We had reached Idaho Springs when a dread thought occurred to me. RDC was already annoyed with me for having to drive all the way back to the vet to drop off Blake's food--not only had I forgotten his supplies, all bagged and ready by the door, but also my phone, so when he noticed soon after I left he couldn't tell me. Oops. So I didn't say anything until we stopped in Frisco for lunch: I had forgotten my boots.
My Merrills are nine years old and leather, so arguably I needed new boots and maybe lighter hybrids anyway. We found me a pair of Asolos at Antlers and the crisis was, for a reasonable fee, averted. I could not have gone backpacking in hiking shoes, which I had packed, low and no ankle support.
Away from Aspen, I remember how beautiful it is; being there I know how much more beautiful it is than I remember. And I hadn't been there for two years, since Lou's wedding. My first time over Independence Pass, eleven years ago, was an adventure: hard rain had loosed a rock- and mudslide over half the road--my half--and I didn't know what the downhill car meant when it flashed its brights at me. Around a curve I saw: my half of the road was impassable, so I had to go into the oncoming lane, against the drop-off, without a guardrail. It hasn't been so interesting since, not even in the winter when the fun passes close and you have to stay on the highway.
If I were a bazillionaire, Aspen is where I'd live. It's unwaveringly liberal and unspeakably gorgeous. It's also not a little unreal.
Fr'instance, the whole of Pitkin County has fewer than 15,000 residents. It doesn't have a lot of people but it does have a Dior shop. (In Michael Palin's Around the World in 80 Days, he describes the place as looking like a small town but spending like Rodeo Drive.) This paragraph is foreshadowing.