Inland, Dreaming of Waves

Don't go to Buena Vista for the Night Life

Buena Vista (pronounced Byoona Vista by the locals) means "good view." And in winter, when there's no rafting, that's about all there is to do there. Look. Oh, and sleep. And eat.

Todd and I went down that South Park way (for all you fans of the movie; I've never seen it) to check out locations for a family reunion this summer. We knew the B&B we were staying at was right next to a Mexican restaurant, so visions of tequila were filling our head. But as soon as we walked in the back door, a waitress came up to us and said, "We're closed." It was only 9 o'clock!

We figured there had be a bar open somewhere in town. So...the next place we drive up to turns off the "open" sign just as we arrive. We saw one other bar--with one guy in it--and decided to call it a night. It's says something about a town when the place that stays open latest is the video store.

We stayed in bed late the next morning, and after some scouting of cabins and campgrounds, went to Cottonwood Hot Springs for the afternoon. It's one of those places that Boulder hippies like to visit--I even talked to one, who had beautiful blue eyes and was bemoaning the prices of housing in Boulder. Hey, people have been doing that since I arrived, and that was in 1987! By Boulder standards, that makes me almost a native.

A woman at the hot springs was saying that she'd just had a flashback to ancient Egypt. I guess she was talking that way because she was in the hottest pool and it was cooking her brain. Todd and I went to another pool to cool off from her new age vibes. There were lots of guys with belly-button-long beards at this place, and as we left, we smelled some ancient hipsters smoking pot. We were tempted to beg for some, but instead went to the Mexican restaurant and got two margaritas instead. They stuffed us with food, so the liquor had hardly any effect. One of the things they gave us was beef broth with one small meatball. It was like Mexican pho. Weird.

We went back to the room and got in bed. Early to rise and late to rise--with lots of food and some soaking in between--that about describes our day.

We had two breakfasts on Sunday, and then after some feeble attempts to bird in South Park (at least I saw a rough-legged hawk, which I haven't seen in a while), we went to Kingsland in Denver for dim sum. Todd says it's the best dim sum in Denver, even if the shopping mall looks like it would fall down if you blew on it. First we got languidly waved to an empty table by the Chinese boy-girl host(ess), and then the ladies came around with their carts: shrimp in noodle, shumai, steamed rice with goodies inside, and all of it delightfully squishy and sticky.

If you don't know what dim sum is, here's a picture for you: imagine someone taking pork and veggies and grinding them up in the garbage disposal. Then they grab a handful of that stuff and steam it in a noodle, or rice, or some kind of bread. That's dim sum: garbage disposal dumplings that make you feel fat.

posted by Price of Silence @ 9:21 PM