It was a great visit to Colorado. From Fort Collins, I wound up going back down to Boulder again, and then going into Denver with Okki and his friend from Manchester who just moved out to Boulder from Connecticut to work for IBM. He is Anglo-Indian, but speaks with an perfect Manchester accent. His daughters saw Boulder while driving across the country and asked him, "Daddy, why can't we live here?"
That would be the view from US 36, coming West down off the hill into Valley. Yes, all of us captivated by that place have seen it. Welcome to Boulder. The new vitality is always appreciated.
Okki and I picked him up at his condo in the Tantra Lakes neighborhood, which is right on the edge of town, where they froze the development. I asked him what it was like driving right off Tantra Drive. He didn't even get the joke. "My daughters can go to school right nearby," he said.
When we got into Denver, I pretended like I knew where we were going, given that I was home-stater in the car with two foreigners. Okki had printed out the Google maps. I managed to get us lost in downtown (just as my old man did in 1959 coming home from Alaska), but they didn't mind the side tour in rush hour. I absorbed the stress for all of us.
On the east side of downtown, we parked at a pay lot (they were amused at the system of putting money into the slot on the honor system). It was an area of East Colfax that was crap in the 1980's, but had been turned into a nightlife district.
We went inside the restaurant. It was packed and noisy with a good crowd. We meandered around the place until we found the big table where the Aspenites were sitting. Adrian and Heike were already there. I sat next to Heike, who is gorgeous. We ordered several rounds of Japanese food.
They were surprised to see me. Okki hadn't told them I would be coming. They had come down from Aspen for a couple nights to go to a few shows, including the ones that we had tickets for---a DJ named Armin Van Buuren over whom Okki was excited, but whom I had to look up on Wikipedia. Turns out he played for the Dutch queen.
After a half hour, Michelle and Sean showed up. Michelle ran around the table to give me a big hug (before kicking me out of my seat so she could sit next to Heike and pass girl talk). That gave me a chance to catch up with Sean, face to face across the table.
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