Back to work after a lovely, three-day weekend. I'd like to have a three-day weekend every week. At one point I actually considered offering to take a 20% pay cut if I could work 20% fewer hours. I still think about it sometimes. It's not that I don't actually need that 20% of my salary, but I could lower my standard of living a trifle in return for so much more leisure time. (Of course, there's always the issue that if you're not working at least 35 hours a week, you usually can't get health insurance coverage through your job.)

Anyhoo...the weekend.

Saturday, an excursion to Downtown Denver. We walked the 16th Street Mall and were not accosted by panhandlers, indigents, freelance musicians, or the Jews for Jesus currently passing through town. Sometimes I think the Mall is becoming a very bland sort of place. It may be tidier and cleaner, but it lacks the character it had in the days when people were likely to lurch out at you from any alley mouth or off any park bench and try to separate you from your change.

We shopped in the super-sized Barnes and Noble on the Mall. I didn't find anything I wanted to own badly enough to carry it for two hours. I think that's going to be my new standard for book-buying. If I'm not willing to carry it with me for two or three hours, I probably don't really want to read it. Now that I've given up politics (although I still have 20 unread books in that arena), I'm at a bit of a loss to know where my next infatuation will lie so I need to conserve bookshelf space.

Then we went to Taste of Colorado, where we wandered around looking at things and eating for two hours. I had sausage, roasted corn, crab cakes, ice cream, orange chicken, a donut, home-made potato chips, and a lot of other things I've already forgotten. I love a buffet. I'd like it if I could eat that way every day. Just one or two bites of fifteen different foods.

I didn't make any other purchases, although one booth vendor nearly flattered me into it. I was staring at a photograph and he asked if I was an artist. Something in my fixed stare seemed to indicate I was looking with an informed, critical eye.

(It was a photograph of an abandoned cabin and I was mentally fixing it up and redecorating it, okay? So embarrassing.)

Three hours of walking (on solid concrete) and experience tells me I didn't exercise enough to balance more than a bite or two of everything I ate. Still, I have a few bucks to a fund to preserve a veteran's memorial and enjoyed the gorgeous weather.

On Sunday we hopped onto a bus and took off on what's becoming a regular excursion for us, a trip up to the Blackhawk/Central City area. We spend most of the days at the nickel slots and generally I come home several bucks poorer for the experience, but this time I came home a modest winner.

I mean, $4 isn't a fortune, but it's better than dropping $60, which is how I usually end up the day. I consider that coming away with $4 more than I took (including what I spent on transportation and meals) a triumph.

Should the weather and our health (tired feet) cooperate, our plan for the next trip is to ride the shuttle the mile or so to Central City, then walk back to Blackhawk. As I recall, from my visits to the area before it became a gambling mecca, it's a beautiful walk.

Thanks to the courtesy and consideration of some nutball who had an accident on the tiny, two-lane highway through the canyon, it took us over two hours to get back when we decided we'd had enough and were ready to go home. People insist on driving like idiots, trying to pass on blind corners, tailgating, and all of those other little tricks that make driving in traffic so chancy under the best of circumstances.

This delay, my roommate seemed to believe, was an indication that we should drive ourselves to the mountains instead of taking the bus, but I don't think so. I don't think it's an advantage to be stuck behind the wheel of your car in a traffic jam, instead of sprawled out in an over-sized bus. Nor do I think that ending the day with the prospect of an hour-long drive back through Denver would add to the joy of these trips. People drive like nuts on that road. At least once a year (in the winter) you hear about someone getting killed in an accident.

Besides, taking the bus is more ecological. If more people took the bus, then there wouldn't be the same ghastly traffic jams through the canyon.

One thing that's a continual astonishment to me is the behavior of people taking mass transit to the mountains. I noticed it last year when we took the (summer) ski train to Winter Park and I've been noticing it this year on the bus up to Blackhawk...that a large number of people nap, read the newspaper, or talk on their cell phones instead of, you know, looking out at the truly magnificent scenery beside the road.

What's the point of going to the mountains if you're not going to look at the mountains?