Category: Travel

Sitting in a crowded 757 on the taxiway at DEN, with a screaming baby behind me, and a 90 minute ground stop before we can take off for Boston. And to cap it all, the captain refuses to turn on Channel 9. At least I can use my Treo to rearrange things by phone and email… and blog. Sigh.

After 10 days in Colorado, I’m heading back to Boston today. I went through the on-line check-in just to see if United would offer me an upgrade. They did, but since the only upgrade seats were middles, I decided to stick with my cattle-class window.

I hope this particular flight won’t be delayed, since I’m due to host a conference call just 55 minutes after we land. I have visions of standing around in the baggage claim area waiting for my stuff, while hosting a call on my cell-phone….

Ah, well: time to pack.

Here‘s a 14MB QuickTime video of the landing on the grass gravel.

And here are some pictures, of distinctly variable quality – click thumbnail for larger image.

This morning I drove up to Boulder Airport, to MileHighGliding, and spent a glorious 45 minutes or more soaring over the front range and downtown Boulder. It was my first time in a glider, and it was simply wonderful. I was in the front seat with Chris, the pilot, behind me. We spent the first ten minutes being towed up from 5300 ft. (the altitude of the airport) to about 11000 ft.; then the tow was released. [See pic – click for larger.] We got a good thermal over the Flatiron formation (steeply inclined strata that make up the very edge of the Front Range), and spent about 10 minutes there without losing any height. After orbiting the Flatirons and Eldorado Canyon, we drifted southeast towards StorageTek (skirting the controlled airspace around Jeffco), before heading back towards the University and the industrial area to the east side of Boulder. Chris executed a couple of stalls and wingovers, which felt marvellous; we pulled around 2G climbing out of the stall. After that we crossed the airfield, pulled a tight left base, and landed on the “grass” (mostly gravel) to the north of the runway. Outstanding!

I took a number of pictures, though the quality isn’t particularly good: as you can see, the canopy gets in the way. I’ve also got a nice video clip of the landing, which I’ll put up as soon as I’ve figured where to do it.

Continuing my “Boulder weekend”, I spend this morning exploring the hinterland. (Feel free to follow along on the map.) Starting from Louisville, I drove up Route 36 into Boulder, then west along Canyon towards Nederland. After climbing for 15 miles (from about 5500 ft. to 8500 ft.) the road emerges next to a wholly improbably lake: this is Barker Meadow Reservoir in Nederland. Negotiating an unexpected roundabout (traffic circle) in the centre of Nederland, I headed north along Route 72, the Peak to Peak Highway. At its highest point the road is around 11500 ft.*, and there are several peaks nearby around 12-14K high. Eventually it joins Route 7 and drops to “only” 7500 ft. in Estes Park, where I arrived around 11:30.

I had planned to explore Estes Park and maybe have lunch there, but I quickly changed my mind. There were hoards of people there for the Longs Peak Scottish/Irish Highland Festival, many of them wearing inauthentic kilts and other unflattering garb. I hastily turned east on Route 36 back towards Boulder; as I left Estes Park the westbound traffic into the town was backed up for miles. I counted myself fortunate that I’d chosen the southern route.

I emerged from the front range in Lyons. The transition is startling: one minute you’re negotiating switch-back curves with cliffs towering above you, the next you’re driving across featureless rolling terrain with nothing much of geographical interest until you reach Kansas City, 600 miles to the east. After Lyons I decided to continue my explorations, so instead of continuing down Route 36 to Boulder I took Route 66 to Longmont. Downtown was hot, dusty, and deserted, but I found a decent lunch and a surprisingly good Hefeweizen at the Pumphouse Brewery. From there I headed down Route 287 through Lafayette (I think I blinked and missed it) to Broomfield, then drove back up Route 36 to my hotel in Louisville.

I took a bunch of pictures just north of Ward on Route 72 (altitude around 10K), and some more on Route 7 close to Mount Meeker. I’ve uploaded them to Flickr, as an experiment.

And one note for Chris: I passed lots of cyclists on the Peak to Peak Highway. Very impressive, at that altitude.

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* This is the only spot height I could find on the web, but it seems a bit high; 10K seems more likely. Does anyone have a topographic map of the area?

Looking west into the heart of the Rockies,
originally uploaded by Geoff_Arnold.

On the Peak to Peak Highway, between Nederland and Estes Park.

I’m flying back to Boston today. Even though I’ve been commuting between the Bay State and the Bay Area regularly for over 20 years, this will be the first time I’ve flown into or out of Oakland. It’s actually not the first time I’ve used the airport; we once had to land at OAK to refuel when SFO was fogged in. (Amazing what a few miles across the bay can do.) I’m stuck with a plane change in Denver; I can’t seem to keep away from that place. (I’ll be back there again on September 6.)

I spent last night in Carmel Valley visiting family. It was hard to find somewhere to stay because this weekend is the annual Monterey Historics at Laguna Seca. You know it’s that time of year when there’s a Ford GT-40 parked outside Safeway, Porsches and Ferraris are as common as dirt, and it takes a brand new Lamborghini or a couple of Bentley Arnage’s to catch your attention. As I came off the Laureles Grade yesterday afternoon and turned onto Carmel Valley Road, I passed a pale yellow Jaguar D-type, street-legal, complete with the fairing behind the driver’s head. Gorgeous. (Though after much searching through A9, I’ve reluctantly concluded that it might have been this replica – oh well….)

An unexpected delight this evening: wonderful sushi – in Boulder, Colorado of all places! – at Sushi Zanmai. Some of the best I’ve had outside of Japan and San Francisco. We were lucky, and got there at 6pm, just ahead of the crowd. (Memo to self: parking really sucks in downtown Boulder).

This evening I’m off on a rather longer trip than usual: fly to Denver, a week of meetings at our Broomfield campus, fly to San Jose next Saturday, three days of meetings in Menlo Park next week, then fly home next Thursday (out of Oakland via Denver). Apart from a brief family visit next weekend , it’s pretty much all work. One nice bonus: the BOS-DEN and DEN-SJC legs both wound up being “Fare class A – discounted first class”. All of the comfort without the expense – delightful.