August 9th

On Sunday August 9th, I decided it was time for a hike! I felt I hadn’t done one in too long and went to a place I’ve only ever really explored during the winter, Berthoud Pass.

It was a lovely hike even if the smoke hampered the views in the distance and the light from the rising sun.

The crazy thing about this next shot is that there’s a moose in it which I didn’t even see when I took the photograph!

If you expand the image (click on it) then you’ll be able to see the moose in the lake along the edge nearest to camera!

It’s incredible how something so big blended in and was so far away that it’s movements or shaking around didn’t even register in my vision even though I was looking directly at it.

After that, I continued chugging along back down the mountain and before I knew it I was heading home. It was a wonderful way to start the day. Which of the images is your favorite? For me it’s quite comfortably the second image.

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Took this image on my walk to work. While the day started sunny and kind, by the end of the day it was pouring. Intense thunder and violent lightning were the only sounds we could hear in the office.

The time I spent home the week August 17th – 21st was divine. I got a chance to see some family, and some friends I haven’t seen in far too long.

After spending some time at home though, it was time to head into the city and see my old stomping grounds. I got a chance to explore Boston, seeing my old go-to coffee shop (shoutout Mateo for not missing a beat and remembering my order easily at Cafe Dello Sport), saw my old apartment and fire-escape, went out to lunch in the city and then hit up the BPL!

That’s actually where I’m writing this blog-post. It was delightful seeing the places I used to spend so much time in and glad to see the city doing well. I miss being able to walk everywhere (as I have been today), and it’s one of the biggest lures to come back to this wonderful place. But then I think of the traffic, and the price of living here and I hesitate. I’m sure that hesitation won’t last forever.

I forget just how lush Massachusetts is. The weather is a crapshoot (thank you Boston for raining all weekend) but that rain leads to a lot of moisture for the plants.

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Back home it was destined for storms.

Once we were back we had a few top-priorities. Firstly, we had to recreate the sandwich I had in Boston, La'Estate.

(A lot of the trip home was spent theory crafting how they made it and thinking about how we could make something of a similar caliber back at our place).

((I’m happy to report it went well! We got fresh ingredients from the Farmers market and made it twice. We learned a lot from the first go-around and really fell into a rhythm with the second go!))

As I was saying – it was stormy in Arvada! Almost every single evening had some amount of storms – leading to gorgeous color and wonderful light.

I’m also happy to report that the garden did okay over the week we were gone. I’d been having nightmares about the garden being rotten and decrepit by the time we returned – but that wasn’t the case at all. All the friends we called on to help were a huge help and it showed, the harvest was healthy (shout out Brandon, Valery, Sara and Matias for the parts you played!) The broccoli we had our friend harvest (shoutout Chelsey!) was great too.

I think it’s fitting to wrap this month up on a picture of our tomatoes. For more or less the week we were home I Sophie not to pick this vine. They were perfectly picturesque – and after plenty of waiting for them to ripen they finally did and were gorgeous.