Colorado

I miss the mountains.  And big sky.  A lot.  I spent last week in Denver for a software training course for work, and found a little time over the weekend to have some fun.  I certainly had my share of beer throughout the week - I didn't have an absurd amount, but not really being a beer person it was a lot for me.  But hey, Denver would be the place to sample a lot of beer.

Saturday a local coworker and I went to tour the Celestial Seasonings factory.  It was actually really interesting and entertaining.  The tour and all the samples you want are free.  It's fascinating to see all the ingredients for different sorts of teas, and the peppermint room.  Oh my goodness.  Everything I saw online before going referred to the knock-you-off-your feet smell of the peppermint room.  Peppermint has such a strong smell that it's in it's own separate room.  There's so much menthol in the air that your eyes burn and the smell sticks with you well after you've left the peppermint room.  It was nuts.  Also funny, it's located on Sleepytime Lane.

Saturday night the same coworker invited me to dinner at his parents' - his parents live up in the mountains, about and hour outside of Denver.  I'd call it up in the mountains, considering the house is at 9000 feet elevation at the end of an unpaved road that in winter is only climbable with four-wheel drive, and even then only with some luck.  After a week of eating out, the home-cooked meal was very appreciated.  And the views from their deck at 9000 feet were spectacular.

Besides my friends, the mountains and big sky are what I miss most from Tucson.  The sky on the east coast on a perfectly clear, sunny day, even outside of the city, still doesn't compare to the bigness and awesomeness of a cloudy sky out west.  If I ever had the opportunity to move to Colorado, I'd be hard pressed to turn it down.