Jumping Fish

Last Thursday we hiked in the Chautauqua (means jumping fish in Iroquois) National Historic Landmark area of Boulder. There is an amphitheater there (we have tickets to see Keb Mo in August at this venue). Apparently, the Chautauqua movement is all about providing an accessible place for adults to meet to share ideas, information and art. Pretty neat. The first was started as a place to train Sunday school teachers and led to traveling Chautauquas; however, the movement was never linked to any one particular denomination of Christianity. These places actually morphed into a sort of low-grade college for some. Before radio and television this movement and these areas provided a place and a way for people to get together to learn and share. Theodore Roosevelt said of the Chautauquas that they are "the most American thing in America." The Colorado Chautauqua was founded in 1898.

According to the website for the association, the "movement pretty much died out by the mid-1930s. Most historians cite the rise of the car culture, radio, and movies as the causes. There were several other important, yet subtle, reasons for the decline. One was the sharp increase in fundamentalism and evangelical Christianity in the 20s; the bland non-denominationalism exhibited at most chautauquas couldn't accommodate these impulses. Many small independent chautauquas became essentially camp meetings or church camps. Another—seemingly contradictory influence—was the rise of the liberated, educated woman. Chautauquas functioned for many lower- and middle-class women much as the elite women's colleges did for upper-class women. They were training grounds from which women could launch "real" careers. When professional and educational opportunities increased, interest in chautauquas dwindled. Finally, the Depression itself made chautauquas economically impossible for organizers and audiences."

We were not able to tour the concert venue that day, but here are some pictures of our hike:

Then, yesterday I went to this bootcamp thing at Red Rocks. It was literally horrible. HOR-RI-BLE. When I ran this morning all my muscles hurt with each step. All of them - even my neck. We had to run up these crazy huge bleachers. Skip up them. Do push-ups up them. Yep. Do crazy long chair sits and other ridiculous exercises like hey - put your legs on the wall and then do push-ups. Ok - now take on leg off the wall. Now one arm. So, basically - please do a one armed push-up with one leg in the air and the other on the wall. OK. We also had to climb over walls (I am short) and carry big rocks over head while lunging for way too long. Oh and we played a run game called "crawl under this fence without touching anything to the ground but your hands and toes - now do it again - now ten more times. It lasted for three hours and I was fit to be tied. The setting was beautiful, but that was quickly lost on me. I know I really didn't have to do any of it, but I don't like being shown up....

Speaking of running in the A.M. I get up a couple times a week at 5:30 to run. I thought that was pretty impressive until last week as I was walking the TWO blocks to my friends house and counted 17 other people up and out running, biking, roller blading or walking their dog at 5:30 in the morning. I think that is a lot of people to see it a short distance at such a crazy early time and I didn't even include people in cars in the count! Shows you how the Coloradoans live....