Nice evening, too. We ended up with one of those gender splits--5 guys headed in one direction, and 3 women in another. The female contingent ate at Mimi's, an unremarkable spot near the hotel that had several lighter food options, which is what we wanted. Then we went by a grocery store to replenish the test room chocolate supply (water-use testing runs on chocolate, preferably dark--the special 60% Lindt truffles have been going fast) and on to the river front in Golden to walk around for exercise. We walked up the creek side walking/biking path as far as the streamgage (Clear Creek at Golden), investigated that setup even though neither Kathi nor I had our keys to poke around inside. Kathi knows a lot more about gages than I do, as she does some surface-water field work.
The creek is lined with several parks, and a stretch of the creek itself is a whitewater park. Lots of kayakers out practicing turns and flips, and lots of people just out walking dogs, jogging, or otherwise enjoying the evening. There were also a large number of Golden police and fire department personnel out standing by the river, some in uniform, and some (less than half, I'd say), in rescue gear with floats on ropes like they might need to toss them to someone in the river. We haven't figured out what was going on--possibly a threatened suicide? Some other possibility of a river rescue being needed? By the time we walked back, most of them were gone. Will check the newspaper tomorrow...
