Aspen weekend

Most of the summer that we've been here we've stayed pretty close to "home" exploring and really familiarizing ourselves with the area around Boulder and Nederland. We've eaten at pretty much every restaurant on Peak to Peak and hiked many of the shorter trails too. This weekend the wedding of my old DC friend Alek who moved to Boulder many years ago gave us the opportunity to go a little farther afield.

We actually just back into Boulder on Friday night immersing ourselves back into Colorado with dinner on the rooftop deck at West End Tavern on Pearl Street. Dogs, hippies, Colorado homeless, and college students welcomed us home. Saturday morning we took full advantage of our jet lag by waking up at 6. We had just enough time to repack for the weekend, go for a run, pick up the dog from her weekday farm abode, pick up some fresh veggies and stuff from the farmers market and get started on the 4.5 hour road trip right on schedule around 9.

The first half of the drive from Boulder to Golden onto I-70 up til Idaho Springs is inside our sphere of recognition. Just last weekend we made it as far as Georgetown. And in snowboarding days of yore (before Alex's knee issues) we'd gone as far as Keystone, Copper, Breckenridge, and even once to Vail. But Aspen is another two hours beyond that.

When driving in other parts of the country it seems like when you take the highway you whiz by so quickly that you miss the feel of the place. But Colorado's mountains command attention and show their beauty at any speed. On the way there we took I-70 all the way to Glenwood Springs. For some weird reason I actually drove the last two hours and got to jump into a scene out of the movie Cars and wind through an awesome canyon right on the highway with our half of the road cantilevered above the other half. On the way back we drove over Independence Pass from Aspen to Leadville slaloming up over 12,000 feet (above treeline) along a road in parts so narrow that oncoming collision seemed imminent.

But the weekend wasn't all about the drive. We ate lunch both days at a couple uberchic restaurants in Aspen. Rory and I went for an early morning run (almost saw a bear). We had a lovely morning swim and hot tub at our hotel. We all went for a nice hike at Maroon Bells. We went for a nice bike ride along the Rio Grande trail following a river through town and beyond. We wandered through the town browsing through overly expensive art and other stuff (we did see a bear in a tree near the McDonald's right in the middle of town). Aidan played on the rock and rope structure a block or two from the bear.

And of course we went to a wedding. The wedding was at a farm in Carbondale, CO. The happy couple is very active and outdoorsy, so it was just perfect to have incredible views of the mountains behind them as they said their vows. Many good wishes to Alek and Julia for a long and happy life together. We have very bad timing in trying to get together with them - they are always in DC when we are in Colorado and visa versa - but hopefully that will change soon. And many thanks for them for being the trigger to bring us to more of Colorado.