Journey To The Sea (2)

We’ve just finished up 6 amazing days in beautiful Colorado, our first “destination” state and it’s been a wonderful mixture of jaw-dropping mountain scenes, reunion-ing with an old friend, great food and fun, and even some rich life lessons thrown in the mix.

Don and Allison at Naropa

Our first stop was a visit with our friend Allison who lives outside Boulder and is attending Naropa University studying Contemplative Religion.

Before meeting up with her and her friends for a cookout, Don and I had a little time to ourselves in downtown Denver where we enjoyed the sights on the

 16^th street pedestrian mall. Although we missed out on the medicinal marijuana, we did manage a bit of that other popular Colorado drug, coffee, while watching street performers do their thing. Our favorite was a group of teens who were able to transform a set of orange Home Depot buckets into an awesome set of drums.

16th Street Denver

While in Boulder we attended a very vibrant Friends Meeting (church service), toured the Naropa campus, ate a late brunch at a community restaurant and then later walked Boulder’s own pedestrian street, people watching and going in and out of some truly unique shops.

Pearl Street Boulder

Boulder...Where else???

Our Colorado home away from home

Mount Sopris

Next we headed west along I-70, further into the heart of the Rockies, winding our way through canyons and then over passes, to the home of our friend Carolyn near the small town of El Jebel. The house sits high up the mountain at 7000 ft. but is dwarfed by the presence of the looming Mount Sopris. Although almost all the land was painted with shades of fall---browns, reds, oranges and the bright yellow of the aspens---snow-covered Sopris, in contrast, shone like a brilliant diamond.

We spent two full days walking and talking, reading and playing games, only going out to one or another of the local restaurants.


  The third day, on the recommendation of a local, we drove the scenic Highway 133, stopping at Redstone, a quaint historic village where we had a fun conversation with two older gentlemen, one of whom was proud to have been the fullback on the 1957 Iowa team that played in (and won) the Rose Bowl. 

Redstone friend

Naked Torsos

We also stopped in Marble where their big industry is….marble. As in the Lincoln Monument and the Tomb of the Unknowns. I don’t know it for a fact, but from what we could tell from snooping around people’s yards, they also have the largest per capita of marble sculptors in the world. There seemed to be giant naked white torsos everywhere you looked.

And to make the day complete, we got stuck in the middle of a cattle drive on the way home as three cowboys and a couple of herding dogs attempted to move the steers down the road, we assumed off the range and back to the ranch for the winter.

Cattle drive

Aspens near Redstone

 We said our goodbyes to Sopris this morning as we, sadly, had to leave Colorado behind but now we are on to Utah. Who knows what wonder we’ll discover here?