Chris's lung gurgle had stopped on the way down to Leadville, but in the morning Chris said that he still had a bad headache and had coughed up some blood. Clearly Leadville, over 10,000', was still not low enough to cure him. We would have liked to see the mining museum as Leadville, but getting Chris down was more important.

As efficiently as we could, we packed up and began the 2-hour drive back to Denver. It was Saturday, so the traffic was reasonable. Chris's condition (and everyone else's) improved remarkably as we came out of the mountains, and we were all back to our sea-level state of health by the time we got to REI to return the skis. My only ongoing problem was the diarrhea, so I made use of most of the restrooms on the way. With most of the day to kill (our flight wasn't until 11:55 PM that evening) we met up with fellow 10th Mountaineer Jeff Reichmuth and his family at their house, and had lunch at a Thai restaurant a short walk from there. I was able to eat my first full meal in over 24 hours. In the afternoon we drove to Boulder's famous outdoor Pearl Street Mall, a half hour away, to just to walk around, buy trinkets, and see jugglers and people with cow costumes. Mostly, I appreciated the nice public restrooms, which I was compelled to visit every 20 minutes.

Around suppertime we had nachos and beer in one of the numerous pubs at the mall. (My first non-Diamox-tainted beer this trip.) From there we drove to the airport, paying $6.00 for the privilege of driving a 15-mile toll road to avoid Denver. We still had hours to kill, but it takes so long to check in at Denver that I was glad to have the time. We had dinner at a restaurant in the airport, and departed just before midnight, on time to Hartford. With only a little over three hours in the air, there was not much time to sleep on the plane, so nobody was particularly perky during the hour and a half drive from Hartford back to Hopkinton. There were no more incidents on the drive, and we departed ways from my house around 8 AM.