We have friends in High Places

Aloha all,

John Denver’s “Rocky Mountain High” has been on my mind ever since we drove over Independence Pass last week. We felt “the serenity of a clear blue mountain lake”; we’ve “seen it raining fire in the sky” and we sat with “friends around the campfire and everybody’s high”. Just like in the song, the “Colorado Rocky Mountain High” is a natural high, not caused by the altitude or any legal or illegal substances in Colorado, but by the shear beauty of the mountains.

Colorado Rocky Mountain Beauty

If we had spent all winter in Hawaii planning our trip through Colorado, we could not have come up with a better itinerary than how things played out serendipitously: The aspen trees in and around Aspen are so bright yellow that even our local friends are in awe. And the day after we arrived in Aspen was our friend Annie’s birthday! Because we had enjoyed the colors on our drive over Independence Pass so much the day before, we went right back over the pass the next day with Annie & Mike to explore more of the stunning colors around Twin Lakes. Mike and Annie knew a few hidden view points and a rustic place for a great birthday dinner. To top of the day, we had Annie, Mike, Steve and Bridget over at our campsite for a fun evening around the campfire.

At Twin Lakes with Annie & Mike

And just to make things even more magical, a moose had greeted us at the entrance to our first campground, a deer came by to keep us company until our human friends arrived for the campfire at our second campground and our campsite neighbors turned out to be from Kauai! My oh my, what a wonderful day!

Our first visitor to the campfire evening

The next day, we walked to nearby Weller Lake, to enjoy the ‘serenity of a clear blue mountain lake’  and I also took a refreshing and therefore very quick dip. The rest of the day we went into Aspen. The town is a little too fancy and a little too expensive for our taste, with too many luxury stores. But we enjoyed a short visit at the Peter Lik gallery, since ours burned down. Also, the Aspen Art Museum is free and has a nice rooftop cafe. And thanks to some local insight, we found out there is at least one affordable restaurant in Aspen. 

Castle Creek hike
with Steve, Bridget and Suzannah

We saw the yellowest Aspen trees around Aspen up Castle Creek Canyon and took a leisurely walk with Steve, Bridget and their friend Suzannah. And when the rain clouds moved in, we all had hot tea in Joy together, followed by margaritas at Steve’s ’Shire Bar’. A good time was had by all, so good in fact, that Suzannah invited us to their mountain cabin for the following weekend. For dinner, we all went back to the best (or maybe only) affordable restaurant in Aspen. Fortunately, we love Thai food.

Steve's Man Dent and his Shire Bar,
two of Aspen's most notorious dives

Aspen and Maui seem very different at first, but talking to our Aspen friends made it very obvious that the issues affecting both communities are very similar. Coming from Maui, most places we visit seem relatively cheap. Not Aspen. A simple breakfast can be $30 and that goes up to about $14 million if you want to have a house with it. Obviously, affordable housing is an issue in both places. Another thing Maui and Aspen have in common is that long time residents will tell you how it used to be even better. My new favorite joke works equally well for Maui and Aspen: “How many people from Aspen/Maui does it take to screw in a light bulb? Five. One to screw in the bulb and four to tell you how good the old one was.”

On the way to the
Carbondale Beer Works

Carbondale, down valley from Aspen, is a little more laid back and RV friendlier. In fact, they have a lovely RV park with views of Mount Sopris and bike trails to downtown. In Carbondale we didn’t need any local connections to find an affordable brewery. Even better than the food and the beer was our encounter with our server: When she heard that we were from Maui, she told us how she had often visited her grandma on Maui. After talking story for just a little longer, we discovered that her grandma is a friend of ours. We were excited to meet Judy’s granddaughter and she was excited when we showed her pictures of us at Coach and Judy’s place in Montana. Small world.

Just the beginning of our hike from Marble, CO

Marble is a tiny town, but we did a grandios hike from there: 12 miles of scenic beauty to another serene mountain lake, the even tinier town of Crystal and the very photogenic Crystal Mill. Supposedly it’s the second most photographed place in Colorado, right after the Maroon Bells. It’s a steep 6 mile hike or a very bumpy 4x4 drive to get there, so it’s not that busy of a place, but it seems like everyone who goes there takes way too many pictures of that old mill, us included. Marble itself might be a tiny town, but it did have the only two amenities we needed after a long day of hiking: A campground for Joy and a BBQ joint for us.

The very photogenic Crystal Mill

Cedaredge would normally not have been on our route, but our friends Lee and Marsha live there and we spent a lovely evening with them and stayed in Joy at their beautiful home. We hope to return sooner or later, either for Apple Fest or to play some pickle ball with Lee.

Dinner with Lee and Marsha in Cedaredge

Orvis Hot Springs was an oasis for us. The pools were very big and very beautiful. Serene like a clear blue mountain lake, but about 50 degrees Fahrenheit warmer! As overnight camping guests, you have access to the pools 24 hours a day. You’ll have to believe us how pretty it was there: Since it’s clothing optional, they don’t allow any photos. To prove how much we enjoyed it, we might just go back and stay there again later this week.

Just another Colorado mountain pass

We love traveling without a set itinerary. Some of our favorite experiences could not have been planned. How lucky that we had the flexibility to accept Suzannah’s and Patrick’s generous invitation to their beautiful mountain cabin. It sits just below the rocky ridges of the San Juan Mountains way above Trout Lake at 11,111feet elevation. It’s a steep and rocky private road up there, so we left Joy behind for 3 days. It was such a treat to make new friends, explore this very unique neighborhood and experience a glimpse of a lifestyle that is very different compared to anything we have ever seen in Germany or Hawai’i. 

Sunset with the crew at the cabin
at 11,111 feet above sea level

Our friend’s subdivision is surrounded by National Forrest. The plot of land was originally granted to a lumber company by Teddy Roosevelt. It will be a while before we get to any Presidential Library or birthplace, so we could count our three days at the cabin as a presidential site. 

Hope Lake - The serenity of a clear blue mountain lake

We did a day hike up to Hope Lake. It was the most serene of our clear blue mountain lakes so far, maybe the coldest cold plunge I have taken and one of the prettiest hikes this year. Of course the extra splashes of yellow make this hike even better in September. 

Whatever it might cost to paint
all those trees yellow, it's worth it!

Now, we are back in Joy. We did another beautiful hike through more yellow aspens today and will spend the night next to about a thousand sheep. For tomorrow we got a reservation at the very popular and compared to our little mountain getaway also very busy town of Telluride. But we loved our time there in 2008 and they still have that free gondola!

More serenity at Trout Lake

And that’s the news from Trout Lake, where all the serenity is strong, all the trails are good looking, and everything is more yellow than average.

Chris & Sandra

Back in Joy in the Front Range and off to New Heights

Aloha all,

the farewells in Germany were fairly easy this time, since we will be back there later this year. Even though we won’t be back in Hawai’i for even longer, we were treated to FIVE days with our Maui friends here in Colorado. During the last two weeks, we also reached FOUR record heights, had our THIRD overnight guest in Joy, we busted TWO criminals and we spent time at Colorado’s fanciest resorts and ONE night at a senior living facility. As always, life is full on the road, with ZERO boredom:

Sunset Drinks at Bunt & Ann!

Bern, Jill and Ute all timed their travels perfectly so that we had a mini Maui reunion in Colorado, including sunset drinks at Bunt’s and a Tuesday Game Night at Kelly’s. Life does go on after the fire, it can’t burn down friendships. We love our long trips, but we do miss our Maui ohana. 

Games Galore Guaranteed with this crew

And Kelly timed her birthday perfectly so we had an excuse to play a round of golf at a beautiful golf course up in the Rocky Mountains. Probably the highest golf course we ever played (1st height record!) and we had the lowest score ever; four under par!!!!. It probably helped that Kelly gave us her two athletic sons to complete our fun five person scramble team. Cody was the most consistent, Trevor put a 300+ yard drive on the green on a par 4; but they were both polite enough to occasionally shank one into the mountains to make Ute, Sandra and me feel useful. 

Birthday golf outing in the mountains

Of course there were plenty of other games: Multiple rounds of disc golf, vicious ping pong battles, newly imported games from Germany and several board games out of the impressively full game closet at the Black’s home. 

We knew our hard working friend Ute needed a little joy, or better: Time in Joy! It was the third time Joy had an overnight guest, even though it was only a two day mini road trip. It’s scary how many toys and other things we have accumulated over the last 6 years. Luckily, we were able to store some of them in Evergreen while it was three of us in Joy.

JOYful threesome

We picked the Rocky Mountain National Park to go to with Ute because it’s close to Evergreen and because we loved it on our first big road trip in 2008. We did not realize that for Ute it was the first National Park outside of Hawai’i. We always appreciate National Parks, but having an enthusiastic mainland park virgin with us made it even more special. It also more than doubled the number of pictures taken.

Dream Lake at Rocky Mountain National Park

Our first day at Rocky Mountain National Park was a perfectly sunny blue bird day and we did a little hike to three different lakes. My favorite moment was when we spotted the most bizarre critter in the lake. It looked like a fish, but also had tentacles like an octopus and feet like a frog. At first I thought I was hallucinating due to the high elevation, but apparently it was a “Tiger Salamander” and is not all that unusual. How have I not seen and not heard of such a critter in my 54 years on this planet?

It's a fish! It's an octopus! It's a frog! 
Or maybe a Tiger Salamander?

On the second day at the park, we took Joy on the Trail Ridge Road, the highest continuously paved road in America. We had been there with MaRVy in 2008, but it was the highest Joy has ever been (2nd height record). At almost 12,000 feet in elevation, it’s way above the tree line. In fact, the tundra up there is very fragile because the growing season is only a few weeks every year. The National Park Service does an excellent job explaining that the damage from a footstep on the tundra can take years to recover. 

The posted signs were pretty obvious to stay on established trails, but they did not stop two ignorant ladies from driving their Jeep several hundred feet over the tundra to take pictures of themselves doing yoga poses. We are not sure whether they were blissfully oblivious idiots or self-absorbed assholes, probably both. Either way, we reported them to the next ranger and we were very glad to hear that they got caught. We got to give our statements to the law enforcement rangers and we hope it helps prosecuting them or banning them from national parks. The access to this park is limited by permits and there are plenty of other people who appreciate the beauty of places like this.

Busting Criminals with the NP Rangers!

After Ute departed, we went back to Bunt and Ann. We actually spent a night at his apartment at the Ridge since he had heart surgery and the doctors required that somebody stay with him for the first night to make sure everything is ok. It seemed like an opportunity to repay the many favors the Burkhalters have done for us. But it turned out to be just a fun night with good food, games and a captive audience to show our pictures from Europe, with no medical emergencies. He was actually in really good shape right after the surgery. In the meantime, we have learned that apparently it's two steps forward, one step back. The only real favor was taking Ann shoe shopping the next day. I’ll leave it at that, because we love Ann!

Bunt beating us at pool on the day of his surgery 

There has never been a president from Colorado, so there are no presidential libraries or birthplaces for us to visit. The closest we got to getting our presidential history fix was a cute hike to the so-called Summer White House at Mount Falcon in the Front Range. It's a beautiful area, but the planned presidential summer retreat was never built and no president ever went there. So now we have even been to a presidential site that no president has ever been to...

The non-presidential presidential site

After one more delicious dinner with engaging conversation with Kelly and two work friends, we were back on the road with Joy. Our first stop was in Colorado Springs. Technically, our first two stops, because instead of visiting our friends Jeff & Angel, we are now visiting our friend Jeff and then our friend Angel. Despite the circumstances, it was good to catch up with both of them. We watched their son win a tennis match, had our first real Korean BBQ experience, visited the very modern Olympic Museum and went to a really fun concert from a Rush cover band. 

"Rush Archives" at the Stargazers Theater

Olympic Museum in Colorado Springs

The highest highlight was our trip with the cog railway up to Pikes Peak. This is the mountain that inspired "America the Beautifu". As far as we remember 14,115 feet above sea level is the highest we have ever been (3rd height record). Sandra did surprisingly well with the altitude. It probably helps coming from over a mile high in the Front Range, rather than from sea level. 

With Jeff looking over The Springs to Pikes Peak

With Angel at Pikes Peak at 14,115 feet,
our new elevation record!

We were happy to stay in Joy in our friend’s driveways, but we enjoyed exploring two spectacular hotels: The Broadmoor and the Glenn Eyrie Castle are two of Colorado’s most prestigious resorts. We walked around the spectacular grounds at the Broadmoor and had lunch at the lobby bar. That’s about all we can afford there anyway. We also took a very fun tour at the Glenn Eyrie Castle, which also functions as a hotel. If we ever spend that kind of money on a hotel room, we’d rather stay there. It seems like a peaceful oasis rather than like a posh resort.

The fancy, beautiful, expensive Broadmoor Hotel

The peaceful, historic Glenn Eyrie Castle

Yesterday, we spent most of the day at the Royal Gorge Bridge and Park. This bridge is almost 100 years old and at 955 feet above the Arkansas River it was the highest bridge in the world for the first 72 years, now it’s only the highest in America. It’s still the highest bridge we have ever been on (4th height record). To get our money’s worth, we walked the bridge twice and took the gondola four times. We never had to wait in line and for a short while we were actually the only ones on the bridge, which is surprising since the bridge gets 350,000 visitors a year. Oh, the joy of traveling off season! To cap the day off, we did a short hike just upriver from the bridge with a great view of the gorgeous gorge. 

Taken from the Royal Gorge Bridge,
America's highest bridge!
955 feet above the river
with the gondola in the background

We are now heading towards Aspen and don’t yet know where we go from there and we like it that way, the options seem endless that way. Right now, we are currently staying at Cottonwood Hot Springs, soaking in the pools and counting our blessings. We might be here a while.

Aloha from Lake Colorado, where all friendships are strong, all mountains are good looking and all the heights are above average,

Chris & Sandra

Our trips to France and to the Neurologist

Aloha all,

we took two trips with the family to France during the past month. Maybe we should have just stayed there, because my dad used the time back in Germany between the two trips to have a stroke. Of course having any stroke at any time is a silly thing to do, but we are grateful that it was relatively minor. And since we are usually thousands of miles away, we were also glad it happened while we were close so that I was able to help with doctor’s appointments, the recovery and with the duties of the master gardener.

The Weininger Girls
on our first trip to France

Our pre-stroke trip to France with my parents, Sandra’s mom & her sister was to Geradmer in the Voges, fairly close to my hometown. We had picked a hotel somewhat randomly, but we were very happy there. Great views, easy access to swim in the lake, delicious food and nobody had to do the dishes. 

The food was as good as the view,
 so we quickly decided to have all our dinners at our hotel

My favorite activity on that trip was the nearby botanical garden “Jardin de Berchigranges”, which we did not even know about when we booked the hotel. It’s the life’s work of a couple who transformed an old quarry into a floral oasis. It was surprisingly low key, considering it was once voted as the most beautiful garden in all of France. They had a whole section dedicated to mosses for Sandra and a maze to play in for me.

Casual encounter with a fellow garden enthusiast
in the maze at Jardin de Berchigranges

I am not a gardener, but after taking over some garden duties in my dad's garden, I appreciate the work that goes into maintaining a garden even more. I just cleared a few feet for a new path and felt very accomplished. 

In case you didn't know:Sandra LOVES moss!

Another highlight was an observation tower that we could hike to from our hotel. It was a short, but very steep and very rocky hike. Impressive, that my 86 year old dad made it all the way up that trail! A week later, a simple walk through the living room was equally challenging for him. But by now he is well on his way to recovery. The neurologist is optimistic that he will eventually fully recover, so we hope he will be hiking again soon.

My dad made it to the top of the world above Lac Geradmer

I will not give you the detailed play-by-play of all the doctor visits, but it seems to me that the German health care system is slightly cheaper, but even more complicated than ours in the US. The weirdest aspect from an American perspective is that there is a clear two-class system in German health insurance. If you are privately insured, you get better and quicker service because doctors get paid more than twice as much for the same treatment. Doesn’t sound very democratic or socialistic. But even as a privately insured stroke patient, it wasn’t always easy to get appointments. And you still have to be your own advocate to get proper care. It’s high quality care, but also highly complicated.

I got to look into my dad's head...

...that had to be helpful for our chess games!

On the plus side, all the doctors we met seemed really nice and knowledgable. Being used to American doctors, who always seem to be afraid of getting sued, it was also surprising when the neurologist warned my dad: “Don’t be too careful!”. That was refreshing to hear from a doctor. Apparently the dangers of permanent damage from sitting on the couch too long are more of a concern than the threat of another fall.  Overall, I feel about the German and American health care system the same way I feel about German and American politics: They are both screwed up in different ways, but overall I think you can count yourself lucky if you live in either one of those countries. 

Somehow, wine tastes even better in a vineyard

Somehow, Aperol Spritz tastes even better by the pool

Somehow, wine tastes even better
when it has your name on it

After the stroke, we were not sure whether we’d be able to go on our second trip to France. But the primary physician, the neurologist and the physical therapist all agreed that it is best for my dad to stay physically and mentally active after the stroke. And what better way to do that than being surrounded by the whole family at my parent’s favorite little hotel in the French Jura, which also happens to be all our favorite restaurant in the world. 

Hotel Les Alpages
Our family's Happy Place

Of course disc golf had to be part of the family equation

Lots of lakes to cool down 

My dad did not complain that he was not able to do the usual longer hikes or that he could not swim in the lakes. He only had one gripe: Despite being the only one not getting any alcoholic aperitif or wine, he had to be escorted to his room after dinner. And with his impaired balance, it looked like I was taking my dad to his room because he had too much to drink. And that while Sandra’s mom drank one glass of red wine after the other; “only to help me sleep”, as she keeps reminding us with every sip.

Family Reunion taking over Les Alpages

The newest members of the family

One big happy family

I love our pre-dinner games and drinks

Compared to previous family reunions at this hotel, we had an even larger crowd. My brother’s entire family joined, so we ended up all but two of the rooms of the hotel. Linnea added a very fun human and a very cute dog to the crew. The time we saved by not doing any long hikes, we spent playing more games and taking more naps. Despite the stroke, it was still a very enjoyable stay. And even for my dad, I am sure it was more fun than sitting on the couch all week being “too careful”. And of course, to nobody’s surprise, the five dinners at “Les Alpages” were again my five favorite meals of the year. 

The food at Les Alpages is so good that
 this very delicious meal cooked by my mom
did not even make the Top Five dinners this year
But my mom will understand that in a competition
with 5 dinners at Les Alpages, 6th place is really good!

Speaking of good food, we have put on our obligatory ten German pounds, so it is now time to head back to America. We hope the lack of good pretzels and the sparsity of Hefeweizen and Jägerschnitzel will help us lose some pounds back on the road with Joy.

Sandra as an honorary Seibert
and honorary member of Munich's
Tiefseetaucher Ultimate Frisbee team
at one of two tournaments we went to.

We did get to spend a lot of time catching up with friends & family, playing games, going for walks and drinking schnaps, all of which were main reasons for us to go to Germany in the first place. We'll return at the end of the year because there's a 90th birthday coming up in December. Maybe there will be more time for games, too. 

So long, Farewell, Au Revoir & Auf Wiedersehen,

Chris & Sandra