Aspen.

Gosh, I'm glad I didn't do a triathlon here.  That is STEEP.

After a long lull, I had some work travel this week: to Aspen.  In retrospect, almost all of my work travel has been to good places.  I've been to Singapore, NYC, San Fran and the Silicone Valley, and the OC among other places.  I think the "worst" place I have been is to Mankato, MN and even that was not awful.

Even though I lived in Colorado for four years and my immediate family is still there, I had never been to Aspen before. Not really a surprise you consider that I'm not a skier (or snowboarder) and Aspen is pretty much smack dab in the middle of the mountains, so a solid five or so hour drive from Boulder.  And another no-surprise statement: Aspen is a really lovely little town.  It looks like Hollywood's version of a quaint town, which in a lot of ways it is.

Since May is the mud season, Aspen was also pretty much a ghost town.  They did not get a lot of snow this year so the mountain shut down in early April.  Tourists will not start coming back until June for the Food & Wine Festival.  We were only there for one full day and spent most of that day in a conference room but I enjoyed it.  (I am pretty sure that the five lawyers involved in this deposition were the only people wearing suits, or even business casual, in the entire town.  We got A LOT of looks.) The town is cute and very walkable, the food was really good, the hotel was lovely (and so cheap thanks to being the off-season), and the surroundings were spectacular.  I even went running one morning.  It was a real insult to my ego that seems to think that because I did live in Colorado, I should still be acclimated.  Tell that to my lungs which strenuously objected to the 8,000 feet in elevation.

Bear-crow?  A lot of yards had these bear sculptures.  

The only negative to my trip was that it was weird to be in Colorado, especially at DIA, and not be going to see my family.  Unfortunately,