dreaming@echonyc.com

after we said a sad farewell to estes park and our cabin by the river, we headed off to boulder, where our plans were to visit:

• peppercorn. peppercorn is a big kitchenware/tableware/cookbook/linen store on the pearl street mall in boulder. you want everything there — trust me.
  
• celestial seasonings. last year betty and i thought about going on the tour of the factory, but bagged it. (tea factory. bagged it. get it?!)
  
• the air force academy. we thought we'd drive down to colorado springs one day and watch the cadets march, lemminglike, to lunch.
  
• flagstaff mountain, whole foods, the two-rounds-and-a-square place, and many other local delights.

we checked in at the golden buff, where we'd stayed last year. (the chief feature in its favor was the excellent array of cable channels.) because they initially booked us into a room with only one queen-sized bed ("i told you we have three people when i called!"), we were upgraded to a deluxe super executive kitchen king palace, or whatever they called it — a nice little apartment with a full kitchen, a living room, a separate bedroom, and two tvs. we do live large, we do.

now, you shouldn't think that we planned to get back to nature or anything in boulder. the hotel's situated on a very busy street in the heart of the retail district (in fact, almost directly across the street from the mall). this allowed us easy access to peppercorn, which we visited on three separate days — before making a major purchase, we feel it is imperative to visit the item(s) several times to make sure there's a love match. because the pearl street mall also has dozens of comfortable benches, a great restaurant (try the tapas plate, urges aunt betty), and excellent people-watching, none of us minded spending the bulk of our boulder time there.

the hotel was also quite near whole foods, where we stocked up on trip nuts and delicacies from the prepared food section. this was the scene of dare #2.

"ann," said betty, speculatively, "i'll buy you some wheatgrass juice if you'll drink it."

this time, they carefully negotiated the terms of the deal beforehand. "i'll drink a small," my mother clarified. "like, six ounces."

betty waited in the juice bar line and emerged with a tiny cup — like a ketchup cup for dipping your fries — of freshly-wrung juice. you have never seen anything greener in your life. "an ounce," she reported triumphantly, and carefully set the cup in front of mom. (oh, how i wish she'd bought the full six!)

mom drank some, and then offered me a sip. now, i can't say for sure, because i wasn't at the juice bar with betty, but here's how i suspect it's made:

1. mow lawn.
   
2. lace clippings with several pounds of sweet 'n' low.
   
3. douse pile with crystal light.
   
4. allow to ferment, preferably in a hot barn crammed full of lowing dairy cows.
   
5. taste.
   
6. decide, "nah...still not sweet enough." add the urine of an unmedicated diabetic.
   
7. taste again. when the aftertaste is powerful enough to linger past the application of three altoids, it's perfect.
   
8. strain, dispense, and sell.

luckily, the next day's visit to celestial seasonings offered a chance for me to clear my palate. we donned our hairnets, watched the giant tea-bagging machines do their thing, and stepped into the mint room for a moment (like entering the halls of medicine — mentholicious). we may not be huge tea fans, but we're suckers for industry on parade.

before we go any further, you need to know about the at-home dress.

when you get up in the morning and you don't want to appear immodest, you put on your at-home dress over your nightgown. when you've been to the pool and want to change out of your swimsuit at home, you put on your at-home dress for the drive back. and when you're flying cross-country and want to be comfortable, well, by god, consider the at-home dress. (sound familiar, betty?)

it's not quite a muumuu, not quite a bathrobe. it's a colorful, voluminous garment that would be entirely at home on a squat mexican barmaid. i do not own an at-home dress, but mom was kind enough to lend me one of hers for the trip. ¡caramba!

history does not record exactly how this came about, but betty and i dared each other to wear our at-home dresses when we toured the air force academy. but it got worse than that: i had to wear mine over my nightgown, with the cheerful floral hem hanging down like a petticoat. betty had to wear not her more presentable (and clean) green at-home; she'd be relegated to the purple one, with bleach stains at the hem and miscellaneous spots on the bosom.

what can i say? travel broadens one.

dressed to thrill

the beauty of being on vacation is that you won't see anyone you know — and never again will you see the people you've horrified with your sartorial antics. about betty, we figured they'd say, "oh, that poor old lady..." about me...well, the best i could hope for was, "i wonder if she's retarded."

i confess it was an enormous relief when we pulled up to the entrance at the air force academy only to be told the place was closed to visitors. they claimed it was because it was so close to september 11, but i suspect they took one look at my fetching ensemble and slammed those gates closed but fast.

a disappointing finish to a wonderful vacation, yes, but i can always drown my sorrows here at home if i need to.

thanks, mom and betty, for a truly memorable trip!

Posted by dreaming at 11:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

none of us is quite sure how this actually came about.

the first thing you should know is that the big thompson river, which ran directly past our cabin, is cold. very cold. it has its origin up in the mountains and is supplied by snowmelt. did i mention how cold it is?

the second thing you should know is that estes park has an aerial tramway — one of those cable car things that sway merrily in the breeze and regularly plunges passengers to an untimely alpine death. (okay, to be fair, i'm not sure how frequently this actually happens.)

i think this is how it happened. we were talking about estes park's tramway, and mom said something like, "i'd sooner sit in the river than go up on that thing."

and then betty said something like, "oh, yeah?"

and then mom said something like, "yeah!"

and then betty said something like, "nah nah nah nah-nah."

and then suddenly mom was planning to sit in the icy river for five minutes if betty would go up in the tramway. okay, maybe i have some of the details wrong — but i assure you the conversation was no more rational than that.

the next couple of days were spent in elaborate taunting. "do you know how long five minutes actually is?" "does that cable look a little slack to you?" and my personal favorite, "ann, the cable might snap, but the river will be cold."

finally our sides hurt so much from laughing that we figured we'd better get it over with before we ruptured something. i took a picture before the event to remember mom by in case she later died of frostbite.

what, the icy-cold river's not refreshing enough for you?

mom kicks back with a good book

freezing your ass off is thirsty work

beating a hasty retreat, toes frozen but intact

then it was time for betty to ante up. that afternoon she and i mounted the tram car and kissed our lunches goodbye.

betty wishes she'd updated her will

the view was gorgeous — i'm only sorry betty missed it. she was too busy plotting an escape route, asking the tramway operator, "we wouldn't die if the car fell down now, would we?"

i am happy to report that no deaths were recorded on this day, though i did almost wet my pants from laughing.

Posted by dreaming at 10:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (45)

one night in estes park, we moseyed out to the lazy b ranch for an evening of cowboy fun. the festivities began with a slide show about the history of cowboy music. you may not know this about me, but i enjoy a good yodel. dad used to wake paul and me on weekend mornings by cranking up the volume on marty robbins and the sons of the pioneers. to this day i love the music. the slide show focuses on the singing cowboys of the movies. who knew i could feel nostalgic for something i never even experienced?

"put...the gun...down, roy. it's not too late to end this thing peacefully."

after the slide show we went into the chow shed, or whatever a cowboy would have called a big barn with long picnic tables and a stage. a wandering minstrel cowboy attempted to teach mom a few fancy cowboy rope tricks.

the cowboy finger

it's hard to lasso and yodel at the same time

ready to rope up the dogies

now, the lazy b offers chuckwagon suppers as part of the package, but after last year's meal there (when betty accidentally sampled "the bite of the chicken that you hope you never get"), we were taking no chances: we packed our own sandwiches.

why? well, here's what we were served, slopped into a metal pie pan, cowboy-style:

• cowboy beans. open can. dump in pot. heat. spice liberally with several witty fart jokes from the cowboy waiters.
  
• cowboy biscuit. a dry white hockey puck that immediately siphoned off every bit of saliva my poor beleaguered glands could make. i didn't check, but i wouldn't be surprised if, in true chuckwagon fashion, it carried a weevil or two as passengers on the long drive across the prairie.
  
• cowboy baked potato. the potato wasn't awful if you applied seven or eight tiny tubs of "country-style butter-flavored spread." that is, until you realize you've just chewed the bite of the potato that you hope you never get. (this was only the second time in my life ever to see my mother spit out a mouthful of food.)
  
• cowboy beef or cowboy chicken. last year betty and i had the chicken. this year, having learned a terrible lesson, i declined the meat entirely. ("vegetarian!" yodeled a kitchen cowboy, and offered me another biscuit. no. but thanks. really.) betty and mom tried the cowboy beef. i believe it was actually called "sliced beef in cowboy sauce." what could be more appetizing than cowboy sauce, for heaven's sake? well, just about anything, according to mom and betty.
  
• cowboy spice cake. "i'm going to eat it," mom said resolutely, even after sampling the meal's many other horrors. "how could they mess up spice cake?" well you might wonder...and yet somehow they managed.
  
• cowboy peach. this was the least objectionable item in the entire meal, a single canned peach half, innocently nestled among the carnage of the rest of the cowboy meal.
  
• cowboy coffee, cowboy lemonade, or cowboy water. on a program we saw later in the trip about coffee, we learned that on the range they often boiled up their coffee using an old sock as a filter. boiled cowboy foot-sweat coffee. what, only half a cup?!

happily we had the sandwiches as a palate cleanser.

the music, though, made the grueling culinary ordeal worthwhile. four musicians in cowboy drag played and yodeled for about an hour, belting out some lovely harmonies (and some abysmal jokes). not quite riders in the sky, but very entertaining and totally professional. the taste of the cowboy biscuit lingered on for hours, but the pleasure of the cowboy music stuck in my head for days.

Posted by dreaming at 06:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBacks (30)

one cloudy day we planned to drive to grand lake. grand lake can be reached a couple of ways. you can drive through the park across the mountains on trail ridge road, which takes about an hour and a half. or you can go down around the south of the mountains, which looks like it'd take about three days. we chose to drive through the park.

near its highest point, trail ridge road crosses tundra. it's above the treeline, so what you see are these fields filled with short grass and stubborn little flowers, strewn with lots and lots of small rocks. the rocks are amazingly well distributed — no large clumps or empty spaces, just a rather uniform scatter. if you squint you can imagine you see a pattern to the distribution of the rocks, left behind as the glaciers receded. (i admit you have to imagine pretty hard.)

you can get out and walk to an overlook at gore range. the elevation there is between 11,000 and 11,500 feet, so walking out to the viewing area is more of a chore than you'd initially think. by the time we got there mom and i were both panting. i assume my eyes were closed to avoid being blinded by the beauty of the mountains.

julie on the tundra

back in the car, we headed up the mountain once again. but as we approached the alpine visitors' center, betty noticed something unusual. "that car has snow on its windshield!" she said. sure enough, an oncoming car was dusted with snow. and the next one. and the next.

elsewhere in colorado, people were experiencing thunderstorms. but thunderstorms + high altitudes = snow and hail, as we found out directly. soon enough we hit the snowstorm ourselves. driving was pretty dicey; we saw a car that had spun out. you'd think that we'd put an experienced winter driver to work, right?

well, no. the lady from new orleans was at the helm. see, i have a problem: if i'm driving as we ascend the mountain, with nothing but a precipice at the roadside, i start to worry that maybe i'll go crazy and drive the car over the edge. i don't doubt my skill; i doubt my sanity. it's an irrational fear, as most fears are. add snow and hail to the mix and, well, it just wasn't a good idea for me to drive.

we eventually made it to the visitors' center, surprising us all, and sat in the snack bar enjoying the view of the snow on the mountainside. ponder this: where do the elk go when it's snowing? also ponder this: why didn't i think to wear socks? it was 36°, for crying out loud.

they don't look that cold...

wait. maybe they do, after all.

as to our plan of continuing over the mountain to grand lake, the ranger counseled, "the weather's either going to stay the same or get worse...it won't get any better." though the weather was bound to improve on the way down, we weren't sure trail ridge road would stay open — and what if we'd gotten to grand lake and found we had to take the long way home? we decided cowardice was the better part of valor and started down the mountain the way we'd come.

the whole reason for going to grand lake to begin with was to eat nachos and try out a segway. not a great disappointment, really: the drive down the mountain, riding the brakes and trying not to slide into the car in front of us, was thrill enough, thank you very much.

in fact, as we headed down, we saw that the rangers were closing the road to upward-bound cars because of the weather. we'd gotten out just in time, i figured, visions of the donner party dancing meatily in my head. it was a relief to sit down to a more conventional supper of pasta and broccoli in our snug little cabin (and to put on toasty socks at last).

Posted by dreaming at 10:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

okay, so it's not a rat. it's a golden-mantled ground squirrel. but it's still kinda creepy when they touch you.

the scenic overlooks in rocky mountain national park have low stone walls at their borders, presumably to keep their less intelligent visitors from plunging to an ignominious death. you can sit on these walls. if you do, you'll notice that the boulders on the mountainside are crawling with these tiny chipmunk-like creatures, dashing to and fro so quickly that it's difficult to get a picture of them.

they're rather appealing, and i think they know it as they sit up on their hind legs, head cocked, hoping for a snack. i had altoids in my purse, but i doubt the squirrels were equipped to appreciate the refreshing burst of a curiously strong mint.

as you sit on the wall, binoculars trained out across the distance as you look for big-horned sheep, you may be lucky enough to get...

planning the assault

attacking mom

begging for food shortly before running over my sandaled toes

when i felt those cold, tiny claws on my bare skin, i yelped loudly, drawing the ranger over. "oh, my god," i shrieked.

"not god," he bellowed, "but squirrels."

Posted by dreaming at 01:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (33)

a quick note about the arrival of my suitcase. upon opening it, i was chagrined to find that my tin of café français had spilled, dusting everything inside with a fine and sticky brown powder.

believe it or not, that's not the spackerish part. the spackerish part is that not a week ago, betty told me she'd had that happen with a container of cremora, and she showed me how she'd packed it this time in a ziploc to avert future disasters.

i am that dumb.

Posted by dreaming at 02:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (39)

we saw a whole mess of elk within the bounds of the park, though not as many as last year.

colorado's drought last summer brought them down to lower elevations in search of food; this year there was enough greenery in the mountains that they didn't need to venture in to town. last year they walked to the library. betty seemed nonplussed.

most of the elk we saw were at moraine park, which includes a large meadow where the elk feed in the evening. the place was just crawling with elk (and with tourists). a kindly ranger tried to talk to us about birth control for the elk. naturally, we tried to change the subject. that's private business, sir!

mom and betty, ignored by an elk

julie ditto

aside from the elk at moraine park, we saw plenty of them just hanging out on hillsides along trail ridge road.

• adult male on a hillside
• young female
• adult male

they're either too stupid or too hungry to pay humans much mind, because they didn't seem spooked in the least by our presence.

Posted by dreaming at 01:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (39)

my suitcase has arrived. my pictures are uploaded. i'm ready to begin the travelogue.

after spending saturday night in a denver airport hotel, betty and i met mom sunday morning at the rental car pickup. our trusty white suv was ready to go; it barely held our three suitcases and bean bags, but through heroic efforts we managed to wrestle the liftgate closed and embark on the northward trail to cheyenne.

en route, we stopped at a waffle house to rustle us up some grub. (i'm pretty sure there's a federal law requiring the use of cowboy lingo when referring to wyoming, so buck up, pardner.) betty reported that her grits was good* — surprising when you consider our distance from the hominy homeland. after a quick visit to the dansk outlet and harry & david, we eased on up the road once again.

we hit cheyenne and tried to check in to last year's hotel, but it was full so we settled for the days inn. after half an hour of our favorite ritual (lying on the bed), we struck out to explore town. our first priority is traditionally a stop at a kmart/wal-mart/target to acquire supplies for the trip — a styrofoam ice chest, soft drinks, paper towels, and community toiletries. chores done, we returned to the hotel for dinner and some more bed-lyin'.

i should point out that cheyenne's not exactly a gourmet town. though we drove around town in a valiant quest, we had great difficulty finding any restaurant that was not:

• fast food;
  
• closed and boarded up; and/or
  
• professing to be a "kountry kitchen"

the next day we woke early. (well, mom woke early. betty and i were awakened early. see the difference?) we arrived in estes park before check-in time at our cabin, so we took the first of many drives up the mountain at rocky mountain national park, just a quick visit to say hello. we were back down at the cabin promptly at check-in time.

a few words about that. it's a two-bedroom cabin at idlewilde by the river, comfortable, well furnished, and immaculate. its screened front porch is about three feet from the bank of the big thompson river. it has a tiny but useful kitchen, two bedrooms, and cable tv. the friendly managers, lloyd and donna, keep the entire property in excellent repair. i doubt there's a better place to stay in estes park.

mom in the river directly in front of the cabin

hey, look! mom's in the river! (this will become important later.)

if you sit on the porch swing, you'll see hundreds of steller's jays, big blue birds with an absurdly pointed crest. there were also a mother bear and her cub on the property several times during our stay, though we never saw them.

steller's jay

so we settled into our home for the next few days, unpacking our suitcases and lining up our three different morning beverages. maybe it was the constant rushing of the river, or maybe it was the cool darkness, or maybe it was even the tylenol pm — but i slept like a baby the whole time we were at the cabin.

Posted by dreaming at 12:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

my bag didn't make it onto the 3 pm flight from philadelphia, for some reason. i am now told that "there's a good chance" it will be on the next flight. why it couldn't make it from one gate to another in 18 hours, i'm sure i don't know, but the airline cheerfully assures me that they deliver bags up until 11 pm.

the reason this makes me so cranky is that i can't upload vacation pictures until the suitcase arrives — and i've been wanting to do this for days.

Posted by dreaming at 04:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (32)

not only did my suitcase fail to make the connection in philadelphia, it won't be delivered until late tomorrow because the flight schedule is light on september 11.

the terrorists have officially won. game over.

Posted by dreaming at 12:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (34)

heading out now for a quick brunch before hitting the airport. then it's to colorado for 10 elk-riddled days. see y'all when i get back — or perhaps before, thanks to the powerbook and the digicam.

Posted by dreaming at 10:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (39)

• ersatz coffee
• teeny hair dryer
• four discount coupons for the mikasa outlet
• 12 little polarfleece sheep cutouts

Posted by dreaming at 12:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBacks (1)

my travel plans for colorado are set. i couldn't find any flights cheaper than $400 for the dates i wanted, so i asked priceline to get me there a day earlier for $200. (i figured the price difference would make up for the cost of staying in an airport hotel overnight.)

so i'm arriving around 3 pm on saturday, staying at the airport marriott courtyard for $30 (thanks again, priceline), and can meet mom sunday morning when she arrives at 10 am.

so it looks like betty will be the last to arrive. oh, the fun she'll miss.

net savings: $170. well, that's not counting saturday night's in-room pizza-and-movie jamboree, but close enough.

Posted by dreaming at 01:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (2)

here are some of the things i bought in maine:

• lobster dishes. at mikasa i bought four soup bowls and two platters. i wasn't going to buy them. i told paul, "i really don't need them." "but what about your soul?" he asked. note to self: keep paul.

• a couple of rectangular ceramic baking dishes from le creuset. orange, natch.

• dinner.
  

Posted by dreaming at 02:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (10) | TrackBacks (1)

today paul and i are going to maine. we'll be back sunday night. what can i say? i needed some coastline.

Posted by dreaming at 08:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (72)

as i fretfully chopped vegetables for dinner last night, i whined to paul, "where is my suitcase?" just then, the doorbell rang. it was the guy from the airport, suitcase in tow. i think it was the call to the airport police that finally did it, because the three calls to the airline's baggage service certainly didn't seem to do jack.

Posted by dreaming at 10:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

last night around 10:30 betty and i watched a house being moved to mississippi. okay, we didn't watch it the whole way; we only saw it being painfully maneuvered out of its corner lot and down the street, the very beginning of its long journey across the delta.

tall on its flatbed host, it hit several phone wires strung high above the street. eventually one of the workers mounted the house (with the aid of a friendly bulldozer that hoisted him aloft) and rode down the street straddling the roof, pushing the wires out of the way with a big stick.

Posted by dreaming at 10:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

• t-shirts: multiple black, 1 red, 1 pink
• jeans: 2
• smallclothes and hosiery: numerous
• toiletries: sufficient
• nightgown
• bathing suit
• laptop
• a/c adaptor and phone cord for laptop
• digital camera
• charger for camera batteries
• card reader for camera
• mp3 player with headphones
• a/c adaptor for mp3 player
• new carton of imitation coffee-flavored beverage
• quilt blocks: 2
• tylenol with codeine: plenty

i think i'm ready for paducah.

Posted by dreaming at 10:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

we were sitting in the theater at the bellagio waiting to see cirque du soleil's o. there were about 3,000 people there, so there was a lot of conversation taking place before the show began. gradually the buzz hushed as people around the theater began noticing the two clowns who'd come out without fanfare to begin their act.

so there are these two clowns, moving around the theater, finding leaks in the theater ceiling, sprinkling audience members with water, just generally doing the clown thing. but quietly. i admired the way they began the show; it was an organic way to shut people up and set a mood without blinking the lights or being intrusive.

except the people behind paul and me would not stop talking. they'd been fueled by a few beers and were nursing a few more, and were whooping it up, oblivious to the fact that the show had started. finally the theater was fairly quiet except for this group -- they truly didn't notice that everyone else had stopped talking and there were performers (several now) moving among the audience.

so paul turned around and said, "the show's started. can you please stop talking?" he was polite, i swear to god.

except one of the guys behind him decided to be offended rather than, you know, embarrassed like he should have been. "no, it hasn't. it's not 7:30 yet," the guy said indignantly. "my ticket says the show starts at 7:30."

paul paused, thought for a second, and said calmly to the guy, "what are you going to believe? your eyes or your watch?"

Posted by dreaming at 12:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

today i won $37 in nickels. mink coats for all my friends.

Posted by dreaming at 08:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

in case you want to play along at home, here's the rough itinerary for our las vegas trip:

sunday

drive to burlington way too early. board plane. fly through the air with the greatest of ease. land in chicago. sprint through o'hare like o.j. (minus the wife-killing). board another plane. eat peanuts, kick the back of the seat of the person in front of me who insists on reclining. land in las vegas around noon.

check into our hotel, the aladdin. admire its gigantic bathtub and in-room high-speed internet access. feel like a dork for doing so.

dine at delmonico. correction: gorge at delmonico.

sleep it off.

monday

maybe a little shopping, certainly a little nickel-losing, and definitely a lot of people-watching.

dine at nobu. mm, fish. in the desert.

tuesday

there go more nickels, right down the toilet. perhaps a visit to the liberace museum, where they think he wasn't gay. and who knows? we might go all out and splurge on a nap.

see cirque du soleil in o.

wednesday

tour hoover dam.

run out of nickels entirely. spend some time unsuccessfully begging on the street. return dejectedly to hotel room and order the cheapest item available from the room service menu.

thursday

see sunday, in reverse.

Posted by dreaming at 09:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

it is entirely likely that our upcoming trip to las vegas will include a second visit to
the liberace museum. on our last trip, the costume gallery was closed for renovation -- now why else would you even go, if not to see the costumes?

i have instructed paul to pack his most impressive finery in honor of the late lamented lee. (hey, it's plaid.)

Posted by dreaming at 10:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)