Silly Old Friends

It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.

--Ralph Waldo Emerson

The past several days I have taken a break from walking outside to the showers and sleeping in the back of my van.  Since I arrived in Colorado after my wonderful time in Nebraska I have been visiting with friends in real houses with plumbing and soft beds. 

Sydney, Ashton, Tara, Bob, and Brooke

On Wednesday afternoon I met Ed, whom I saw at the beginning of my trip when I left the Bay Area and whom I also stayed with in Alabama a few weeks ago.  Now he, too, is here in Colorado. I think he’s secretly stalking me, but he claims he was here to do the Boulder Half Iron Man this morning.  He was staying here with his friends Joel and Amy and their son and daughter, and he kindly offered me one of the spare rooms in their house.  After I told him that it sounded much better than camping for another night, he asked Joel and Amy if it was ok informed Joel and Amy that they would have one more house guest, and they graciously invited me into their home for the night.   

On Thursday morning, I thanked Joel and Amy for their hospitality and made my way to Loveland, Colorado to visit the McGibbens, who were friends from when I lived in San Jose.  I previously worked with Tara when I was at Cisco and would sometimes babysit her three little girls: Brooke, Ashton, and Sydney. 

Breakfast, Mitch-style

The girls were 6, 5, and 4 years old last time I saw them.  When they’d come to my house we’d have lots of fun together.   I’d let them eat from bowls on the floor just like doggies, and I’d fill them up with sweets while we’d watch Beavis and Butthead together.  When Tara would come to pick them up, I’d give them specific instructions to scream as loud as they could every time they saw a white car while driving home.  Now, they’ve grown up into beautiful young women who can recite every episode of South Park and they appreciate the fine humor that can be found in farts.  Actually, they have really become fantastic kids.  Brooke is going to start college at the University of Arizona next year for Astronomy and Physics.  She has taught herself to play the cello and the electric guitar, and she can draw very life-like portraits of people.  One night she got her telescope out and we spent the evening looking at Jupiter’s moons and the rings around Saturn.  Ashton is an avid reader and has even started Walden by Thoreau, which is one of my favorite books of all time, and Sydney told me about the time she punched a girl at school. 

Sydney doing her interpretation
of Disney's "Frozen" at
Sam's Club

But it was good to see them again—the silliness has not been lost and we got to have some good adventures.  On Friday, Tara’s husband Bob had to work so Tara and the girls took me to Old Town Fort Collins.  We started off the morning with me buying the girls breakfast at an ice cream shop.  The ice cream store was apparently haunted, so we definitely had to go inside to investigate. No ghosts were present, but there was about 15 delicious flavors which required sampling before we all settled on our favorite flavors.  We then hit a few different stores in town: a thrift shop where there were lots of goofy hats and big sunglasses to try on, a bookstore for Ashton to peruse, and lunch at a Mongolian bbq restaurant.  Afterwards we went to Sam’s Club to pick up some groceries for dinner.  I convinced Sydney to jump into one of the large freezers for a picture, and then she went and rolled around in a large box of pillows to warm up.  Who knew that grocery shopping could be so fun! 

On Saturday, Fort Collins was having an event called “Taste of Fort Collins” in the downtown area.  It was like a street fair where several local vendors set up booths to hawk their goods, and they also had several bands playing.  Ashton wanted to go see two of her favorite bands, The Mowgli’s and Atlas Genius.   When the Mowgli’s played, I noticed that the average age of the audience was probably about 15 years old.  I wasn’t too excited about their music, but the girls had a fun time jumping around and screaming.  They played for about an hour and their songs all sounded pretty much the same, but I was pleasantly surprised when I recognized the very last song they played called San Francisco.  Later in the evening when Atlas Genius played, the crowd was a little bit older, but I can’t say that I recognized any of their music at all.  I suppose it’s a generational thing, and again it sounded like they played the same song over and over for the full hour.  However, Ashton insisted that all the songs were indeed different. 

They serve beer in little
glasses at Fort Collins

Today we all went to Rocky Mountain National Park, which probably was my favorite activity so far in Colorado.  We drove about an hour from Bob and Tara’s house to the park, and the mountains are absolutely stunning.  Highway 34 passes through Big Thompson Canyon where it is flanked on either side by steep granite walls that reach skyward.  The Big Thompson River was flowing quite heavily down the bottom of the canyon alongside the highway, its water icy cold and tumbling over all the rocks and trees that got in its way.  We made our way to the Alpine Visitor’s Center, which was perched on one of the highest peaks in the park.  The snow was still several feet deep around the center and the temperature had dropped from a comfortable 80° when we left the house to a crisp 47° when we stepped out of the car.  It was the perfect opportunity to have a little snowball fight in the middle of June.  A short trail led from the visitor’s center up even higher into the tundra.  Bob, Tara, Brooke and I braved the frigid wind and snow to make it to the end of the trail while Sydney and Ashton stayed warm and toasty in the car.  From there we headed down several thousand feet to where the temperature was much warmer and we did a short hike to Alberta Falls.

After our hike we left the park to go visit The Stanley Hotel. On the way out of the park several cars were stopped to take pictures of elk that were grazing near the edge of the highway.  As we drove by, Sydney rolled down the window and did her “elk call” out of the window in an attempt to get the elk’s attention.  Her “elk call” though was really nothing more than a very shrill scream which sounded more like a cat being tortured than like an elk, and it really just startled the people taking pictures.  I don’t think the elk even noticed. 

Brooke and I nearly froze at 12,005 feet.
Sydney and Ashton were warm in the car...

The Stanley Hotel sits just outside of Rocky Mountain National Park in the town of Estes Park.  It is a glorious, white colonial-revival style building surrounded by well-manicured gardens and the backdrop of the Rocky Mountains.  It is purported to be haunted, and it even was Steven King’s inspiration for writing The Shining.  Brooke and I bravely took a ride in the old-fashioned brass elevator to the fourth floor and stood outside of room 401, which is supposed to be the most haunted room in the hotel.  She also showed me a little staircase that had the word “REDRUM” written in red ink on a trapdoor at the top.  Fortunately we didn’t encounter any evil spirits that wished us harm and we made it safely back down to the patio where Bob, Tara, Ashton, and Sydney were taking in the view of the mountains.

I have one more day here with the McGibbens before heading off to visit an old roommate, Mike, whom I lived with for a few years after college.  It’s been a few fun-filled days and together we’ve rekindled the old memories and created some new ones as well that will follow us along for the next several years.  I got to see the girls again and inspire them in silliness, and I’m glad they haven’t forgotten me in the past 11 years.  Oh, and together we also put a pretty good dent in the 25 pounds of malt balls that I brought them from Indiana.

This beautiful double-rainbow was waiting for us as
we left Rocky Mountain National Park.
So much nicer than Nebraska....