Denver...Denver

I was convinced by some great people in Santa Fe to take the scenic route to Denver: Highway 285. What they didn't tell me was how confusing it was to stay on that single highway.

By taking I-25, you can get to Denver in about 6 hours. Somehow I turned it into a 9 hour trip. The thing about small highways is that there are so many of them that they weave in and out of each other.

Other than that the drive was unbelievable. Jagged cliffs and rutted mountain faces and towering clouds, expansive sky. I'm telling you: it was the most beautiful thing I've seen on this trip. At more than one point I felt tears well up in my soul from sheer joy and happiness. I can't explain how beautiful it was to me. At times I wished I had someone to share it with, to help me absorb the enormity of it all. Those moments usually gave way to of feeling like a sponge and attempting to absorb all the beauty by myself.

I arrived to Denver around 7:30 with the show starting at 8. My laptop batter had died taking with it the directions as to my host's apartment. I even tried calling her a few times with the minimal phone battery I had managed to conserve after having left my charger in Denton. Although I had made it into Denver about 2 hours before I wasn't able to find the apartment for quite some time. I finally ran across it by total chance and buzzed up but got no answer. So I walked up and figured out which door was hers. I knock and her sister answers. There's no one else home.

I realize that we had committed a great miscommunication. Apparently, Erin thought I would bring people to her house and she would host. But I don't know anyone in Denver. And also she was really sick. So a show wouldn't have been a good idea, plus I was hella tire from my crazy drive. So me and her and her sister hung out. Then these two other guys showed up who had been traveling the country for a year or so.

This morning I went to church with my host's sister. It wasn't so much a church as it was a spiritual community. At one point the band broke into some kind of 70s throwback funk and everybody got up and started dancing. The speaker spoke about centering our chakra's and getting rid of negative energy. I enjoyed the new scope of people I experienced but couldn't help but feeling afterward that it had all been a performance.

Now my host in Boulder seems to have flaked on me. I don't know what to do. Should I stay in Denver and go to a cajun cook off and maybe play a show? Or should I go to downtown Boulder and play on the street? Either way, I will have to talk to people I don't know which, as always, runs the risk of awkwardness. I really just want to be with someone I know. I hate making friends and then leaving. I wish I were back in Santa Fe with those nice people, or maybe just in Spokane already. I can't wait to see Emily. Loneliness has been my adversary on this trip.

In any case, I'll write more later.