Boulder Bliss

Sweet Potato fries with homemade aioli, *best house salad ever*, buger with pickeled onions and cilantro pesto @ SHINE. 

Picking our OSHO Tarot Cards. Super intense, super insightful, bit emtotional. Even Oshos' cards are the best.

"I think that I want to like burbon"....Em sipping Old Fashioneds @ SALT. 

Yet another epic meal at my beloved SALT (best restaurant in Boulder, hands down). Sipping on a deeeelicious Grenache from France and eating a perfectly roasted duck served over lentils and figs. 

Having a lazy morning, playing with the boxes of "samples" that Emily has, and making myself a goodie bag. 

So day one in Boulder was a success. Grabbed the AB bus from the airport to Boulder, Emily met me on Pearl street and first stop was FOOD (obviously). Emily knows that I love to eat, and she shares that same passion - so she had a list of 20 different restaurants that we needed to try (in the next 5 days haha). Everything is fresh and local and made.with.love. Our first meal was at Shine. We had bread with fresh yam butter. I had a watermelon soda, Emily had one of the housemade tonics "Fairy Bubbles" hahaha, it was delicious and nutritious. She had coconut curry with vegetables and I went big and got their organic grass fed burger on a gluten free roll - with pickled onions (epic) and cilantro pesto (epic). It came with a house salad, and the salad honestly made me excited. I don't know if it was the dressing or what, but it was outstanding. And a meal isnt a meal without french fries, so I got the sweet potato fries with fresh aioli. So far, so good. We sat and talked for a loooooong time. Emily is one of my oldest and best of friends, but we never talk on the phone. We just cross paths about once a year and have a full blown love affair, picking up right where we left off. It's so comforting to have friends like this, and I'm very grateful for all that she does for me.  For all of you who pick the "Ask Your Guides" cards with me (and theres a lot of you)...these were a gift from Emily. She also turned me onto Osho's Tarot Cards. After lunch we bopped around Pearl street and wandered into a spiritual book store, talking about Osho, Ram Dass, what our animal spirit guides might be, and all sorts of other super hippy dippy shit. She bought a deck of tarot cards, and I got a deck as well, "Messages from your Animal Spirit Guides" (I love this kind of shit). As I paid for my cards, the man ringing me up looked at me with a big smile and said "GOD BLESS YA". I got chills. He not only said my Dads most used phrase, but he said it the same.exact.way. that Dad did. I told him that my Dad always said that, and he looked back at me and chimed "Well, God Bless Him. I bet ya he's a great guy, give him a hug for me."

We walked back to her apartment, decompressed and digested and talked and laughed. We dropped off my stuff, made some Marshmellow tea (this is not like smores marshmallows, its a bark, and its great for locking moisture into the skin), and then we picked Osho cards. It's not the same as picking from the Ask Your Guides deck, you actually have to lay them out and theres a system. I cried, I laughed - Oshos fucking cards were spot on.

We grabbed a 7:30pm class back in town at Om Time (one of my favorite studios here). My yoga student and friend, Paige, from OC (who now goes to CU in Boulder) joined us. When we walked in Paige said "Cailin, I have taken a ton of yoga classes, with a ton of instructors, since being in boulder - and none compare to you." Funny she should say that, because this teacher that we had was the antithesis of me. First of all, she had that obnoxious "yoga voice" that fucking obnoxious voice - you all know what I'm talking about. She began with "this is an INvolution, as me make an EVolution, and  blah blah blah". She was rambling in "yoga talk" that didn't even make sense. If you are going to speak mumbo-jumbo, you need to BELIEVE it when you say it. This chick was just quoting every yoga instructor that she'd ever encountered. To make it worse, her "life partner" Suki Suki would let out a lonnnng, overexaggerated MOAN every 5 minutes. I didn't know whether to laugh or slap a bitch. We made it through the class, and though I was TRYING not to keep count, the instructor said "INvolution" and "cosmic dance" over 70times. We walked out and let out a much suppressed laugh. If I ever become THAT teacher, please, hit me.

Emily and I changed and then headed to my fave fave fave restaurant in Boulder, SALT. It's farm to table, sustainable, delicious food -- and every man that works in the kitchen is 6 foot tall and gorgeous. Boom. We started with cocktails, kale salad, and a farm house salad. Then came the duck egg flatbread with arugala and lemon vinagrette. Holy hell. We split the duck entree, which was just out of this world. Perfectly cooked served with an apple cider vinegar reduction, over creamy lentils and sauteed grapes, with fresh figs. Heavenly.

We were home by midnight and fell right to sleep. Emily has to work this morning but she left out all of her goodies for me to play with. A took an hour long hot bath and used about a dozen salt scrubs and face washes, toners and lotions. I have scrubbed my feet and used organic creme on my hands, I have 20 different lotions on my body right now and I smell damn good.

Heading into town now to Ozo for some of their delicious espresso...meeting Paige for lunch and yoga and then Ethiopian for dinner tonight. Boom. Boulder.