Friday, August 24, 2007

Hills and Prairie - To Denver


Thursday morning the rain had stopped, things were drying, and we had a lovely breakfast in the restaurant of The Bavarian Inn. I was still adjusting to being in "the mountains" after all the days of feeling the plains open up around us. It felt like we had reached the Rockies, but I knew better, that these pine-covered slopes were "only" the Black Hills of South Dakota - but a long way from The Catskills. As we descended from the hills on a two-lane US highway we crossed over in Wyoming, which brought across the meaning of "Big Country." Music (CD): Corb Lund Band - No Roads Here and Short Native Grasses (Praries Of Alberta); the wide prairies continue right on up into Alberta, where he's from, and he was the perfect accompaniment to Wyoming.

Stopping in Cheyenne WY, I called my friend Frederic in Denver, but it was a bad number. Headed down anyway, figuring I'd figure something out. On the drive, I considered the 393 area code I'd dialed, realized it was just a typo away from Denver's 303 code, so I reached him when we got to Denver. When I'd last seen him 8 years ago, he was the Colorado training center for AVID video editors, but now he runs the Colorado Film School which he created. He was doing a faculty meeting, which we sat in on. For the free food, but I got a look at their production organization website interface for student projects, and their dazzling collection of the latest Mac Quad-core editing workstations. We took a break from the meeting to hook up with Gosia's friend Tomek, from her home town in Poland, and a couple of his friends; made plans to spend more time together Friday. We went back and hung out with Frederic, talking and drinking wine for hours at his home afterward; so great to catch up on the 20-year friendship after so long. Couldn't get Wi-fi to work, so I had a rare non-computer day. Crashed in sleeping bags on futons on his living room floor.

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