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It's the middle of August and we've been Coloradans for ten weeks. Here's the report, his and hers, as usual: Simon in blue, Tamara in green.

Our First Hike

Saturday, June 26, on a trail in the foothills west of Denver. Self-timer on a rock. It took four tries, and on two of them I didn't make it back in time.
Two and a half miles, uphill, and I was out of breath in the first ten minutes. A woman about 70 passed us going up and said "Flatlanders?" and smiled. Yes, ma'am. But look behind us: that's the whole city down there, and the plains going all the way back to Ohio.

The Apartment, With Furniture

We took a picture of the living room with everything unpacked, to show the families. It came out so dark you can only see the lamp. So here it is in words: second floor of an old brick building in Capitol Hill, wood floors, two tall windows facing west, the radiator from the box picture (still clanks, we're told it's worse in winter), our couch from Columbus, the futon frame (assembled, with a screwdriver), and Tamara's grandmother's oak table in the corner. The books are on shelves. All fourteen boxes of them.
From the west window, if you lean out a little, you can see the mountains. I lean out a little every morning. Biscuit has the windowsill. Olive has come out of the bathroom and now has the whole apartment.

Things Nobody Told Us

• The air is DRY. Our lips cracked, our hands cracked, and for the first two weeks we both had nosebleeds in the morning. Drink water, buy lotion, get a humidifier.
• It's a mile up and you feel it. The first week I got winded carrying boxes up one flight of stairs. It goes away in a couple of weeks.
• Every afternoon in July a thunderstorm comes over the mountains around three, rains hard for twenty minutes, and then the sun comes back out like nothing happened.
• The sun is stronger up here. I got the worst sunburn of my life in about an hour on that hike.
• You can see the mountains from almost everywhere in the city, and you never stop looking. People who've lived here thirty years still say "Look at the mountains today."

Work

I started at the firm on Monday, June 14, six days after we pulled in. Mostly office buildings and parking garages so far. My boss says the Denver soil is a whole education by itself, and he's right.
I started nights in the ER in July. Twelve-hour shifts, three nights a week. A busy ER is a busy ER anywhere, but out here we get a lot more broken wrists from mountain bikes. The nurses I work with have been great. One of them already invited us camping.

What We Miss

Our families, first. Our friends. Real humidity, a little, oddly.
Buckeye football on Saturdays with my dad. We're going to have to find somewhere that shows the games.

We're going home for Thanksgiving, both of us, if the ER lets Tamara have the days. After that, come see us. We have a futon now, and it's assembled.

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