never been that high! oh yes, i just made it to the highest altitude of my life today but i'll get back to it later. we came to aspen from carbondale saturday morning. we got a nice condo in the hotel, which means that we'll all be staying together in one place. that's nice for a change after tha days with our hosting families. later we explored the explore booksellers bookstore that for some reason fulfiled my image of an intelectual bookstore in new york or boston. just that this one is in aspen and i've never been to neither new york nor boston:) the dinner was at the best japanese restaurant in aspen, which was the first really nicely designed place (according to my standards, of course) i've seen here in the states. but, being in the first japanese restaurant in my life, i am obviously not gonna be the biggest lover of japanese food after all. never mind.

the breakfast took place in the one and only five star hotel in aspen and after that the best part of the day started. we headed for maroon bells close to aspen to make i little hike. the scenery is simply amazing! we've seen a lot in vail, we've seen carbondale and surroundings but the area around aspen is really amazing and completely unique. i walked up to the buckskin pass and the last part was muddy, then later 20 centimeters of mixed water and snow and in the end up to 40 centimeters of snow. real fun in the middle of september. the buckskin pass is 12 462 feet = 3 798 meter high which easily makes it the highest peak of my life (even though it's no peak but just a pass, of course, but i had to turn back and meet the others). which means that even the people who found it really fun that i reached the highest place of my life couple of days ago in a car and wearing a tie and that i am growing older (and there really were people like that, believe it or not:), well, even these people will have to admit that i am definitely not growing older:). i felt almost like a local guy up there, wearing my north face jacket, shoes and daypack. at least the rejoice shorts could signal where i come from.

and after this beautiful hike the icing on the cake came in the evening when we had a dinner at ann's and allen's in snowmass. the place is far away from the main road and the genius loci is strong. you could not imagine the views they've got from their windows! and there is no construction going on in there. we've been to a new house in aspen today, built for 20 million dollars and with a nice location and view. but this was a completely different league. i could easily live in snowmass ...

btw, i made some pics on the hike today, you can check them out at http://my.opera.com/theorange/albums/