I fly to Denver to visit my friend Karen, originally planning to see the LSO concert featuring the Concierto de Aranjuez, but that falls apart due to a misguided decision by the LSO board.

Karen has a sore knee and can barely walk. We drive up to Pike's Peak, not quite to the top. I frolic in the snow and also climb a large boulder pile.

Pike's peak is on the left

The road was blocked here

There are some randonee skiers. We see their sinuous tracks coming down some big slopes, and their zig-zag tracks going up.

Of course I had to climb this

On the way down, a ranger checks people's brake temperature with a fancy thermometer.

We go to open-mic night at a dive bar, which is mostly amateur stand-up comics. A woman at the bar asks us for a joke - everyone should have a joke ready to go, right? - and tells us about a performance where a cellist improvises ambient sounds while a narrator reads color names from paint chips.

We reorganize Karen's utility drawer. On the way to the airport we listen to a post-concert LSO zoom call, which includes a wonderful comment by David Cher, an insulting and deceitful comment by Daniel the Asshat, and a couple of rambling and incoherent comments.