vividreports: Much more to report this time

This time there's lots to report. Saturday, Rob and Betsey went to Denver, to celebrate their anniversary, and Ellen and I went first to the Farmers Market in Boulder. We had heard that it was really outstanding, and it lived up to its reputation. Many organic farm stands and even more ready-to-eat food stands and other specialty food stands. It is downtown, alongside a park, so you can get something to eat and then sit on the grass in the shade to eat it. There were a lot of people there, and we were especially aware of families with young children.

Throngs at the Boulder Farmers Market.

I got my lunch at an organic sandwich stand.

I got the Bacon, Egg & Cheese with Caramelized onions on a pretzel roll. Good!

After the Farmers Market we thought about what next. How did we want to spend the day. I had not gotten much sleep the previous night, and felt sort of wiped out, so I wanted to go back to the house and have a quiet day there. So we went back, but Ellen really wanted to take a ride into the mountains. That would have entailed leaving me at the house alone and not feeling really great. So I decided I could deal with riding in the car, and I could doze if I needed to. I'm glad I did because we had a wonderful ride through the mountains for sure. We went up the road past Betsey and Rob's house through Gold Hill and up the the Peak to Peak Highway and on to Estes Park (which on beautiful Saturday afternoon in August was a total zoo!), and then on to Trail Ridge Road and into Rocky Mountain National Park. We made the big loop from Estes Park over the Grand Lake, on to Granby, down U.S. 40 through the Berthoud Pass to I-70, over to west of Denver, up through Central City and Nederland, down the canyon into Boulder and back home. What a trip! About 7 hours in all. Trail Ridge Road goes up to about 12,200 feet elevation, up into Alpine Tundra, and even though it's late summer, there were beautiful and unusual wildflowers. A storm went through, and then the sun came out, which made for spectacular scenes. I didn't have a chance to photograph everything, but here is a little sample:

Roadside scene on Trail Ridge Road

Tundra walk near the Alpine Visitor's Center

My photo of Alpine Gentian, taken from quite a distance because you are urged not to go off the paved walk for any reason, the tundra is so fragile, it takes years, even decades, to repair the imprint of one foot.


A professional photo of Alpine Gentian. So beautiful!

My photo of Western Yellow Paintbrush. According to the book there are 200 species of paintbrush (Castillija).

Professional photo of Western Yellow Paintbrush - Castillija orientalis

The more common paintbrush

After the storm passed by we got this beautiful view from the Alpine Visitor's Center

When I was at the Y Camp in Estes Park in 1951, Central City was an old restored gold mine town, that was a modest tourist destination. It was founded in the mid-nineteenth century during the gold rush, and as many as 10,000 people lived there; then it became a ghost town after the boom went bust. Today it is a gambling mecca. Together with the adjoining town of Blackhawk, there are dozens of casinos. It's incredible. But it also has a fine, historic Opera House.

Central City as it was in the 1950's (though I never saw it from an airplane)

Central City Opera House

Today, Sunday, we went to church at the Community United Church of Christ in Boulder, and met my old seminary mate, Robb Lapp, and his wife, Jan, there. (They live in Arvada, CO, a suburb of Denver). We felt immediately at home. It bears no resemblance to the Guilford Community Church architecturally, (as you can see) but in many other ways they are very similar, and especially in the service of worship itself. For one thing, as we walked in, two fiddlers were playing an old fiddle tune as an introit. Very Guilford. The hymns were all favorites. And people were very friendly and welcoming. Robb introduced us and mentioned Betsey's illness and asked for prayers. Afterward, I talked with an elderly gentleman whose mother was a Whitney, from Marlboro, VT, who lived on Higley Hill. All very familiar. A small world.

Community UCC Church in Boulder

The Guilford Community Church, UCC, Guilford, VT - our home church

After church, we had brunch with Robb and Jan at a nearby restaurant. Robb and I go back over 60 years to when we first entered Chicago Theological Seminary together in fall of 1954. We share a lot of memories.

Ellen, Jan, Robb and their great-grand-daughter, Aubrey. (From a previous trip)

After brunch, we went to meet Paul and Max at the Gateway Fun Center in Boulder. Paul and Max are on a week-long getaway; Paul is meeting old college pals and their familes in Denver and they will be camping together and doing other things. They left Alpine yesterday, spent last night in Rawlins, WY and came down today through Boulder, and it was a perfect time to see them, so we agreed to meet at a place that we thought Max would enjoy. It turned out to be sort of an old-fashioned amusement park, with miniature golf, batting cages, a video game arcade, go-karts, etc. Unfortunately, a rainstorm came through while we were playing miniature golf and we got soaked and that sort of cut things short, but Max got to so some arcade games, and got to see his dad hit a lot of fast pitches in the batting cage!