last night of summer

last friday night we parked up on pine on the west end, and walked down to pearl street. past the old victorian & craftsman houses, over the cracked sidewalks & past small, overgrown alleyways. walked into nick-n-willy's and ordered a few slices of pizza and sat outside at one of two tables on the sidewalk under the big old tree. we talked about restaurants & how much we liked the west end, how it still felt like an old neighborhood & not pretentious. it was one of those evenings. sun falling behind the flatirons, the sidewalk still warm from the afternoon, but there was a cool wind stirring up & the leaves were starting to turn. a last night of summer night. after pizza we decided to take a little look-see into the west end wine shop across the way, then we turned to walk down pearl street towards the heart of downtown, the pearl street mall. then, in the distance we heard unmistakably, a marching band playing. all of a sudden we were surrounded by the entire university of colorado football team & marching band. the team was throwing small gold footballs out to the kids in the gathering crowd & people were dancing & clapping & cheering for CU. at some point during this i looked at sean and said, "...what town are we in?" once the parade had passed, we continued on past street performers, and i stopped into a coffee shop for an americano. as we walked back up the mall sean bought a hotdog from the vendor on the mall and we sat on a bench and listened to a man dressed up like it was the old west, playing his banjo. it was a completely perfect end of summer night. surreal & enchanting. the way that summer should leave you... ready for change, but clinging to the memories.