closing, and some very fine food & drink are half off during that time. We ordered a dozen Chesapeake oysters, a dozen Delaware oysters, cheddar-ale fondue, and a very tasty Bloody Mary. The oysters were scrumptious, Chesapeakes tasting much like the sea, the Delawares smoother and buttery. The fondue was wonderful too, served with chicken-jalapeno sausage, apples, bread, potato, and string beans.

Being that Colorado is known for beer, Jen and Nate gladly took me to the Walnut Brewery after dinner. High ceilings, wooden beams, brewery equipment, colorful signage, and a mounted buffalo head, a wicked cool enterprise. In my efforts to drink all the beer in the variety of cities I visit, I’ve found that a sampler of each effectively does the trick for a much more reasonable price and feeling next morning. Jen and I got the six beer sampler from the Walnut, a dark stout, a red ale, and the summer seasonal hefeweizen stood out to me. The seasonal tasted a little bit like banana; I was happily surprised at how good it was. Throughout dinner and beer tasting, Nate took photo after photo of Jen and I, what a kind artist he is. There was another funny moment when we were carded at the Walnut, and each of us pulled out our east coast IDs. It was strange for an instant to be socializing in Colorado with folks I’d normally see back home. It was like we’d been lifted up and placed in CO for the evening – I’m having a hard time realizing that that is where they really will stay. I’m glad, though, because Colorado is treating them very well. They are wonderful, beautiful people!

We went home, I shared some of my trip-to-date’s visuals and tales, met the house turtle named “Puppy,” and then bed. The next morning I met up with Rain and her friend Emily at an awesome coffee shop called the Wildboar in Fort Collins. Rain made the right call in ordering me a breakfast burrito (as Emily said, really good food for a coffee shop!), and Emily introduced me to a yummy ginger-chai iced tea.

Rain: I had an absolutely fantastic time in Fort Collins with Emily and some of her friends, although it certainly wasn't as dramatic as Samantha's visit. Emily is a friend from Ferry Beach whom I've known for years but have never actually hung out with outside of Maine. This made the visit doubly awesome- I got to rekindle a bit of the Ferry Beach happiness, and hang out with an old friend in a totally new setting. Fort Collins is a very cool town, and Emily was excited to show me around. It has a population of about 150,000 and seems to have a pretty good air about it- the weather is sunny, the people are happy, and there is a lively local music scene (oh, and ton's of local breweries!). I came to town at the perfect time- it was the second night of a free festival that the city puts on every summer, called NewWestFest. The group of us hopped on our bikes and rode downtown to check out some of the music. We listened to a local jam band (Good Gravy!) and sampled some local beers (Odell). After wandering around the fair part for a while we caught part of the Bunny Gang's set-a side project of the bass player from Flogging Molly- and saw the headlining act for that night, which was Alison Krauss and Union Station. I have to admit that I was mostly ignorant of who Alison Krauss was before that evening. I did some research on her before that show and saw that she's been around for a while and has had a very well-decorated career. But going to the actual show, her voice blew me away... it's not the style of music that I would necessarily listen to a lot in my own time, but the live show was fantastic and I had a wonderful time. After that I had a few fair tickets that needed to be used up so Emily and I had fun on a fair ride called "The Tornado" before we biked back to her house. Fort Collins in general seems to be focused in a very positive way on sustainability, and as part of that they are a pretty bike-friendly town. As we went home there were all sorts of people also walking or riding their bicycles. It was the first time I'd seen that, and it made me really happy.

After all of that, we still managed to get to bed at a reasonable hour and get up early the next morning. We went and met up with Samantha for breakfast at the Wild Boar Cafe- a neat coffee house that literally used to be a house, with bunches of fun little rooms and couches and outdoor seating. After I said goodbye to Emily and Fort Collins (I'd love to return there sometime) Samantha and I set out on our second 800-mile day.

On the road again, destination: Nevada.