The Meadows

Kimmie called one morning to see what we wanted to do for the day.  Hiking and biking were out because I was not feeling well (note to self-do not eat Sushi in Aspen) so I suggested going to the Meadows for lunch.  Kimmie and I grew up in what is now considered the chic West End of Aspen.  Many of the old Victorian homes have been torn down and replaced with billionaires homes.  When we were growing up it wasn't so chic-just the part of town where everyone with kids lived because it was close to the elementary school.  Our Victorian house is still standing.  The best part of living in the west end was the proximity to a resort (I don't think it was called a resort back then!) called the Aspen Meadows.  We all took tennis lessons there and then would use the pool afterwards. There are some lovely sculpture gardens where we loved to play-it started to rain right after lunch so K did not get to play in the sculpture gardens, maybe next summer.

The other great feature of living in the west end was the series of irrigation ditches that ran throughout the neighborhood.  We used to spend hours and hours building bridges and floating things in the ditches.  A favorite activity was to build something (could have been a stack of leaves tied together with grass or a bunch of twigs), drop our "boats" in the water and hop on  our bikes and ride to a designated spot to see whose boat arrived first.  K spent over an hour playing in one of the ditches, in spite of the cold and rain.  

Today the Aspen Meadows is a conference center and the pool is gone.  Who would have thought that the mid-century style of the Meadows would be so popular again?  Aspen Ideas Fest was going on while were there and it lunch we sat next to Condalisa Rice and Walter Issaccson.  K loved her Arnold Palmer that Kimmie introduced her to.

K building a boat.  I think that is Lance Armstrong's house in the background.