Mountains to the West of me, Plains to the East, Here I Am, Days 7-10
As expected, Denver is also a great place. After checking out the Denver Museum of Contemporary Art, I met Brody and fellow alum John Bain (designer of the infamous Sabah angel) and g/f for lunch. Brody had a sense for what I needed, and what I needed was sweet potato fries. Oh how I missed thee. After lunch, John and Cecilia took me to the REI "Flagship" store in Denver. Holy jiminees. Everything for every outdoor activity you could possibly come up with. There was even a chamber that you could stand in dressed up in the high-tek super warm clothes they have, and then they drop the temperature on you. Like, reallly drop the temperature. Unfortunately the controls were locked up, so I could not play with it, or see how much I could stand in my underwear. There was a gigantic climbing wall with eight or nine different routes, and even a section of the Platte River portioned off so that you could test out a kayak before you bought it.
We then went to a BBQ hosted by some friends of Brody and John's, and I started realizing that no one in Denver (and I would later realize the same is true for
Boulder and Santa Fe) is actually from Denver. I met a lot of interesting people in the last few days, people from Virginia, Hawaii, Pennsy, Jersey, NY, Texas, California, all over, really, but I don't think I met anyone actually from here. After the BBQ, the Bourlands came down and met us for a few drinks, and we plans to meet up in the morning.
So the next "morning" I drove up to Boulder to hang out up there. They have a great basement apartment that's just the right size and a perfect distance from most of the stuff in Boulder. We went for a walk along a stream there, and they showed me the outdoor mall there. Boulder's interesting in that it seems to have two main types of people: the very affluent (whether they be college students or adults) and the completely tolerated and accepted transients. It makes for an interesting dynamic. Also, I started to notice how happy little kids are out here. Everywhere you go, there are little areas for kids to play in or climb on or crawl through. We then went to a Nepalese restaurant where the portions were just gigantic! We had to split an app three ways, and still weren't able to eat more than a third of our meals. The food was kind of like Indian, but with more butter and including some stews and soups. We went out for some drinks that night to see the Boulder night life, and then crashed.
Matthew took me up to a scenic overlook (they live within walking distance of a mountain) before I headed back south to Denver. At Di Y's advice I visited Washington Park. Lots of running trails, fields, playgrounds, and this beautiful flower garden. Then I went a bit north to City Park, which was also very cool; the Denver Zoo is there, and the Museum of Natural History (I think), but the difference in the socioeconomic status was remarkable. Apparently along a road called Colfax, there's a definitive stratification. It's good to see both sides of a city, I think, rather than just what gets advertised in the tourist manuals.
Brody gave me directions to Red Rocks, so I swung by there on my way south. Incredible place, and I think I'm going to have to make it there for a concert next summer.
Southern Colorado and Northern New Mexico is a wild drive. It's far flatter than Kansas is, but the weather patterns are completely fascinating. You can see for hundreds of miles, and literally see an entire thunderstorm, from rain to top of the giant cumulonimbus cloud. And when the lightning starts up... wow. Best of all, that storm is really far away so you don't have to even drive through it!
I arrived at Tower's place late, and she was gracious and kind enough to cook up a little sumpin sumpin for a late meal. Let's talk stars. There are a lot of them in the New Mexico desert. It's not really describable, so I'm not going to try. But wow.
Yesterday I did the touristy thing in Santa Fe. Everything is adobe pueblo revival architecture. Even the banks and burger kings, everything. I went to the best museum I've seen thus far, the Institute of American Indian Arts. It was an incredible exhibit, and no one was looking so I took some pictures of favorite pieces. Two that I couldn't figure out how to get good shots of were masks set on mirrors, the question written on the wall "What would it be like to look through others' eyes?". The other was a film projected onto a wall, and the same film about a minute behind projected at a ninety degree angle. Thing was, there were two dozen thin aspen trees between both projectors and the walls they projected onto. The film was on the history of the conquered Iroquois (though they use a different name for themselves, but I couldn't understand what the guy had said), and the effect was incredible on several levels. Watching a film of a native walking through the forest when there's actually a forest there is just incredibly powerful. The rest of the exhibit was awesome as well, and I think you can find more at www.iaiarelations.org
I went to this cute little restaurant for lunch, even though I was pretty underdressed for it. While waiting for a server, I pulled out a little notebook and started writing a lot of this stuff down so I wouldn't forget it. All of a sudden, I had not only a server but another guy (a busboy maybe?) checking up on me every five or ten minutes. The meal came out and looked incredible so I took a picture of it. Then I really started getting the full nine yards. I don't think I was supposed to get refills, but I got a bunch anyway. I think that they must have thought I was restaurant reviewer or a travel guide writer or something. So there's a tip for you: if you're outclassed at a restaurant, just take notes and even pictures.
I tested out my ankle with a game of pickup that Tower took me too. Anywhere else I think I would have gotten hosed, and I can't seem to get the hang of throwing in the thin air up here, but it was definitely fun to get a disc in my hands again. We hung out afterwards with some of them at an Italian place. Very cool people; it was a great time.
And so ends my time in New Mexico. Next up, Arizona and California!
Bad Joke of the Day:
What did Brain Seashell answer Pinky Seashell when asked what they were doing tonight?
We will try to Conch-er the world!
We then went to a BBQ hosted by some friends of Brody and John's, and I started realizing that no one in Denver (and I would later realize the same is true for
Boulder and Santa Fe) is actually from Denver. I met a lot of interesting people in the last few days, people from Virginia, Hawaii, Pennsy, Jersey, NY, Texas, California, all over, really, but I don't think I met anyone actually from here. After the BBQ, the Bourlands came down and met us for a few drinks, and we plans to meet up in the morning.
So the next "morning" I drove up to Boulder to hang out up there. They have a great basement apartment that's just the right size and a perfect distance from most of the stuff in Boulder. We went for a walk along a stream there, and they showed me the outdoor mall there. Boulder's interesting in that it seems to have two main types of people: the very affluent (whether they be college students or adults) and the completely tolerated and accepted transients. It makes for an interesting dynamic. Also, I started to notice how happy little kids are out here. Everywhere you go, there are little areas for kids to play in or climb on or crawl through. We then went to a Nepalese restaurant where the portions were just gigantic! We had to split an app three ways, and still weren't able to eat more than a third of our meals. The food was kind of like Indian, but with more butter and including some stews and soups. We went out for some drinks that night to see the Boulder night life, and then crashed.
Matthew took me up to a scenic overlook (they live within walking distance of a mountain) before I headed back south to Denver. At Di Y's advice I visited Washington Park. Lots of running trails, fields, playgrounds, and this beautiful flower garden. Then I went a bit north to City Park, which was also very cool; the Denver Zoo is there, and the Museum of Natural History (I think), but the difference in the socioeconomic status was remarkable. Apparently along a road called Colfax, there's a definitive stratification. It's good to see both sides of a city, I think, rather than just what gets advertised in the tourist manuals.
Brody gave me directions to Red Rocks, so I swung by there on my way south. Incredible place, and I think I'm going to have to make it there for a concert next summer.
Southern Colorado and Northern New Mexico is a wild drive. It's far flatter than Kansas is, but the weather patterns are completely fascinating. You can see for hundreds of miles, and literally see an entire thunderstorm, from rain to top of the giant cumulonimbus cloud. And when the lightning starts up... wow. Best of all, that storm is really far away so you don't have to even drive through it!
I arrived at Tower's place late, and she was gracious and kind enough to cook up a little sumpin sumpin for a late meal. Let's talk stars. There are a lot of them in the New Mexico desert. It's not really describable, so I'm not going to try. But wow.
Yesterday I did the touristy thing in Santa Fe. Everything is adobe pueblo revival architecture. Even the banks and burger kings, everything. I went to the best museum I've seen thus far, the Institute of American Indian Arts. It was an incredible exhibit, and no one was looking so I took some pictures of favorite pieces. Two that I couldn't figure out how to get good shots of were masks set on mirrors, the question written on the wall "What would it be like to look through others' eyes?". The other was a film projected onto a wall, and the same film about a minute behind projected at a ninety degree angle. Thing was, there were two dozen thin aspen trees between both projectors and the walls they projected onto. The film was on the history of the conquered Iroquois (though they use a different name for themselves, but I couldn't understand what the guy had said), and the effect was incredible on several levels. Watching a film of a native walking through the forest when there's actually a forest there is just incredibly powerful. The rest of the exhibit was awesome as well, and I think you can find more at www.iaiarelations.org
I went to this cute little restaurant for lunch, even though I was pretty underdressed for it. While waiting for a server, I pulled out a little notebook and started writing a lot of this stuff down so I wouldn't forget it. All of a sudden, I had not only a server but another guy (a busboy maybe?) checking up on me every five or ten minutes. The meal came out and looked incredible so I took a picture of it. Then I really started getting the full nine yards. I don't think I was supposed to get refills, but I got a bunch anyway. I think that they must have thought I was restaurant reviewer or a travel guide writer or something. So there's a tip for you: if you're outclassed at a restaurant, just take notes and even pictures.
I tested out my ankle with a game of pickup that Tower took me too. Anywhere else I think I would have gotten hosed, and I can't seem to get the hang of throwing in the thin air up here, but it was definitely fun to get a disc in my hands again. We hung out afterwards with some of them at an Italian place. Very cool people; it was a great time.
And so ends my time in New Mexico. Next up, Arizona and California!
Bad Joke of the Day:
What did Brain Seashell answer Pinky Seashell when asked what they were doing tonight?
We will try to Conch-er the world!
posted by Fraggle @ 2:04 PM
1 Comments:
At 12:08,
Anonymous said…
Jelly is a clear, bright product. It is generally made by cooking fruit juice and sugar with pectin as a jelling agent and lemon juice as an acid to maintain a consistent texture. Jelly is firm and will hold its shape (it “shakes”). Generally, jelly contains no pieces of fruit, although specialty jellies, like pepper jelly, may include pieces of jalapeño or other pepper.
Jam is made from crushed or chopped fruit cooked with sugar, and often pectin and lemon juice. Jam can be a purée of fruit or have a soft pulp, but it does not contain chunks of fruit.
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