its all coming together

I officially start my job tomorrow. I have trained for 4 shifts and think I'm ready. My new restaurant, in the words of the adorable chef Nick, "is nowhere like you've ever worked before and nowhere like you'll ever work again". There is not one staff member who will tell you its not the best restaurant gig they've ever had. The servers, who are all around my age, have been there from between two months to five years. I have not heard a single complaint. There is no manager. I'm going to repeat that for those of you who have worked in restaurants and understand the weight of this statement... There is NO manager. We control the computer at our own disgression and are simply on a trust system. There is no one barking at you, no one watching you, no one judging you. Tom is the owner. He's a really nice guy and likes the restaurant ran the way he wants it. Everyone runs it that way and therefore, Tom only pops in once in a while. In my four shifts so far he's been in the restaurant for a total of five minutes. There are two shifts. Lunch and Dinner. Lunch starts at 11 and ends at 3. We open for dinner at 5 and that ends at 10. You're either on a the lunch shift or the dinner shift and sometimes you may be asked to do a double where you serve for both. Keeping in mind the law of relativity, I will be making "good money". Let us all remember that $300 dollars of NYC money is equal to $150 dollars in Denver, CO. When one walks into my restaurant, which is called Trattoria Stella (the west one, there are two-google it), they are met with the aromas of roasted garlic, sauteed italian herbs and truffle oil. Not a bad place to be for five hours. If you can't tell, I feel like I've really hit a jackpot here. I think I've found the best serving job in the country. My co-workers are all amazing and I've been feeling pretty guilty knowing that my plans are to leave at the end of the summer. Part of me wishes I didn't like it so much. I'm getting attached quickly. I see Rachel has told you about our mountain adventure. The funny part about that is while we were choosing where to hike for the day, there was a ten minute period where we were set on hiking up Mount Evans. Mt. Evans elevation in 14,122 feet..or around there. To put this into perspective, Mt.Rainer in Washington is the tallest mountain in the lower 48 states. It is also a fourteener, I believe, being only a few hundred feet taller than Evans. The city of Denver sits a mile high above sea level at five thousand and something feet. Let's pretend that once you are in the foothills you are at around 6,000 feet. To hike up Evans, you must climb approx. 8,000 feet to the summit. You can drive, but those of you who know me (all of you), know that I would find this prospect unacceptable. I will drive it after I've arrived at the summit on foot which I am absolutely determined to do this summer. But back to numbers...for a comparison...Mt. Everest is the tallest mountain in the world, summiting at 29,035 ft. It sits on the borders of Nepal and Tibet. Base Camp on the Nepal side towers over any American peak at 17,500 feet. This means that a climber must rise over 11,000 ft to reach the top. Mt.Everst is obviously a million times harder and more dangerous to climb, but all I'm trying to show you, is that the distance in vertical feet from Denver to the top of Mt. Evans is FAR MORE THAN ONE DOES IN A LEISURLY HIKE. Thankfully, our trusty pal Betty, turned on her serious face and told us today was not the day. Since then I've learned that you can't even hike up there until the summer because there is still too much snow on the trail. I've also learned that you need to leave very very early in the morning. Like all tall mountains, and I should have known this, there is a "peak" time. Not a prime time, but a time in the day which you must reach the top and begin your descent because weather conditions high on the mountain after this peak time deteriorate and make for an unsafe environment for those who are not mountain goats. We decided to hike in Boulder instead. We climbed a small peak that was slightly over 8,000 ft. Well my friends, let me tell you, that even if we HAD gone to Mt.Evans that day, we were NOT gettin to far! To hike up and down Green Mountain took Rachel and I five and a half hours! It was extremely difficult at times and there were moments when I wondered how long it would take a rescue team to carry me down the mountain and transport me to a hospital. There were several bits of the trail coming down that seemed a bit dicey and I couldn't believe the trail didn't come with a warning! There were a few trails you see, and we chose to come down a different one than we had climbed. Dogs weren't allowed on the one coming down...let's put it that way. Next time I'm going to recognize that this means that if you attempt this trail with no thumbs for tight, holding on for your life, gripping of rocks, you probably won't make it down the mountain without serious injury at best. I will tell you though that since the moment we made it to the car, all I've wanted to do, is do it again. And eventually, this summer, I am NOT leaving Colorado without standing on the summit of Mount Evans. You can always see it from pretty much wherever you are as long as your facing West so I can only imagine what you see when you're standing on the top. Rachel is on her way home and I'm not even dressed for the day so I bid you adieu. lj