Aspen

After spending a few days in Colorado Springs Becca and I went to stay at a friend of hers apartment in Basalt near Aspen. On Wednesday we went whitewater rafting which was a lot of fun. Neither of us had gone rafting before so we did a relatively easy trip (level 2) that included some decent rapids at first then a lot of calm water for the second half. If we ever go rafting again we’d want to do a more challenging segment of river, maybe level 3. However, no regrets, as a first time trip this was fun. I don’t have pictures because we only took a disposable waterproof camera with us and haven’t gotten the pictures developed yet. There was a cute family on the raft with us, Mom, Dad and daughters (around 8 and 6.) The girls were fun. The best part was when the mom was in the water and the little 6 year old girl tried to pull her up. We didn’t let her do it, but it was funny watching her lean over the boat and grab her mom’s life jacket knowing she’d never be able to pull her up.

On Thursday we went into Aspen. First up the gondola to the top of Aspen Mountain, which is also used for skiing in the winter. We spent a few hours on top of the mountain playing disc (aka Frisbee) golf, which I highly enjoyed. Some of the same fun of regular golf but not nearly as frustrating.

After coming back down the gondola we walked around downtown Aspen and saw some of the shops. There are a lot of designer brand shops throughout Aspen that could make for some good shopping if so inclined. The highlight for me however was when I noticed someone pull into a parking lot driving a Lotus. Those are nice cars. For the evening we went to Snowmass, another small skiing based community nearby, which has a summer concert series on Thursday nights and we saw Salvadore Santana perform. I’m not sure what exact genre they fit into, they had some reggae, jazz and Latin combination I couldn’t quite put my finger on. They were however quite enjoyable.

Friday we slept in, didn’t go up a mountain as we’d planned, but did drive back to Denver where we went to the Zoo and then the Denver Art Museum, both very nice.

Saturday we went for a hike up to Devil’s Head where there is a functioning fire tower. The view was beautiful. It may not have been as nice as you get from the top of a 14,000 ft mountain, but it was still worth it.

Now I’m back to Albany, and back to the ever so interesting world of Allergy consultation for another week. J Actually, I have learned some and there have been interesting patients, but I think 2 weeks instead of 3 would have been plenty.