I finally made it up to Boulder today, to meet with my kids and to attempt to conduct business before generally making a fool of myself and having a great time doing it. The drive into town, across the wide open spaces in the eastern half of the county, is something I cherish every time I come here for football. Between the vivid yellows of the aspens and birches, the luscious oranges of the maples, and the shocking pops of red of the sumacs, all against still green grass and the purest blue sky, creates the most beautiful vistas I can imagine. I usually run late, everywhere I go when I'm here, so I never have time to pull over on the country roads to take pictures. Those views are burned into my brain, to be taken out and mulled over, whenever I need a pick-me-up. The weather down south just doesn't seem right to create those quintessential fall colors that I love so much. Maybe the nights just aren't cool enough before the days get short, because the leaves just mostly seem to race through colors in November to end up at brown and on the ground sometime around Thanksgiving.
I waited most of the day to meet with the current (third) company to work on our condo restoration, but right as I arrived at the complex, the manager was leaving, never to return for the rest of the day. Not that he told us he wouldn't be back, until I had long since given up and gone downtown for the Buffalo Stampede. I did wander around a little bit while I waited, enjoying the leaves that I could reach, not those racing past a car window. I very nearly missed the fall show, waiting later than usual to come to town for football. Lots of the trees were already bare.
While I was having fun reminiscing about the past, as we walked through Boulder, one of my daughters was reaffirming how glad she was that she moved away. She hasn't been gone long enough for it to seem quaint to her in a good way. She's still a little down on it. (I went through a few years of that myself, but I am mostly past that now.) When I asked whether it would be safe to leave our instruments in my borrowed Jeep, she said, "Dude, Boulder is Pleasantville, before the color came to it. It's so perfect here you could throw a basketball the wrong way and still make the shot." I took that to mean that it was okay to leave our things in the car, and it was.
I showed up to march in the stampede (the parade down Pearl St the night before home games, a tradition that started after I left), and I was the only piccolo player from my era present. There was one other alum who played piccolo, but she was much closer to my daughter in age, so she remembered all the songs still and knew all the chants and taunts. I eventually picked up a lot of them, but no matter how hard I paid attention, I never spun around in a circle on time. I did jump and kick and do all the other moves, slightly behind all the girls around me. I learned something very important about myself: I am no longer twenty years old, nor am I acclimated to mile high plus altitude. I made it up and down and back up Pearl Street several times, but I'm paying for it now. I'm tired, my mouth feels blistered, I have an altitude headache, and my feet are killing me. But I'm so glad I didn't let my yellow streak win. I didn't chicken out. I acted like a goofball full of school spirit in front of hundreds of people all along the route, and I loved it. Go Buffs!
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