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Aspen

Working at the Physics Center amidst a charming mix of accents and
languages. There are names around us like Chandra, Chivukula, Cugliandolo,
Dewangan, Dobrosavljevic, Fiorito, Furasaki, Jung, Kamionkowski, Kaus,
Kluzniak, Kurchan, Malzac, Murayama, Oshikawa, Plischke, I’m not making
these up, Popovic, Pottschmidt, Reichman, Reining, Ruckenstein, Shklovdkii,
Szamel, Titarchuk, Tsui, Vafek, Vainshtein, VanderKlis, Wolynes, Wyse, Yu,
and Zhang. Each person is assigned a desk in a room with two desks. There are lots of
rooms. My roommate this year is Vlad. He told me a story about coming to
this country. He saw a film, Janice Joplin in Woodstock. He saw this movie
and declared his destiny. He had to go to America. He left Yugoslavia in
the eighties and came here. Janice Joplin was gone. Woodstock was gone.
It was the Regan era. It was a huge disappointment. He got over it and settled in Florida. He is now a citizen and loves it
here. But he missed Woodstock.

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Aspen

Fished. Had to fish with the six weight. Still haven’t found the
four-weight reel. We both remember getting it out of the shed and putting
it somewhere logical. Now we’ve checked all the logical places. Back to work at the Physics Center. What a place! Their job here is to
present the best possible, most desirable place on the planet, for physists
to want to come and spend the summer. While they’re here, the physist’s job
is to take it easy, enjoy the surroundings, think about and talk about
physics, and collaborate with their colleagues. There is traffic in the valley, and congestion. The four-lane highway has
been completed all the way from Glenwood Springs to Aspen. All except for a
quarter mile of two lane right outside the city. Four lanes flows into two
and backs up. A person can get frustrated with the commute from Basalt and
wonder if it’s worth it. Then you step away from the crowd. Twenty feet.
You walk twenty feet from the grounds of the physics center and you’re in
the wilderness and you remember why all these people want to be here. It’s
worth it. A walk down the path on the Meadows Trail. Hummingbirds and chickadees.
Eighty degrees. Aspen leaves blowing in the breeze. It is lush and green,
even in July. Blue sky and fluffy white clouds with impossibly clean edges.
Wildflowers. Evergreens. Castle creek rushing to meet the Roaring Fork.
This place knocks me out.

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Basalt

More high desert. Left the San Luis Valley and continued north. Desert,
desert, desert. After weeks of high desert, we’re suddenly alpine. Ten
thousand feet, lush wetlands, snowpack still melting. Then down from
Leadville by way of Tennessee Pass. Met interstate 70 at Minturn. Lunch at
Wilmore Lake, through Glenwood, past Carbondale, and settled in Basalt by
two. Level the rig, get the slides out, arrange the inside, hook up the
utilities, find the satellite, scrub the bugs off the front, put up the
windshield screens. Hot weather for the mountains, high eighties. Glad
we’re up here. The rivers look clear. Time to fire up the flyfishing gear.
Got it all set out. Found everything except the reel for my four-weight
flyrod. Job in Aspen. We’ll be here a week.