finished HPVII (and poked around the ensuing discussion [spoilers!]; also consulted with my bridegroom on some of the finer points of wandlore) last night, so now i'm at liberty to attend to more important things. like, em, blogging? wasn't sure i was necessarily going to read it right away, as i normally like to lag a few years behind the times, but after reading V in time to see the movie on opening day, during ester's lunch break (better than book, we agreed) and speeding through sarahco's copy of VI, i succumbed to momentum and impulse-bought it on sale at king sooper's while marcus rode a plastic rodeo horse.

yeah. good stuff. the electrifying conclusion. a strong ramp-up to the end (unlike, say, narnia's whimper), even if i can concede some of these quibblers' qualms, after the fact. biggest letdown: not enough hot ginny action. (that's not a spoiler is it?) more luna would've been nice too.

as it happened, i got into colorado on the night book seven was released, so after matthew picked me up from the airport, we caught up with the gang post-potluck and headed down to pearl street where the teeming hordes were gathered around boulder bookstore in their rowlingian regalia, awaiting the stroke of midnight. a couple of folks at the bar we were at ducked out to pick up their pre-ordered copies and then ran around the room giddily clutching the books and gloating.

bummed around in boulder for a few days, checking out many of the assorted cafes, restaurants and bars - standouts included hapa - late night happy hour sushi and sake cocktails, with sci-fi decorating motifs and '80s radio rock dj soundtrack - and the mountain sun brewpub, where i played an excellent game of scrabble with katrina, devised domino rally diversions with erin, drank a delectable ginger-flavored draft, and listened to an accomplished jam-style band whose covers drew from ween, portishead, and i think something even more surprising that i can't remember.

we dealt with some car trouble: the alternator belt snapped on matt's newly acquired 1984 mazda RX7 - i learned more than i ever knew about auto mechanics watching his wrench-monkey brother mike poke around and fix it. also took a short hike up one of the flatirons, during which one of my hiking boots fell almost completely apart, to excellent comic effect; biked out boulder canyon a short ways; did some yoga in the grass; went to an unexpectedly jesus-centric service at the all souls church of boulder; played in backyard with pepper, the eriksons' affectionate and fluffy graying black cat; and visited the REI mecca in denver (for new boots, a tent, and guidebooks to the maroon bells/snowmass wilderness.)

after some last-minute lineup changes (from three down to two, then back up to four in a matter of hours the night before) we set out for aspen tuesday morning to embark on a two-night backpack up in the rockies. we picked up some necessary final provisions at "the miner's building," a fabulously dusty old hardware and sundries store/general purpose dry goods emporium that we discovered amidst the gucci-wearing gawkers and immaculately kept-up public walking areas. there was a shelf of jumbled and inconsistently price-tagged rain gear that mostly looked like it had been sitting there since the '70s (at least judging from the mustaches on the package models.) i got a canary-yellow slicker and pants set. at least i think they were supposed to be a set.

in any case they served me well and i was glad i had them along. we hiked, that late afternoon (making camp around dusk) and the following morning, up the conundrum valley to the hot springs (it's hard to find good pictures of the springs b/c they usually have naked people in them.) matthew and i took an additional side-hike up to triangle pass, at almost 12000 feet, and then scrambled up a little peak from there. the view - 360º vantages into close to a dozen different fourteener-flanked valleys, with shades of countless reds, greens, and purples - was made even more spectacular by the approach of some dramatically chiaroscuroed cloudmasses from the south and west...but of course those same thunderheads made us skedaddle back down the scree and through the endless wildflower meadows about as quickly as we could - pausing to refill our water-bottle at a snowpatch - so as to avoid any close calls with lightning which, as our guidebooks emphatically reiterated, can actually kill you!

as it happened we made it back to camp just as the rain started to come down, to find dave and elise cooking up some chili in the vestibule of their tent. the four of us huddled in their tent as the downpour continued, worried about the effectiveness of their rainfly and (more worryingly) the makeshift trash-bag groundcloth, gave each other footrubs, listened to a roald dahl short story, and first waited, then gave up on waiting, for the rice which was to accompany the chili. after close to two hours matt and i decided to give up on the huddled semi-misery and left the tent on the pretext of going to filter water from the stream. i tried pumping some water from the springs so that d and e could have hot-water-bottles in their sleeping bags - a mostly failed experiment but a nice idea regardless. around that time (10pm), the rain let up,
so m and i went to the hot springs, which for basically the first time since we'd arrived was empty of bathers. while we soaked, a pair of thoroughly bedraggled pair of hikers arrived on the scene - they'd just walked the eight miles from the trailhead, at least two hours of it in the steady downpour as well as darkness, and it's beyond me why they hadn't stopped to make camp at some earlier point.

anyway. those are the eight miles that we trucked out the following afternoon, after a luxuriously paced camp morning, a little too quickly and with too few water breaks, on my part, as it turned out - i'd been feeling pretty good as we hiked, but after arriving back at the cars i was hit with a bout of altitude sickness (cum-dehydration-cum-heat-exhaustion?) the most comically pitiful moment came as we drove over the spectacular independence pass, where i vomited a bellyful of clif bars and dried fruit in front of a glorious mountain vista, complete with a rainbow, and a cute, concerned-looking deer that came over to investigate me. pulled over to throw up four more times throughout the drive and otherwise i just huddled miserably in my seat. but i was more or less to rights by the next morning.

from there i went to aurora to visit my brother and sister-in-law, plus nephew marcus and baby niece evelyn (and ben the good doggy) - a low-key weekend, or at least as low key as it can be with a rambunctious three-year-old and a hungry two-week-old. we took some tricycle and wagon trips to the nearby park and playground, ate meals prepared by the MOPS (mothers of preschool children) and the eggroll king, and watched "mater and the ghost light" (a short from the cars dvd bonus features) at least twice. hooray for family. on my last day there, alex took off for a business trip to italy, and chris came down with a violent stomach bug, so i looked after marcus while her sister took her to the hospital. after one meltdown-timeout cycle, we had a relatively relaxed time, eating pb+j and watching both cars and finding nemo.

i ended up seeing three pixar films that day, as matthew and i reunited went to catch the excellent ratatouille. quickly - highlights of the rest of the trip: two visits powell's sweet shoppe on pearl street, an afternoon in grand lake with scott b. and sarah (minigolf!), and the grand finale daft punk concert at red rocks...in all quite an action-packed week and a half. i can't say i'm completely won over by the colorado lifestyle, but there is certainly some nice living to be had out there.

now back to philly where spring garden street has been torn up and is hell for biking, the humidity is making my ankle joint fussy again, i need to come up with a magical solution for what to do with my stuff and my life, and i haven't even had a yoga class in three weeks (!). but first: d.c. and the wedding. oh, it doesn't stop.

Labels: colorado, harry potter, hiking