The Secret Is

That I haven't driven on the mainland.

Until now.

Somewhere in Kansas.

Boulder Is A Love Story

And Boulder is the ravishing red-roofed University of Colorado, and the pushed up piles of rocks called the Flatirons.  It's the meadows and trails of Chautauqua Park, and the Rocky Mountains towering behind.  Boulder is the Pearl Street Mall with its jugglers and drummers and savers of the world, shoe shops and breweries and frisbees and food.  It's breakfast at Dot's Diner,

and The Walnut Cafe, thunder and lightning and hiking trails.  It's preachers on boxes and heaven and hell.  Uncles and cousins and brothers and kids.  Past tense and present tense and on into forever tense.  

Boulder is a love story.

And Boulder is the ravishing red-roofed University of Colorado,

the one Gary chose because Playboy magazine called it the number one party school in the nation that year.  The one he graduated from, but couldn't bear to leave, so he stayed another year and graduated again.  He might never have left if there had been an ocean nearby.  Might never have left this place that is always showing up on some list somewhere of The Most Beautiful College Campuses in the Nation.  This mowed and mulched and manicured place where all the buildings match.  Where the new buildings look like the old buildings, and all of them are Colorado sandstone.  The love story started here, but our daughter and grandson had never seen it.

So when we drive down the mountain from Breckenridge, the first thing we do when we get to Boulder 

is pay homage to the sacred site of the CU campus.  

And even though it's hot, and everyone's tired, and no one's eaten lunch, 

we wander around that sprawling place for hours.

This place Gary chose, and our son chose, and my brother and my sister-in-law and my niece chose.  

This place that is so much a part of the story of our family.  

This place that sits in the shadow of the pushed up piles of rocks called the Flatirons.

Those piles of rocks that Gary and everyone else who comes to Boulder can't stop taking pictures of.  The ones our son took pictures of in the spring and the summer and the fall and the winter, then put them in frames, and wrapped them up for our Christmas.  The ones we bought artsy black and white photos of one year that we taped up in bubble wrap, carried home on the plane, and hung on our wall.  Those piles of rocks that Gary got up before dawn for, again and again, to try and capture in just the right light on his real camera.  Not the camera in his phone.  Because the Flatirons are the symbol of Boulder.  They sit there in the meadows of Chautauqua Park telling you exactly where you are.

And the meadows of Chautauqua Park are where we go hiking with Jennifer and Brayden.

We walk the easy loop trail through fields of wildflowers and towering pine trees.

And when we look out to the East we see the red roofs of CU.  

And when we look to the West we see the beginning of the Rocky Mountains.

Which is where we take our daughter and our grandson on one of the most beautiful drives in the nation.  Because their one request while they are in Boulder is to visit a National Park.  And the Rocky Mountain National Park is where the famous Trail Ridge Road is.  That long and winding road with the sheer drop-offs on both sides, and not quite enough guardrails.  The one with the vast and stunning vistas of snowcapped mountains all along the way.  

And it's unclear if the stunning vistas are the reason for the trip, or if it's the guy at the top of the road with a stamp, waiting to fill in the blank spot in grandson Brayden's National Parks Passport Book.  Things become clearer once I see Brayden's stamp, because suddenly I have Passport Book envy.  And soon Gary and I have our own National Parks Passport Book with a Rocky Mountain National Park stamp inside.  

Because this particular human has a tiny little weakness for tidy little places to check things off a list.  

Humans will be humans.

And there is no better place to see humans being humans than the Pearl Street Mall in downtown Boulder.  

The place Gary never seems to get tired of, no matter how many times we go there.  

The place you can see jugglers and drummers and folded up men.

  There are earnest young girls and men dressed in robes, asking for your help please, 

to try and change the world.  

There are frisbees and shoe shops and breweries and fudge.  

And The Cheesecake Factory, where you go for some lunch, 

with your purple-shirted Uncle and his lovely wife Lynn.

And as you walk down the mall, and make your way through the crowd, 

it's hard to avoid the preacher who's sending everyone to hell.

Which is sort of where we find ourselves next.  Because after we say goodbye to Jennifer and Brayden, Gary doesn't want to say goodbye to Boulder.  So we do a quick search, take what we can get, and move to an Airbnb that Gary soon dubs 'the hell hole'.  Because when we arrive we discover that our young and clueless host has recently sold most of his furniture.  And his 'fully stocked kitchen' is missing a few things.  Like a toaster and a frying pan, a dish drainer and a sponge.  There's no soap in the bathroom and no comfy chairs.  I will leave you to imagine the toilet and the frig, keeping in mind that this was the rug:

To be fair, the young and clueless host of hell did apologize for the bare butted poster on the living room wall. And he did leave a bottle of cheap pink wine sweating on the counter for us, and some tiny frozen lobsters he said we could eat.  But we still wanted to run as fast as we could.  Until we slowed ourselves down, and thought it all through, and decided to go shopping instead.  We went to the thrift stores and bought a toaster, a frying pan, a dish drainer and a sponge.  We bought soap for the bathroom and a $9 chair.  And when we told our clueless host what we had done, he apologized profusely and told us we could stay one more night for free.  But even after one more night Gary wasn't ready to leave Boulder.  So we did a quick search, spent more than we should, packed up our bags and moved a few blocks down the road.  To heaven.

Which is sort of what our little cabin in Chautauqua felt like.  The toilet and the frig were sparkling clean, and there was a toaster, a frying pan, a dish drainer and a sponge.  And a screened in porch where you could sit with your thoughts, and your beverage of choice, and look out at the meadows and mountains. 

And on our last day in Boulder we walked through those meadows, and climbed up one of those mountains.  We climbed to the top of Flatiron number one, a hike we have done before.  But somehow this time it felt extra hard.  Maybe I was dehydrated, or I'm just getting old, or we went at the wrong time of day.  But I did make it up.  We both did.  And stayed up there a while looking out.  At this place Gary's loved for longer than he has me.  Where one day he wants some of his ashes to be.

There's a story we tell about another hike.  We call it the epic hike.  It's the one where my brother, my husband and my son climb a 'fourteener' in Rocky Mountain National Park.  They climb to the top of Longs Peak.  There are narrow ledges, loose rocks and steep cliffs on the way.  There's a boulder field with no path, and a summit without a trail.  There are bull's eyes painted on the rocks that everyone aims for as they find their own way to the top.  They all reach the summit, and as they start back down, a thunderstorm rolls in, and traps them above the trees.  Sixty people have died on Longs Peak over the years.  But my husband and my brother and my son do not.  They just hunker down, and wait out the storm, and find their own paths back down. 

We go to a concert in Boulder one night, in the old auditorium at Chautauqua.  That ancient wooden building, with the cracks between the boards that let in the air and the light.  And here we both are, after twenty one years, still trying to figure it out.  Here we both are, sitting side by side, in the light and the music and the air.  On our own epic hike, through the boulders and rocks, trying to keep the same bull's eye in sight.  And when the thunderstorms roll in, we just hunker down, and find our way home when they're over.  You Turn Me Into Somebody Loved, was the last and best song that night.

Happy 21 years Kalanikau

July 1994 - July 2015

Things I Learned in the Mountains

1

That the plural of moose is moose.

This is a moose.

This is another moose.

One morning two moose walked by our temporary mountain home. They were in no hurry. You could maybe even say they were sauntering. They stopped to strip pieces of bark from the trees in the front yard before moving slowly down the road. Unbeknownst to the moose, they were causing quite a commotion inside the house. Dogs were barking furiously and knocking over water bowls. Visiting sister was being roused from sleep and told to come and see the moose, and Gary was scrambling to find his phone. And in spite of the poster we had seen in a shop downtown advising us to run as fast as you can if we encountered a moose in the wild, Gary raced outside to take pictures. And stood there in the driveway watching and clicking until the moose disappeared into the woods. Two moose. Because the plural of moose is moose.

2

That this is moose poop. Not deer poop.

We saw moose poop everywhere. Gracie, the yellow lab, liked to eat it. I thought it was deer poop, until my sister from the East coast arrived for a visit. My sister lives in deer country. She knows what deer poop looks like. This is not it. If you see moose poop, chances are there is a moose nearby. And chances are that if you stumble across a real live moose, and startle it, you might be glad if you have your running shoes on. So that you can follow the advice of the professionals and run as fast as you can. Breckenridge is moose country. And this is their poop.

3

That it's Breck. Not Breckinridge.

4

That the people who live in Breck, a place ten thousand feet above sea level, have a secret. The secret is that even the locals need help breathing up here. The secret is that a lot of them use one of these.

This is an oxygen concentrating machine. It's like having an oxygen bar in your home. You plug it in, turn it on, and insert a plastic tube into your nostrils. The machine pulls oxygen from the air, concentrates it, and pumps the cool life-giving elixir into your body. Your body says thank you. Because suddenly you don't feel like puking anymore. Because suddenly all your altitude sickness symptoms have gone away. You need a doctor's prescription to get one of these machines. Which doesn't appear difficult to get. Here at ten thousand feet above sea level. Where oxygen is hard to find. Unless you know the secret.

5

That the secret of the buried eggs the dogs kept digging up on our walks is foxes. There are no mythical magical mountain birds that build nests in the dirt and bury their eggs. Foxes bury eggs. And dogs dig them up and eat them. Marijuana is legal here, but feeding eggs to the wild foxes is not. But people do it anyway. Because people. Foxes bury eggs and dogs dig them up. That is the secret of the eggs.

6

That dogs like eggs and you like dogs.  

That it's easy to fall in love with the animals you are taking care of.

And hard to say goodbye.

Gary and his pack

Grandson Brayden saying goodbye to Gracie

7 

That saying goodbye is our new normal.  

That saying goodbye is something nomads do a lot.

Here are some nomads. I think there was a convention in town.

Lisa, Nat, Jodie, Gary

This is us with Nat and Jodie. Nat and Jodie have been nomads for a long time. They have been traveling and house-sitting all over the world for more than two years. They got asked so many times how they do what they do that they decided to create a course. Their course is now part of an online school called The House Sitting Academy and all the answers are there. Nat and Jodie were house-sitting across the street from us in Breckenridge. They are nomads. We are nomads. And now we call these nomads friends.

The convention of nomads in Breck also included Travis and Heather Sherry who were house-sitting on the next street over. Travis and Heather are the founders of the website An Extra Pack of Peanuts, where you can learn everything you ever wanted to know about travel hacking. Nomad Natalie Sisson was in town as well. Natalie is an author and businesswoman, and also goes by the name The Suitcase Entrepreneur. All of the nomads shared happy hours and hot tubs (?!) and travel hacking tips. This family of nomads invited us to join their club. And we accepted.

8

That being accepted into the tribe of nomads is like finding you have a new family. That even though you are a nomad, and living on the road, your other family, the one that shares your genetic material, can still track you down, and hatch plots to hang out with you, and even find ways to aid and abet you.

Like your cousin Jim, the one you used to visit every summer when you were growing up, the one that used to shoot little plastic pellets at you from his toy Star Trek phaser on those long ago Kansas nights, that cousin Jim drove all the way from Denver to Breck with his wife and two kids, to sit by the fire one snowy night, and break bread and sip wine and share stories. And in the morning cousin Jim and his family cleaned up all the crumbs and washed out all the cups and left as a gift all the unopened bottles of wine.

Like your brother Alan, the one that once threw a giant rock at your head (he says he wasn't really aiming for your head) when you were young and somehow immortal, that brother drove four hours round trip just to pick up your sister from the Denver airport and deliver her to Breck. And a week later that same brother made the same round trip with his wife and two daughters so they could spend a few hours with you, and eat one meal with you, and bring your sister back down the mountain. Because he didn't want you to have to leave in the wee hours of the morning to get her to the airport on time.

Lesle, Alan, Lisa

Niece Kylie, daughter Jenn, grandson Brayden, niece Erin

Like your daughter and grandson, who got on a plane and flew across the ocean, and gave you the gift of watching your grandson's face in person when the candles on his tenth birthday cake were lit.

Erin's beautiful cake and Happy Birthday boy Brayden

Like your sister Lesle who traveled through two time zones to come share the Breckenridge experience with you. Your sister Lesle, the one that helps you survive impossible things. The one that you try to help survive impossible things.

9

That people can survive impossible things.

Sometimes.

My sister likes old cemeteries. When she was in Breck we went walking one afternoon in the historic Valley Brook Cemetery. We walked around in that wild and random place for hours, reading headstones, trying to imagine what people's lives were like 100 years ago in this mountain town. We found one headstone that told an impossible story. A woman was pregnant and while she was pregnant two of her young children died. Then she gave birth, and that baby died too. And we stood there in that untamed place with our eyes all misty, not knowing how this woman survived this impossible thing. This woman we didn't know, who was long ago dead. Maybe she didn't.

While I was in the mountains I did not learn how people survive impossible things. I only know that they do. Sometimes. Maybe the moose can help. Because maybe just getting up out of bed to look at something you have never seen before can make you feel like part of the world again. Maybe sometimes you will need your running shoes and a little extra oxygen to survive. Exposing secrets to the light might help. You will probably never get used to saying goodbye, but maybe becoming a nomad for a little while is not a bad idea. Not to run away from things, but to find a new perspective. And if you are lucky enough to have a family, one that shares your genetic material, or one that accepts you into their tribe, maybe you let them find you. And help you do the dishes. Even if they accidentally sometimes throw giant rocks at your head, or shoot you in the dark with little plastic pellets. The plural of moose is moose. The plural of me is family. And maybe that is how we survive.

Rufus, Lesle, Gracie

Mud Season

'The world is mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful.' - e.e.cummings

It's mud season in Breckenridge.

Also Gracie shedding her winter coat season.

Things are sort of messy here.  Soggy and smelly and somehow sublime.  Funky and furry and full of promise.  Some mornings we walk out with the dogs and you can feel it in the air.  Everything changing.  Life circling.  Gracie is getting ready for warmer weather.  The earth is soaking up the snowmelt.  There are worms on the roads and birds in the trees.  Mucky magnificence is everywhere.  It's springtime in the Rockies.

It's spring, and it is quiet.  Ski season is over and the mountain has closed.  Most of the tourists have left town.  Summer is still a few weeks away, so the hikers and bikers have not yet arrived.  A lot of the restaurants in town are taking a break and have closed their doors for a few weeks.  The ones that are open are running some really good specials.  Which we have been taking advantage of.  On occasion.

Tractor Shed Red at Modis

Elk at Hearthstone

Some of the locals have told us they love this time of year.  They like how you can go downtown and get a parking spot on Main Street.  They like how there aren't long lines in the grocery store, and how it feels like their town again.  They like the quiet.  I don't know if they like the mud.  Gracie does.  When we go out walking she heads straight for every puddle and ditch she sees.  Gracie is pretty low to the ground.  And yellow.  Ish.  At least when we leave the house.

Boreas Pass

Gold King Road

Burro Trail

When she gets home she is sopping and stinky and ready for a rub down.  Which she loves even more than playing in puddles.

I kind of love the mess and the muck too.  But then dirt has always made me happy.  I love to dig in it with my bare hands.  To weed and plant and help things grow.  Maybe it's because my ancestors were farmers.  Maybe it's because I was born under an earth sign.  Or maybe it comes from my childhood.  I don't remember my mom ever getting mad at us for coming home muddy and dirty.  We played in the field behind our house all year long.  There was a pond in the field, and a long ditch leading to it.  We had ditch jumping contests, and sometimes we fell in.  We brought home tadpoles from the pond that we left in the garage and forgot about.  We built forts in the field.  My mom let us make messes.  She let us get dirty.  Maybe she was just distracted.  Or maybe she knew what science now says is true.  That playing in the dirt is healthy.  That playing in the dirt can actually make you happy.

When we were in the process of moving out of our place in Lihue, the place that had no room for me to dig, I had a dream.  I dreamed we had moved in to our new home in Kapaa with the jungle backyard and that I was lying spread eagle on the ground embracing the earth.  I was hugging the ground with my whole body.  And I was happy.

Gracie's hair doesn't make me all that happy.  It's everywhere.  Floating in the air, landing on the table, getting in our food.  It covers our floors and clothes.  Even Rufus, the big black lab, has her hair all over him.  Life's messy.  Especially in mud season.  And giving birth is messy.  And creating things is messy.  Sometimes messy is good.  I will always be grateful to my mom for letting us make messes.  For letting us create.  And get dirty.  And play in the mud.

I hope I never stop wanting to play.  To splash in puddles.  To see the promise in the fuzz and slime.  Because what are the chances that we even get to be here to experience it?

'And I was some of the mud that got to sit up and look around.  Lucky me, lucky mud.' - Kurt Vonnegut

There's always something to get through.  Mud season and Gracie shedding her winter coat season are temporary.  The next season will come.  There will be blossoms.  Things will come back to life.  There's no way to avoid the mess right now, so we are splashing right through.  Waiting to see what comes next.  Looking for buds.  Anticipating blooms.  Trying to remember to look up.

And to find joy.

In mud season.

Or any season.