The Front Range

Fear not-- no more epic, ancient, travel posts for a while. I know there is nothing folks hate more than a "Hey, this one time, when I was in Africa (or band camp, or whatever other place you would like to insert here...)" stories, so thanks for indulging me that one time. Back to the present day: last week I went to Ft. Collins to visit my dear friends John and April and greet their new baby, Zora. John and April were my officemates when I was a grad student in Zoology at the University of Florida, back during what we refer to as the golden age of that department (if you are a devoted reader, you might remember them from an earlier post on my love of Bob Dylan.) During my time at UF, there was a perfect storm of fantastic, fun, smart, creative, enthusiastic, talented grad students surrounding me there-- we were all clustered into grad student offices instead of being housed in our individual labs as is often the case, so we spent all week at work together and then got together on Friday nights for Zoocial (rhymes with social) to drink beer out in the courtyard and figure out how to spend all weekend together as well. It was bliss, and I miss those folks so much after being spoiled like that for so long. John and April just started post-docs at CSU in Ft. Collins but, more importantly than that, they just got back from Ethiopia with their beautiful and hilarious daughter, who is also a blogger by the way-- you can see her and her insurmountable cuteness at Zora Borealis. I was joined in Ft. Collins by another dear friend from the golden age, Nat Seavy. Nat, well-known for is adventures in piracy and surfing (not the internet, but on the high seas), had also fallen under Zora's spell by the end of the weekend. Here is a picture from our hike (Zora hung with the baby bjorn for about 6 hours!) in Poudre (pronounce Pooter) Canyon, some of the weekend's doting, and-- my favorite-- Zora's serious face.

In addition to seeing these guys, I unexpectedly got to reunite with my old friend and roommate from Gainesville, from 2 years prior to grad school actually, Jenny Rubenstein. Jenny introduced me to Florida, live music at the Covered Dish, and really was an incredibly great friend as I settled in to my first "real" apartment and "real" job after college. She has spent the last 12 years gallivanting literally all over the world, and just moved to Ft. Collins recently because her husband, Andrew, is a grad student there. Amazingly, she and April met at a party in December and figured out they had both lived in Florida, and then that they both knew me--not exactly bumping into an old friend, but exactly as great.