Azure North
Wednesday, September 16, 2020
Phase 1: Louisville North Open Space
In coastal towns like San Francisco, streetlights cast ethereal cones of light into the fog. With this effect, the streets at night seem mysterious, cinematic.
Here on the high plains, in these last few weeks of summer, a similar effect has occurred: cones of light shining from the streetlights. But here, it’s not some Raymond Chandler detective story come to life. Here it’s thick, pungent, wildfire smoke. You can taste it. Your eyes burn. It hangs in your nose and won’t leave you alone.
But tonight, it seemed different. Having soared from California and Oregon, east through Montana and Wyoming, the smoke settled at last onto Colorado like an old, travel-worn blanket. It was as though the journey had washed away the fire, leaving only this hazy, tired smoke. More gray than red, like an almost-healed wound, it had lost its bite. It was more like a memory of fire, than an active participant.
It was into this haze that our intrepid explorers set forth on a new adventure, down an unexplored cul-de-sac between the city limits of Boulder, Louisville, and Lafayette. Here a network of foot-trails and sidewalks wound through expansive meadows, herds of rabbits, and a veritable obstacle course of planks, logs, fences, and stiles.
First, a plank over the dry creek bed. Then, a bark-stripped old cottonwood log, fallen across the trail. Later, a somewhat perfunctory stile, hung askew over the barbed wire fence. Finally, a locked gate, its rusty chain now the only passage to the other side.
Regular readers of this journal may well surmise the outcome of this perilous ramble, but for those new to our pages, rest assured that our fearless adventurers somehow managed to pass all these tests with humble aplomb. Not long after, they returned to the trailhead with nary a scratch, ready and eager for Phase 2.
Phase 2: Annette A. Brand Park
Sandwiches, water. A family group gathered in the park, and whisked away. A guy walking down the path, muttering.
Phase 3: Dusk, a picnic bench
C brought oatmeal chocolate chip cookies for P3 tonight, fresh from the oven. S and D were duly impressed, and snarfed them accordingly. There were even some leftover, for tonight or tomorrow. Brava.
Homophone of the Night: style, stile.
