Travel Days

It is a beautiful Monday morning in Aspen (rated AAA by the B-Squad, possible upgrade coming soon).  Prema is on her way to Rapid City which is mourning the passing of a second police officer to a shooting last week.  Our hearts are aching for his family.

I just returned from a bike ride to Clark's Market to pick up a backpack full of calories.  Right now Abe is in a lesson with Ms. Whitney, Maya is deep into her second hour of practice, and Jamuna is taking a break.

Mom Mom and Pop Pop are surely on the road to Rapid City after having spent the night near Fort Collins, CO.

Taryn arrived safely and on time from Minneapolis yesterday afternoon though her suitcase did not.  Fortunately it was delivered to the Silver King cliff dwelling before we returned from the evening concert.

Here is a blurry shot of Taryn and Abe (too much kinetic energy).  Below are a couple of shots to document the baggage excitement.






















As Abe and I were on the way to the airport we saw that the highway just past our turn was crowded with emergency vehicles.  Found out this morning that the brother of the man who owns Explore bookstore died in a crash there.  We have never met either of the brothers but feel sad about the whole thing nonetheless.

Back to fun stuff.  Right after Taryn arrived Prema and I buzzed into town for 45 minutes to conduct some business (retail) and get tickets for the afternoon concert.  I was finally able to give the ice cream gift card to Erin the box office lady who was so kind to us a week or two ago.  I had been searching for her ever since then and was glad to see her again.

We attended the AFO featuring soloist Veronika Eberle playing a Dvorak piece that was one of Taryn's award-winning specialties.  After the intermission the orchestra played Holst's The Planets.  It was a fantastic performance which featured women's voices from the Aspen Opera Theater Center.  Quite nice. Prema reported that Ms. Eberle sat right behind  her on the plane to Denver.

After the show we went to Takah Sushi for dinner.  The kids played a bit with a frisbieoid thingamabob shown in this action shot.  Interestingly, the spell-checker did not flag "thingamabob" as misspelled or unknown.

Here is a shot of a flower that sat near my chair at dinner.

We got home at a reasonable hour which meant that poor Maya could practice a bit more.

Finally, here is a pic of a hummingbird that flew into the front door.  It was stunned, laying on its side when I got back from the airport.  I held it for a few minutes while it gradually got oriented.  It was nice to see it fly away and settle in a nearby Aspen tree.

After lunch we plan to take a bike ride into town.  This evening we will hear Robyn play Prokofiev and see the Aspen Santa Fe Ballet.