Our journey continued to Salida this week where we’ll be for FIBArk 2021, the annual boating competition and celebration of the water returns after a one year hiatus in 2020 due to the Coronavirus Disease of 2019 (COVID-19). We’re primarily interested in the Tenderfoot Hill Climb and the Hooligan Race, but I’m sure the competitive events will draw our attention as well.
Continue reading “Splashing in the Arkansas River”We rolled into Denver on the California Zephyr at around 9 AM on Friday and picked up almost right where we left off. I walked up 16th Street Mall to the Walton St Hertz office to get our car, installed the car seat, and gave László a tour of the neighborhoods we lived in. We stopped at Cesár Chávez Park in Berkeley to play on the playground before grabbing lunch and heading to the Children’s Museum.
Some things never change and I’m glad to report that Burrito Giant on 38th Avenue is still open and as colorful as ever. Similarly, the playground at the park provided instant, and much needed, entertainment for all the kids, and all the parents and nannies in the neighborhood. For his part, László returned almost immediately to his favorite activity on the park: Playing in the little tunnels beneath the slides.
Continue reading “Return to the Front Range”Our day began like a normal day. László and I got up around 6:30, Danielle got up a bit later, and we had Ladybug Cheerios with Owls (AKA Honey Nut) for breakfast in several rounds. We fed the cats, and then instead of heading off to day care at 9, we got in a cab bound for the Milwaukee Intermodal Station to catch a train to Chicago Union Station in time to make our transfer to the California Zephyr bound for Denver.
It’s a good thing everything went to plan today because we started to suspect László thought the whole “we’re going to sleep on a train and go to Denver to see Watson the Dog” thing was a ruse we cooked up to distract him this summer. All week long he’s been asking us questions about the train: When will we go on that train? Will we sleep on that train? Will we walk onto the train? Will we go on that Amtrak train (ie, the Hiawatha line that runs by our house several times daily)? Every day he woke up and didn’t get on a train was just part of this sadistic game his parents were playing on him. Needless to say, when we finally did get on the train, he could hardly contain himself.
Continue reading “2021 summer adventure part 2: Amtrak to Denver”There’s a certain uneasiness you feel looking out over the walls lining the north rim of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. It’s not unlike the feeling you get when you put you head against the glass of a skyscraper and look down at the street below. Except instead of a street and people there’s rock, a river, and an ecosystem below your feet. Instead of other buildings stretching outward from your vantage point, it’s cliffs, weathered towers, and geologic implausibilities.
Continue reading “A Black Canyon and a beautiful valley”
