a veritable Sundayest of Sundays

Patrick's summary of the day:
- we went out for a hike, and what the the elevation changes and all, some of us almost died.
- one of us nearly pushed Tammy off the cliff and she almost died.
- we went out to eat, and Patrick got dared to slam a shot of maple syrup for $2, did so, and almost died
- we went rock climbing, and the approach alone was "crazy" and some of us almost died
- it started lightning and thundering while we were out on the cliffs, and some of us almost died
- by the time we got back and ordered food and got it, we were so hungry that some of almost died
- we watched a juggling street performer and he put three boxes down and almost died
- some of us played the game Tigris and Euphrates, and everyone but Serena died.

Sounds like a lovely day, hey? [Click here for photos] and read on for the gory details...

This morning we woke up and (after getting ourselves somewhat engrossed in a crossword puzzle that will take us the week to solve), we headed to Boulder. All of us, that is, except Tony, who went to do his check ride. He's renting a plane tomorrow and taking us out 2 or 3 at a time to check out the area from the air. Our first adventure was hiking Chatauqua City Park. We got to Woods Quarry, and a subgroup missed a turn and ended up almost at Royal Arch. The flatlanders really had "fun" figuring out how much work it takes to do the "same ol'" things at a different elevation! Some of us are a tad (more) nervous about the backpacking trip as a result!

We met Tony and Michelle (who'd had to do some work earlier) at the Dushanbe Tea House - an authentic Tajik tea house that was imported from Boulder's sister city, Dushanbe. (I - Angela - was pretty excited about that because it brought back all sorts of memories of my trip to Tajikistan in 2003). Then we headed off to rock climb! After another vigorous (for the flatlanders) ascent, Justin, Michelle and Tom set up the top ropes, and we took at whack at the rock face. Everyone who wanted to got at least one chance to climb - except Aaron! He recently had shoulder surgery and is pretty much out of commission for 2-handed activities (though we did threaten to belay him up the face and take a picture of it!). We were chased out by a drenching thunder storm which made coming down rather interesting, and headed back to Boulder to pick up some amazing take-out Thai and land back at Patrick's place.
The evening wrapped up with Aaron, Tom, Justin and Serena playing Tigris & Euphrates (a game), Tony working on the written part of his test for the flight tomorrow, and Michelle, Tammy, Patrick and I doing various bits of cookie-making, straightening up, reading, setting up pictures and generally decompressing!
All in all, a outstanding day - I think the flatlanders are starting to figure out why this state has drawn in so many of our compadres!