My Summer Report

Cracks knuckles.

I’m back.

Without really planning to, I took pretty much the entire summer off from this newsletter. Terrible strategy for maintaining readership, but an unsurprisingly good strategy for me.

But now I’m returning with everyone’s favorite back-to-school assignment: What I did on my summer vacation.

Now that I think of it, I can’t remember a single time that was actually assigned to me in school. Was it ever? Or is it just a collective popular culture agreement of something that seems like a back-to-school assignment?

Doesn’t matter. Because it’s been an eventful summer for me. Here are some highlights.

Rocky Mountain National Park and Red Rocks

Courtney and I just celebrated two wonderful years together, and we rang in the occasion by roadtripping to Colorado for a long weekend. Does it count as a roadtrip if you don’t do anything particularly special or touristy or out of the ordinary on the way? It feels like something along those lines is required for it to be considered a proper roadtrip; otherwise, it’s just driving.

And that’s the best description of what we did. Drove, efficiently, like machines. It was quite smooth sailing, except for the one patch Courtney drove on the way there, which got to be just enough rain to be annoying. Did make for some stunning skies though.

We stopped to rest for the night in Burlington, Colorado, just shy of four hours from the park.

We didn’t really have a planned stopping point, but soon landed on Burlington as the best choice. We thought, “How crowded could this place be?”

We found out when we rolled into the Fairfield Inn and Suites, and promptly rolled right back the way we came when they said they were full. It became known from then on as the Unfairfield Inn.

But have no fear (we certainly didn’t) and rolled directly across the street to the Best Western, and true to its name, it was the best little western hotel room I’d ever seen. That could have been the exhaustion talking, but truly, one could do much worse than the Burlington Best Western.

Except I will lodge one complaint: the automatic pancake-maker. Now, I know what you’re thinking. You read that and said, “But Cary, that sounds amazing! Automatic pancakes?! What’s not to love?!”

I know. Me too. Literally just walked up and pushed the button. And it took a few minutes, all the while Courtney is across the dining room fiddling with a waffle-maker. Not automatic, but as we all know, still awesome.

The few minutes were up, and based on the little pictorial instructions, I was supposed to hold my plate out to the side and off this little conveyor belt thingy would plop my beautiful, golden pancake. And I was pumped for it, y’all. Truly.

I started to see its edges appear, golden-ish, but who’s complaining, right? It’s automatic! And then plop.

This tiny pancake-lette. Bigger than a quarter but not yet a hockey puck. I think those in the culinary biz would call it a silver dollar pancake. Which, I suppose, is fine, if that’s what you’re expecting and you’re willing to sit there and butter and syrup the little jokers as soon as the fell off that belt and ate them immediately, which I wasn’t, but should have been, since it was not the least bit warm when I bit into it. Took all of two modestly sized bites.

Courtney’s waffle? Normal-sized, in case you were wondering.

Before we left, I excitedly filled up my little Osprey daypack’s 2.5-liter hydration bladder. It was the maiden voyage for that particular piece of equipment, and did I know what I was doing? Absolutely not. More on that later.

We hit the road, and arrived, I kid you not, right on time for our timed entry. In case you didn’t know, Rocky Mountain National Park is very popular (I know; crazy, huh?) and in the summer, visitors get a 2-hour window during which they’re instructed to arrive. Ours was noon, and we nailed it. Couldn’t help but be smugly impressed without ourselves.

The line to get in was not long. Things were going great. Then we met the park ranger at the gate.

I hyped that up like something terrible happened, but in truth, she just wasn’t very friendly. I put on the charm for her, threw in a smile while I was at it, and she was. not. having. it.

Bummed out my little people-pleaser’s heart, but I rebounded. I persisted. No she-devil in a cool (but funny-looking) hat was going to ruin it for me; I was in God’s country now.

We had the pass that allowed us to go down Bear Lake Road, which was very handy since we wanted to go to Bear Lake, which we’d read was quite something to see. And it was.

Basically right off the parking lot where we’d been dropped off by the shuttle, no less. As a result, it was crowded and loud, which made it somewhat easy to forget you were in the great outdoors. My ongoing internal struggle when at a national park: I’m simultaneously so happy that people are getting out and enjoying nature and supporting our parks system, but I hate the feeling like you’re in a line for Space Mountain at Disney World.

But when you could make some room for yourself, pretty stunning, no?

It was about here on the adventure that I began to feel like an elephant was standing on my chest and my head began to ache a bit. I can’t stress to you how not far we’d been at this point. Like, save for the trees, I could have seen the parking lot. There weren’t even any inclines at this point, just a flat trail, which Courtney had pointed out was wheelchair accessible (a great feature but humbling in that moment of realization).

All I could think was: Am I going to run all our big plans? We had miles and miles planned out, and here I am, woozy after just a few steps.

Actually, strike that. Another thought was: Am I sweating to death? Not because it was hot (it was perfect) or because I could feel beads of sweat dripping off my nose. But my lower back was suddenly damp. Like, very damp.

Turns out I wasn’t making a complete hash of the hiking adventure mere minutes after it began; my Osprey’s hydration bladder was leaking. So began my ongoing battle with that stupid thing. Did it provide me delicious (if slightly plastic-tasting) water whenever I desired? Yes. Did its magnetic clip keep popping loose and flinging the hose out in front of me, bouncing like a branch in the breeze? Also yes. Did I have any idea how to get it to stop leaking? No; no, I did not. Never ran out of water though, so that was nice.

While I was stopped to wrestle the bladder out of my bag and inspect it, unsuccessfully, we met this guy, who clearly had figured out that humans don’t listen or read clearly posted signs and will, in fact, feed the wildlife. No other reason for him to be so curious about us.

We trekked on, me slightly winded and battling the pounding of my heart which I could hear in my head and quite damp in the small of my back; Courtney, no worse the wear.

We came next to Dream Lake, and it might just have been our favorite lake. Couldn’t exactly place why, other than the way the views overwhelmed us.

Plus, the fish. Look at this, taken with my lil’ ol’ iPhone.

Not too shabby, right? (Yes, National Geographic, I actually am looking for work.)

We kept going, because Emerald Lake was ultimate destination on this hike. Well worth the hike, and it placed us above 10,000 feet for the first time on our trip. Very cool.

Did I take a good picture of it? No, I did not. I was preoccupied by a groundhog who also was not skittish around humans who came charging up the rocks beside me, just a foot or so away, and so I was distracted watching all the other people react to that. Even after I lost sight of the groundhog, I could still tell where it was by the tiny shrieks and jerky, jumping movements to get out of its way.

Anyhoo, here’s one I did take of the lake.

And then we turned around and did the whole thing in reverse. It felt much better than going up, though.

Then it was dinner and a trip back to our Airbnb. The next day saw us do a very similar hike, though we definitely chose wisely since it was a bit more remote and Day 2 for us was the Saturday of Labor Day weekend.

We took in Alberta Falls.

We took in flowing streams.

We took in Mills Lake.

We turned around and made our return. Before we left, we wanted to ride along Trail Ridge Road up to the Alpine Visitor Center, the highest visitor center in the park, at 11,796 feet. And from there, what seemed like the top of the world, we began the long drive back out of the park.

The next night we ventured to the tiny town of Morrison for a show at Red Rocks. Passenger opened up for Gregory Alan Isakov, and it could not have been a better night for a show in one of America’s preeminent venues.

There’s not much more I can say about the night other than cliche truisms like “Wish you could have seen it” or “If you haven’t been to Red Rocks, you’ve got to make it happen.”

BUT I will tell you about how I got lost. Not in the forests of Rocky Mountain National Park, but in the relatively confined spaces of Red Rocks.

I feel like the ready-made joke about the venue is that people who attend shows there must love whatever they came to see, because it is work to get in and get to your seat. By which, of course, I mean a long walk up a steep incline. From the parking lots to the entrance, straight up. From the entrance to your seats, straight up but now with stairs. After two days of hiking in the mountains, was I acclimatized to these conditions? I was not.

I was very happy to find our seats and catch my breath, and once caught, I immediately forgot about my struggles and quietly smirked at everyone else I saw sucking wind.

After we’ve been seated for a bit, gotten our bearings, one concessions stand run, I tell Courtney that I want to find a merchandise booth. I’m a sucker for a merchandise booth, and I hadn’t seen one on our way in.

So, shortly after the show began, I took off on my quest. I went down the many, many steps to the main concourse area and looked around. No luck. I asked a nice lady, “Excuse me, where would the merchandise be?”

I should have known I was in for something with the way she considered her answer, like she was pitying me and really sorry about what she was about to tell me.

“It’s at the top on this side,” she said.

“All the way?!”

Nods gravely. “All the way.”

I thank her and head back up. I’ll insert the fact that our seats were not high up in the grand scheme of things. I probably had more than 2/3 of the remaining steps to go after I passed the row on which Courtney sat, enjoying the show. But upward I trudge.

I get to the top and there are vendors of all sorts, except, it would appear, for merchandise. I see a lady in an event uniform pushing a big trash cart, and I ask her if there is a merchandise booth up here.

She, too, looks a bit pained on my behalf and tells me they’ve just taken it all down. But the main one is all the way down near the gate on the opposite side of the amphitheater. Sigh.

So all the way down I go, and thankfully, there’s the merchandise booth. I buy my things, determined to make my haul worthwhile since I’d walked a few miles by this point to find it.

I’m walking back up the many, many stairs, all the way to the top, so I can cross sides and walk down the many, many steps back to my seat. At the top, I have to stop for a bottle of water (and some Skittles for good measure).

I go down the steps, and I feel like I should be in the right spot for my seat, so I squint in the dark and think I see what is my row number. I start the awkward ass-first, slightly slouched scoot familiar to concert-goers everywhere, where you’re trying not to ruin someone’s enjoyment of the show.

I take about eight steps and realize that’s somewhere between two to four steps too many, but I haven’t seen an opening or any person resembling my girlfriend. Yep, wrong row.

But I’ve gone too far by this point, and my shame is too high, so I don’t stand up and risk looking like the idiot I clearly am. Nope, nothing to see here, folks. I’m just a guy walking to the complete other side. I’ve traversed the entire amphitheater in this quietly shameful scoot. My hope was those on the side where I’d started forgot about me as they assumed I just sat far to the inside, and the people on the other side simply thought I was coming out of the row from that same imaginary middle seat.

Meanwhile, Isakov is playing one of his biggest hits; it would have been nice to stop and listen instead of having it be the soundtrack to a moronic quest to find my seat.

Now on the wrong side of the amphitheater again, I retrace my steps, up many, many steps to the top, across the plaza of vendors (but not merchandise), down many, many steps on my actual side, and finally get the right row. By this point, I’m sweating, and I’ve drunk about half of my bottle of water.

I sat and ate a few Skittles to raise my blood sugar, and I enjoyed the rest of a stellar show.

What Else I’m Loving From The Summer

In lieu of links, I’ll just quickly hit on some other high notes from my summer.

Hamilton for a fifth time in my fifth different city (New York City, San Francisco, Chicago, Memphis, and now St. Louis)

More live music: Jason Isbell and Tedeschi Trucks Band

Good Karma: One night at one of our favorite local restaurants, a new waitress bungled the check. She rang up a bill that was not mine, a considerably cheaper one, at that. When I told her about it, instead of comped drinks or something like that as a gesture of appreciation, she just said “You could have gotten off cheap if you hadn’t said anything.” Then just laughed and went to re-run my card. Not that I deserved anything at a discount, but still, it was a bummer to see that little smile, which read a lot like “You dumb, honest fool.” Not long after that, while at the Tedeschi Trucks show in St. Louis, we got our tickets upgrade from the balcony to the orchestra by the band. Felt like a nice treat.

Seeing the Nos. 1 and 2 professional golfers in the world (Scheffler and Schauffele, respectively) at the FedEx St. Jude Championship in Memphis

Book Club with your significant other: We’ve done three books now, and we’ve had a blast with the conversations along the way. Really helpful accountability to read more.

• Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King (Our first foray into Mr. King, and let’s just say we chose poorly)
• Never Let Me Go by Kazoo Ishiguro (Pulitzer-winner for a reason)
• Erasure by Percival Everett (We both loved American Fiction and the book from which it was adapted is my favorite of our book club thus far.)

Tennis

The baby deer that lived in the backyard for a while (We named him Walter)

A beaver taking a bath (Just because it’s adorable)

Until next time, when I'll be back with my normal mix of observations, links, and what I've been watching and reading.