More Hiking and Phoebe

Last weekend, I got out for a little hike with Phoebe around NCAR while Jess was still away at her business trip in Washington, D.C. It didn’t last long, because Phoebe zonked out pretty quickly. We had a few minutes to walk around inside the little museum, and then took a lap around the little trail just outside the Mesa Lab. I read all the interpretive sign to Phoebe, but she wasn’t too excited to learn about temperature inversions and the like. Later that night, Jess came home. We were super happy to have her back, and just in time too; Phoebe had finished up the last of the frozen breast milk earlier that afternoon.

The following day, we spent a little time relaxing with a breakfast burrito from Santiago’s II in Lafayette and a cup of coffee at Cannon Mine. As we were getting ready to go, someone noticed that there was an awful lot of smoke on the horizon. I popped outside and could easily see a large orange-brown haze hanging over the mountains. The wind was really blowing, and you could smell the smoke and see ash falling all the way out in Lafayette. This was the beginning of what is now being called the Fourmile fire because of its origin along Fourmile Canyon just outside Boulder. The fire is already the worst (with over 170 homes lost) in the history of Colorado and is still raging. Luckily no one has been killed or seriously injured, but the fire is only about 50% contained.

We were planning to go for a little hike that afternoon, but the fire pushed us a little further away than we’d planned. The smoke was quite heavy in Boulder, and most of the mountain roads heading out of town were closed. We ended up going all the way up to the national park in an effort to escape all of the smoke. It was a beautiful day in Estes Park, and we ended up riding the shuttle bus up to the Glacier Gorge trailhead. Though it may seem odd, we’d never hiked up to Mills Lake or any of the area beyond the split in the trail that leads to Loch Vale. So, we loaded up Phoebe and headed for some new sights. Over the years we’ve heard that Glacier Gorge is very pretty, but of course, that entire part of the park is spectacular. There really isn’t a bad choice amongst the trails available.

After about an hour and a half of hiking, we were finally standing along the shore of Mills Lake and Phoebe was finally awake from a little nap. Already it was getting late, so we didn’t hang out long. The wind was also blowing fiercely, so we put Phoebe into her little jacket for some added warmth. We switched the backpack to give Jess a try and I snapped a few pictures before turning around. We made great time back down the hill to the parking lot and only had to wait a few minutes for the first shuttle bus to arrive. We made it back to the parking lot and drove back to Estes Park. Phoebe was getting a little hungry, so we stopped in town to give her another snack. Afterward, we walked around town for a few minutes, and Jess tried on a unique jacket with a built-in mitten. I grabbed a cup of coffee—yeah I’m an addict—and we drove back to Lyons.

Since it was still technically our anniversary weekend, we stopped at Oscar Blues for a nice dinner. Phoebe was awesome and let her mommy and daddy enjoy a nice dinner without any drama, and she even flirted with all of the waitresses—one enough so as to earn a helium balloon. By the time we were leaving, it was dark outside, so it was hard to see the smoke. As we were approaching Lafayette, you could see the red-orange glow from the fire lighting up the smoke.

Fast-forward to this weekend, and we’re back at the coffee shop having a burrito. We were planning to go camping; however, Jess is a bit too busy with teaching at the University of Phoenix, and she has a little copy editing project as well. She’d have ended up working the entire time, so it didn’t really make any sense. Hopefully we’ll be able to reschedule for a couple of weeks from now and get decent weather as well. Phoebe has been having a fun weekend. She’s becoming a really expert sitter and has even learned a few new tricks. In the video below she uses one rattle to fetch another rattle. Wow, using tools already. She’s also discovered that instead of crawling towards her toys, she can just pull them to her along with her blanket. Pretty cool.

Since Jess had so much work to do, Phoebe and I went for an urban hike with the stroller around Boulder. We had a good time when she wasn’t pointed directly into the sun. I’ve been looking at replacing my old iPod and thought the new iPod touch looked like a pretty cool tool, but they were out at the Apple store at 29th Street. So I guess I’ll have to order one online if I want one. It looks like it can do some fun stuff like play on-line chess. Maybe I’ll be able to give Grandpa Gribble a MacArthur Park smackdown Internet style. It also has a cool video Skype-like app, but it requires talking to others with an iPod or iPhone, and few of my friends have either.

Later in the evening, we went for another walk around Lafayette. We stopped back into the mine and spent a few minutes listening to a guy sing and play original tunes on his guitar. The crowd was pretty small, but he was pretty good. Don’t ask Phoebe about the music; she slept through everything. Well, it’s time for the kiddo to hit the hay, and I’m needed for a little bed-time reading. Au revoir!