Off-Leash!

Rob, Stella, and I got out of town on Saturday. We didn't leave the home planet far behind, but we left it and spent the morning and early afternoon in orbit. We landed a few places. Denver has some wonderful and well-ignored mountain parks. We found O'Fallon. It's near Bear Creek and Kittredge. Stella went illegal and off-leash for a small portion of the walk. A dog just has to do that sometimes. She stuck her nose down some holes. She leapt up out of bushes and down to creek beds. Good dog, she also stayed with the pack and didn't bit any mountain biker tires.

We also drove through Morrison, over the Hogbacks and to Golden. We like to visit the city's second largest brewery -- Golden City Brewery. The patio is an oasis. They allow dogs (before 4 p.m.). Stella had a chance to come sit with us.

We also found the local farmer's market. I bought some "imperfect peaches". We trundled back into the car.

It looked like we were headed home until I suggested a detour onto Wadsworth and a visit to Olde Town Arvada. I spotted Grandfather Cooperative Bookstore. Rob and Stella went on in search of a pet store.

Grandfather's isn't Tattered Cover. It's small, three crowded rooms, yet the man behind the desk had to point out the store maps. Hmmm...If your shop is small and organized, do you really need maps? The man behind the desk seemed intent on chatting. He said he thought he knew me. (Well, I don't get around all that often and I haven't lived in the suburbs for more than 25 years.) I didn't want to be rude. I tried for humor. I said, "The gene pool is shallow," and tried to find the literature crumbs back to the south room. He kept talking, expecting a response, until -- thank heaven -- another customer walked in. I hope I was never like that. Was I like that?

Grandfather's inventory does not present itself well. Books are, on the whole, in poor to fair shape. I found a Kerouac collection and Newyorican collection, but both were water damaged. I settled on a volume of Little Journeys to the Homes of American Authors. It's part of a series Putnam undertook near the turn of the 20th century. This volume is from 1896 and has notes on Irving, Emerson, Hawthorne, Prescott, and Lowell. There are a few loose pages, but it is mostly in good shape and I'm going to enjoy it. And I may try to acquire more. (By the way, who is Prescott?)

Speaking of writing and travel, I have three books in the online inventory about writers and travel -- A Long Road Home, In the Footsteps of the WPA Writers by Geoffrey O'Gara, Michael Cunningham's Land's End, and Walks in Gertrude Stein's Paris by Mary Ellen Jordan Haight.