ajm - errata non grata

Houses In Motion

(The Funk is too deep.)

Whew.

I guess the moon and I aren't in sync. It took [tmo] to point that out to me the other day. (Day, go figure.) Nights had been interesting, now that the room-sized bed is gone and I am on an in-transit futon. As a Cancer-on-the-Leo-cusp, dominated by the moon and its meanderings, a wet afternoon in an empty house is both blessing and curse. I have to clean up and reorganize, something I don't mind doing, but since it's a move, it's more trauma-inducing to my mental wanderings. Still, I love the contemplative rains and introverted mist of summer rain. Two moves (office and base camp) in the space of a month is a lot of material culture to experience. Humans and their stuff. Argh.

Sorry, by the way, that I haven't posted since the day of Controlled Movement (my birthday, and the description of that day in a birthday book I once read).

But really...whew.

I mean, the best way to sum up the past month and a half is to say that Jesse came in rocked this town for a few weeks and promptly sold a good amount of our stuff on Craigslist for us before jumping ship to Aspen to teach for Princeton Review for a few weeks, of course, with a Nextel/Trimble/BACKPACKER BlackBerry GPS-enabled unit. He figured out the email before I did. To that I say...righteous.

And who can blame him.

Listen to his story. He shows up Colorado on the 24th or something of June, and we got him out for like six straight weekends or something. At the time, I was still completely gone over my new gig, especially the hike in Rocky Mountain National Park that will run in the October issue as a BACKPACKER Classic Hike and Waypoint Card. Small potatoes, but carbohydrates are the name of the game. He came into an excitable me, and we got out in a hurry.

His list was pretty good.

-We traveled south to the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve for BACKPACKER's December issue to hike one-step-forward, one-step-backward all morning through some massive hills of piled up sand beneath the rugged Sangre de Cristo Mountains.
-We drove to Florissant to cater a wedding in the Pike National Forest with Nic and Rachel.
-Pete got him in a kayak on Clear Creek to learn how to roll.
-We went to Breckenridge to climb Quandary Peak with Parker; for both their first 14'er. Then we sat and watched ultimate all day and drank free Avery Beer. (Great pre-hike illegal night of sleep at the fee sign in a campground near the Dillon Reservoir, I-70 bleating away all night long just across the water. We should have been at the trailhead, but it was late and we were quite tired.)
-Then we hit up the Lost Creek Wilderness Area to hike the quiet, High Sierra-like meadows and trails of the Kenosha Mountains, only to have a hailstorm drive us from a ridgeline with our tails happily tucked between our legs.

Great July! (I might have forgotten something.)d

--
Aside:

I say happily only because a massive bolt of lighting just above us gave us reason to shelter up under a stand of boulders during the first set of the storm, only to find us in the second set improvising a shelter from Jesse's blue tarp. {Note: You'll often find heavy improv in a second set of a Phish show, namely your June '95 or Fall '97 vintage).} This storm had that quality. In the first, scattered section of rain and hail, we went with a go-to options, natural coverings, and then transitioned to the tarp apparatus for the second of steady rain and thunder. {Slight correlation (not really?), but I like the analogy because I like to continually reference Phish moments and such. I pretty much wrote eighty pages on a related topic, so I figure I'm due my moments of nostalgia.} I'll give the shelter effort a 3, on a scale of 2 to 3. Basically, it was a scouting trip. Lost Creek is a hidden gem of a place, especially considering it's so close to the Front Range. But, everyone is on their down 285 to Beuna Vista and the Collegiate Peaks and Arkansas River Valley beyond. The overlooks of Lost Creek frame this classic Colorado view...but far from the roadways and stop-and-go tourist travelling.
----

Then, just last weekend, we rode bikes past plague-ridden prairie dogs to the Avery Brewery to drink free beer, ear free food, and listen to free music. I dutifully brought my BlackBerry to further test the satellites and my interface with the unit and it's in-and-outs. Ah, technology, both speeding us up and slowing us down. But, that's another topic for another really long paper sometime in the future. The wonderful Parker getting us our first round so we didn't have to stay in line meant that all we had to do was stand in line and drink until we go to the front and our cups were empty and we returned to the back, or helped ourselves to more food.

Um...buh.

But, in all, July was a series of the "Epic Weekend Warrior" drives and the random experiences that I really crave. It'll do, but I'm not sure for how long. The Postcard Dynasties of Australia and Updates from the Big Island have only stoked the embers of travel again...but yet, I must deduct the carrots from my pay to keep things even and manageable. Balance becomes even more important in times of transition. Consolidating and selling my stuff is both freeing and disconcerting. In the end, I still have too much stuff. Then, wonderfully, a day like today, where it feels like October, what with the rain slapping the sidewalk outside and the fog cutting the Flatirons in half, deceptively curling into and out of canyons and slabs. Sort of like Oregon...but decidedly Boulder. Brooks had yet another classic Bobo's In Paradise-style Boulder reference in The Times the other day: "Crunchy places like Boulder attract crunchy types and become crunchier."

To that I say...CRUNCH MUNCH! We love it here in Boulder County, and we're proud of a great many things, diseased prairie dogs included.

Partly telling the story through Jesse only seems appropriate because he came into the 710 Gillaspie haustel and did quite well. A great addition. And on the end of the 'May and Early June Time of Helen,' a subletter of a few weeks whose term ended suprisingly and interestingly. But, she and I have crossed paths since; riding the bus will do that, put you into touch with people, that is. I suppose all mass transit will do that. Luckily, we've got a great one out here, and I extra happy since I picked up the free RTD Pearl Street EcoPass from (of all places, really) GettingThere.com. It was by chance, but something that I was intending to do once we started working on Pearl Street. One Friday, there was a booth in front of the courthouse signing up all Pearl Street Business employees for EcoPass Regional Bus Passes. It just makes sense, and the EcoPass is paid for by the City and Downtown Business District by revenue from parking meters. I mean really, it's great to get people out of their cars and onto their bikes and their local bus route. I love riding the bus. And it's easy, which is why it works so well. Bouldertown isn't big, and Boulder County is navigable by a few minor roads. I enjoy getting out onto the country mile and taking the northern dirt out by Hygiene, out near where the Foothills pile up in mellow, glacial terrain that, from afar, give off a scene akin to Lake Michigan summer waves at dusk, gently lapping a sandy shoreline. And, out there, the mountains appear more majestic and rolling, at least more than the view where I live, just beneather the serrated blades of the Flatirons towering into the western Boulder skyline. Both views are equally impressive, if not somewhat familiar by now...and I think about what some say about a sense of place. It's where things take place and give you context. Lately, however, I've felt without a specific context as I've moved offices and now prepare to move out of my place in South Boulder. I've spent the past week shuffling possessions around and cleaning up spaces both here and in Longmont, where I'll be sojourning for autumn. Ideally, Brother Peter and I will reconvene after a spell apart. In the meantime, I leave Boulder for the wider, less manicured streets in the next town over just down the Diagonal Highway.

As always, it matters not how you leave, but whether or not you roll in with a fury. Forward.

Lastly, I'm learning more and more how important it is to give more than you take.

Posted by ajm at August 13, 2005 05:27 PM