#51 Boston - Hazed and Infused - May 27th 07

Hazed and Infused - That would be my favorite new beer - courtesy of the Corner Bar at the historic Boulderado Hotel (http://www.boulderado.com/?source=googleadname) in, yes you guessed right, Boulder, Colorado. A slightly hoppy concoction, unfiltered, very yummy, not quite as strong as an IPA, but definitely in the ballpark for a tasty experience. The Corner Bar, aptly located at a corner of Spruce and 13th Streets (http://www.boulderado.com/corner_bar), offers a quite lovely ambience, and on the way to the bathroom offers a spectacular glimpse of the Victorian architecture displayed in the Boulderado, a National Trust Historic Hotel. Of particular note is the stain glass ceiling, and more than one visitor is seen wandering dangerously directionless through the lobby with their eyes peeled upward.
Greetings from the Continental Divide! I arrived in the lovely town on Boulder, Colorado this Friday, and the Rocky Mountains welcomed with wonderful 70-degree weather, and, as expected, vividly spectacular scenery. The shuttle bus from Denver International Airport heads straight for the mountains; during the entire ride a panorama view of the Rockies leaves you staring with your mouth open. What an awe-inspiring sight it is!


I am here on a little mini vacation over the Memorial Day Holiday weekend to visit my friend and former California roommate Susan, who I had not seen in 11 years. Susan and her family - husband Rob, daughters Ellie and Cara, and Chesapeake Bay Retriever and resident canine Greta (as in Garbo) - live in the mountains above Boulder. At 7200 feet exactly, in the community of Sugarloaf in a lovely A-frame mountain home. The view from the house is just wonderful, it is nicely nestled into a mountain hillside and one can simply walk out the door for a hike of any length. Susan, Greta and I went for a hike yesterday through Roosevelt Forest and some of the trails neighboring the house, and it was stunning - the wildflowers are dazzling with an array of colors, wild roses, lupines, daisies - you name it. The landscape up here is high mountain tundra, so in between lodge pines, pinch pines and fir trees, you will be amazed to discovered desert yucca plants and cacti.














Boulder (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boulder%2C_Colorado) itself is a town where I felt at home instantly. It has about 90,000 folks living here with a substantial amount of University of Colorado students thrown in - and strolling down the famous Pearl Street Mall, a pedestrian area with a charming layout, a myriad of great restaurants and an equally striking amount of neat stores and other opportunities to spend your money, it is apparent that this is a college town. Yesterday, the Pearl Street mall was a mob scene - two reasons - the Annual Boulder Creek Festival with rides, and booths loaded with unhealthy foods of all categories, which brought out the locals in full force, and the fact that on Memorial Day Monday 50,000 people will run a little road race also known as the Bolder Boulder (Motto - "Sea Level is for Sissies"), a 10 K through the streets of Boulder which leads runners to a the University of Colorado Stadium, where the slower runners such as myself will be welcomed by a stadium full of screaming people. (http://www.bolderboulder.com/default.aspx). This folks will be as close as I will ever get to the Olympics, or at least the feel of it. I got my number yesterday and this morning ran a little around the hillside - I figured if I don't collapse at 7200 feet, I might be OK doing a 10 K in Boulder at 5300 feet. I did quite well except for the uphills, where I felt as if someone was sucking the air out of my lungs with an industrial-size vacuum cleaner. The race starts tomorrow morning at 7 AM, and I am in section DC, everyone is staggered in waves, and they put you in by your previous times for 5Ks or 10 Ks. After everyone is done including the walkers, the professional runners hit the road and of course they are going to be at the finish line probably before I have stopped sweating.
Today we are heading for the mountains a bit, as you know Boulder is where the Rocky Mountains meet the Great Plains, and the Rocky Mountains we must see. Snow covered peaks are awaiting. Just like Moab in Utah, Boulder is a community where outdoors enthusiasts, college jocks and adventure seekers flock to by the thousands - rock climbing (in nearby Eldorado Springs -a Mecca for the vertically inclined), biking, high altitude mountaineering, white water rafting - this is paradise.
Just to add a little tidbit, Boulder is also the setting for literature, in particular our scary friend, Maine's own Stephen King, who lived in Boulder for a wee bit, and wrote "The Shining" here after visiting the Stanley Hotel in Estes Park. (http://www.stanleyhotel.com/). Estes Park is located at 7500 feet, and as you know is the birthplace of the American credit union movement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estes_Park). Back to Stephen King - his book "The Stand" takes place here, and so did the sitcom "Morck and Mindy"; the house you see on television is on Spruce Street right in downtown Boulder.

Back to Boston for a bit and New Hampshire - while this week has actually brought a glimpse of summer with the temperatures soaring up to 93 degrees F (34 degrees Celsius), the weekend before was mostly crappy. Not that this would keep me from heading up to New Hampshire for a little hiking - our destination this time was Eagle Cliff and Red Hill, located adjacent to beautiful Squam Lake. The lake is huge, stretching for 6700 acres (27.5 square kilometers), and has a gazillion little islands which make it very picturesque. Its Native American name was Keeseenunknipee ("goose lake in the highlands"), but it since has been renamed a few times, and eventually ended up being the exciting "Asquam" (Abenaki for "water). The lake is famous a bit, since the Henry Fonda film "On Golden Pond" was filmed here in the early 80s. (http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=Squam+Lake&gbv=2).



For some reason, good karma I guess, the rains stopped exactly for the two hours we scrambled up and down the hill, which was good, but for some other reason, bad karma I guess this time, the bugs came out, which meant that there really was no stopping. If you have ever eaten a bagel with tuna salad in three minutes, you know what I mean. It was either that or hold the bagel with one hand and furiously wave the other, and risk dropping the lunch to the delight of the mosquitoes. Eagle Cliff was great, a bit on the strenuous side, scrambling up Granite boulders and such, and I only got lost once. Once one is beyond the cliff, the hike gets considerably easier, and is quite a breeze up to Red Hill, where a nice, tall fire tower invites to great views, that is if there is one. This particular day, the clouds came in swiftly, and there was not that much of a view, but enjoyable nevertheless. Interestingly enough, with all the bad weather, by the time we got to Boston, the sun was out, and we were able to include an ice-cream stop in the day's activities.
And now, to the highlight of the week - this past Wednesday, our running group, Community Running, participated in an official 1-Mile US Track and Field Race at MIT - the first in our summer Grand Prix series, where our scheming coaches have come up with 8 races to complete over the course of the summer. 22 motivated runners did show for the 1-miler, and we did really good. I actually ran the mile in 7:42 minutes, which is the fastest I have ever run without being chased by a large animal with claws. Of course after crossing the finish line I felt as if I had lost my lungs somewhere on the last lap, and a bottle of oxygen would have been very welcome. We did not have any, but decided beer would do the trick and headed to the Crossroads Irish Pub on Beacon Street in Boston, and the Smithwick's made me feel better right away. What escaped me at that moment, but came clear later quite strikingly, was that I had to run back home after the beer-and-burger-fest, which I did, and let me just say to all of you, it is not something I can recommend whole-heartedly. Don't drink and run.
Friends, the mountains are calling, we are heading to the lovely mountain town of Nederland, Colorado for a little outdoors fun and a picnic. Here is a little blurb from Wikipedia on what happens up there (8200 ft) - "Nederland is also the site of the annual "Frozen Dead Guy Days", which occurs every year in early March. The festival commemorates a substandard attempt to practice cryonics on the grandfather of a deported resident using dry ice after several days of warm ischemia."
On that note, I am signing off - next week I will hail from Chicago, where the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology welcomes 30,000 cancer physicians and researchers, myself among them.
Enjoy the spring!
pet:)