Settling in, Jury Duty, and Hiking La Plata

Erin and I have been back from our honeymoon about two weeks now.  That gave us some time to enjoy summer back in Denver before Erin started back at teaching.  We got a chance to have a big party for Erin's sister Amy who was moving with her husband to Baltimore as he pursues medical school and she works at a new government job.  We also got to see our friends Brian and Cassie for dinner early last week and go hiking with some of Erin's fellow teachers up at Evergreen.

One of our most interesting post-honeymoon summer experience was riding the motorcycle up to the Buck Snort Saloon in the mountains.  The road I chose to get there turned out to be pretty rough, but it was exciting.  As we turned off the main road up a dirt road to the address we wondered if we had the right directions.  Then up this narrow canyon we came to the saloon that had been in business for over a century (and it showed).  The food was good and we enjoyed the adventure of finding it.

Now that Erin's back teaching we've started to settle into a rhythm as I stay home to work and take of house chores.  It has provided me with a great deal of flexibility I found as I was called in for jury duty on Monday.  Fortunately I wasn't picked to sit on the jury but it was interesting to see the process.  I'm glad I wasn't picked since I had planned to go hiking with my uncle on Tuesday.  Erin and I enjoyed a delicious meal with my aunt Janet and uncle Reynold at their place in Littleton where I stayed that night to get up early for the hike.

Reynold and I got up around 3:30 AM yesterday to go up towards Leadville.  We got to the trail-head for La Plata ("silver" in Spanish), Colorado's fifth tallest mountain at around 14,361 feet.  It took us about 4 hours to get to the summit which was clear and sunny.  After a brief pause we made our way back down and back home.  With 4,500' of gain and 9.5 miles round trip it was a pretty exhausting hike.  It was really beautiful, but now I remember why I only do about one 14'er a year.  So today I'm back in front of the computer working and recuperating.