Thu 24 Jun 2010
Day 1
I’m here! I made it! Got home from Maryland last night after midnight and got up at 4am to make a 6am flight out of Harrisburg. Needless to say, I slept the ENTIRE flight from Newark to Denver. Arrived at noon, got my rental car, headed into Denver to pick up a couple hiking guides at Barnes and Noble. I had ordered a couple books from REI on Monday and had them shipped overnight. They still weren’t there Wednesday. It seems USPS won’t ship overnight to a PO Box. Gee, they sure take your money for it!!! Grrr.
Left B&N, grabbed some food and while I ate, paged through the guidebooks figuring out where I was going to go first. By 3:30, I was heading out of Denver and into the mountains to Mt. Evans, a “fourteener”. Drove a scenic byway that went almost to the summit then hiked the rest of the way. H o l y c o w. I walked slowly but had to stop several times on the way up because I was so lightheaded. And by the time I got to the summit I had a massive, pounding headache. Hello altitude. Geesh. Spent an hour or so at the top getting a bunch of video and pictures and just taking it all in.
Mick on the summit of Mt. Evans
View from summit of Mt. Evans
Mountain goat on Mt. Evans
Getting back to the lower altitude of Denver, my headache subsided but left me in a fog. Stumbled around a grocery store, picking up snacks and food for the next four days and checked in with my host family. Staying with a fellow DrupalCamper and his wife, cat, and awesome dog – a huge Akita!
Jane, Chris, and Tonka
Ronan
Spending the rest of the evening Facebooking, blogging, and figuring out my plans for tomorrow – what trails I’m going to hike.
Day 2
Woke up last night with another pounding headache. Ugh. I guess going from a few hundred feet above sea level to over 14,000 ft in the same day isn’t so smart. Otherwise, slept well. Got up to a beautiful, sunny, cloudless day….that was supposed to hit 100 degrees in Denver!!! I headed to the mountains early to escape the heat. First on the agenda was a hike up to Herman Lake – going from 10k to 12k. Only saw a couple people on the way up. But I lounged on a huge boulder by the lake for a couple hours and saw a bunch of people, including a Continental Divide Trail thru-hiker (Mexico to Canada!), and just as many dogs! It’s a requirement out here. If you live here and you hike, you must own a medium to large sized dog. No exceptions. Check! I’ll have that one covered when I get back home.
Afterwards, I headed into Georgetown. I was going to take the scenic byway down to Grant, but they were doing road work and the road was closed from 1 to 3. So I bummed around Georgetown, shopping and eating. At 3:30 I headed out of town but only got about .3 miles. The roadwork was complete but the road was still closed 5 miles on because of a rockslide. I wouldn’t be doing that drive today. Waah. Found another scenic byway heading north towards Estes Park (site of the ill-fated marathon last year). Nice views but still more roadwork. By the end it was 5 pm so I turned east, driving through Boulder (I love Boulder!) and back down to Denver. Still had a lot to do this evening to prepare for the conference tomorrow to figure out where I was going and when.
Continental Divide Trail hike
View from the Continental Divide Trail
View going up to Herman Lake
At Herman Lake
Day 3
First day of the actual DrupalCamp. Attended sessions all day. It’s good to be back amongst others passionate about Drupal and technology. And interesting seeing some of the things that are being done with Drupal – amazing stuff and I WANT TO BE A PART OF IT, DAMNIT! I can’t get there fast enough.
Brain is fried so today’s post is short. Got out of sessions at 6:30, went for supper at an Italian place, then back to the host’s house and watched Mary and Max. Odd little movie. Still processing it. Time for bed. Zzzzzzzzzz.
Day 4
Super incredibly awesome day of sessions. Virtualization rocks. Special thanks to m_rookie for the Ubuntu help! Spent most of the day downloading various components during the sessions so that I could get to work on setting things up in the evening. Stayed up way past my bedtime installing a Linux server and getting Drupal and Drush going. Productive day. The cat helped…in his own way.
Day 5
Wow, what a day! Way more than I bargained for. Hooked up with a couple Drupal developers (Kevin Bridges and Tyler) to go downhill biking at Winter Park, about an hour or so west of Denver. Umm…like….this type of biking…
My plan was to take the EASY trails! That lasted till we got off the lift. The first trail we took was an intermediate trail. 45 minutes down the mountain just on the inside edge of control…mostly. The second run and we hit the black diamond trails. WHAT??? I like having all my appendages attached and my bones in one piece. I do!!! Almost lost it a couple times but stayed upright. Third run and we were on the “most difficult” Black Diamonds. Had to get off the bike and walk it over rock boulders and down steep embankments several times but I landed at the bottom completely unscathed. By this time, every muscle in my body was turning to jello. So we stopped for lunch. Finished lunch by 2:30, in time to do 2 more runs. I told Kevin and Tyler I’d meet them at the bottom and opted for an “easy” route this time. Easier to control, yes. But harder on the muscles. I swear half of it was uphill! Came to a cross-trail about halfway down and there was Tyler and Kevin sitting along side of the trail, helmets off, hanging out. Huh? Found out that they were as shot as I was. So we became a hangout point for a half hour for others passing by where we traded tails of broken bones. We continued on our way on our favorite black diamond trail – the Bootcamp trail. Awesome jumps and turns. I came around the last turn of the trail just in time to see Kevin wipe out…exactly 2 feet from the very end of the trail on the very last run of the day. He was fine but it was hilarious.
Wow. Amazing day. Except when I took one to the tail bone going over a rock I couldn’t avoid. Hope I can sit tomorrow. Or it’s going to be mighty uncomfortable on the plane.
I opted for the full body armor rental package!