CRUISING AROUND DENVER

The days slip by far too quickly and I can't believe that our visit to Denver is almost over. It's been such a happy time and it's going to be hard to leave the family here - we leave tomorrow for London.

We've been to the Denver Museum to birdwatch in the dioramas - a new experience for us, walked around Barr Lake to see the Bald Eagle and chicks, had dinner parties meeting some of David & Maeve's friends and eaten the most delicious food. Maeve is a marvellous cook and so we've been spoilt rotten. We've seen where she hangs out - plays golf and walks with her friends and seen the way out Denver Art Gallery designed by Libeskind.

Maeve in her front courtyard

David, Maeve, Conal, Louise & Gilly

qt Red Robin - the best hamburger joint.

HOME TO DENVER - COMPLETING THE CIRCLE

The typography changed rapidly and now we were introduced to the Sangre de Cristo Mountains rising above a vast arid dusty plain - such a contrast to the lush valleys. We saw the sand dunes at the foot of the mountains formed by the prevailing west winds on the way to Crestone a small town renown for its  for its tolerance where Buddhists live side by side with a Carmelite monastery and the houses are built in between the scrubby bushy trees. We were fascinated by the people having lunch in the restaurant. And then then long drive back to Denver, past the Rio Grande River.

Vast arid St Louis plain with the Sangre de Cristo mountains in the background

On this trip we saw: 43 of the 54 peaks over 14,000 feet, 4 major rivers and drove 1,500 miles (2,000 kms) completing the circular route. We drove up high passes so high that we felt as if we were flying, dipping down into crevices carved by fast flowing rivers flanked by awesome rock faces. We've seen sights that have delighted us, eaten steaks that we didn't think possible to finish, laughed and chatted and caught up on missing years. David and Maeve have shown us the places that they love and David's knowledge and the way he has organised the trip and their generosity has made this a week we'll always remember.

SAN JUAN SKYWAY

Switzerland in the USA - We left Cortez to drive through the most spectacular Alpine scenery close to the New Mexican border. Bright green valleys with lime green aspen and the peaks ever-present. Up the Lizard pass lined with snowdrifts and fast flowing river snaking below us. David knows the names of all the mountain peaks and the passes some as high as 11,000 feet above sea level.

 

Fields and aspens

We have developed a routine where we stop off for coffee and this time we stopped at a little ski resort called Telluride nestling in the crook of the valley. Its a delightful little town and this is where Christine Binckley and Tom Cruise hang out. David spotted a bookshop with a coffee shop - say no more. My kinda bookshop with the best coffee we have had in the States so far, but then the coffee Downunder is hard to beat. It was a beautiful day so we popped into a deli to buy lunch and had our picnic in a field with the snow-capped peaks as our back-drop. We drove through the Dallas Divide and the Red Mountain pass through a town called Ouray stopping off at Silverton, a town that's straight out of a Western movie. This is Butch Cassidy country. The hotel's heavy mahogany bar even had a bullet hole in it - it didn't take much to imagine the people who must have lived in the town and frequented the hotel. This is a mining town and there are lots of abandoned silver and gold mine shafts in the mountains. Coal is still being mined in the area but I suspect that the town depends heavily on the tourist trade.

  

Silverton

More spectacular passes took us to Durango where we spent the night in an upmarket hotel on the banks of the Animus River. Durango is another mining town although now the vandium and uranium mines are closed. We had a lovely evening walking along the river and then went to a little French place for dinner where the size of the helping of coq au vin defeated us.  

In front of our hotel in Durango

MESA VERDE - CANYONS OF THE ANCIENTS

Spruce Tree House

We drove from Moab back into Colorado to a museum near Dolores to look at an exhibition of artefacts found in the area - pottery, basket ware and a kiva (a dug-out house) from the Anasazi Indian tribe who lived in the area. On to Cortez from where we went to the Mesa Verde an area on top of a plateau where the ancestral Puebloans (Anasazi) lived about 1,400 years ago. It's fascinating place - they kept improving their homes until they built sophisticated dwellings in areas in the canyons.

There are a number of dwellings like this one and where the overhang provided protection.

Gorge in the Mesa Verde

We were lucky to dodge the rain storms to shelter under the overhang when there was a downpour - including hail. The Anasazi only lived here for 100 years before disappearing and no one is quite certain what happened - other than there was a prolonged severe drought. They made beautiful baskets, pottery and jewellery, planted maize, beans and bartered with their neighbours. A sophisticated economy - this all before the Europeans arrived.

ARCHES AND CANYONS

Conal walking down Manhattan

We seem to have four seasons every hour - we soon left the verdant valley and mountain area and after a pass we drove through Karoo-like countryside where the hills and mountains are known are mesas and buttes. Wide open spaces with bright green strips close to the river crossing the border into Utah to Moab, one of the top adventure towns. Now this is cowboy country but Harley Davidsons have replaced cowboys and we've never seen so many winnebagos and camper vans. Moab is a nondescript town - wide streets with lots of restaurants. Fortunately David booked in a B&B called the Castle Valley Inn in a beautiful area close to the Colorado River run by a South African woman and her husband. It was a perfect place to spend two nights - Jeanette and Jason proved to be warm friendly hosts. They met in San Antonio in Texas and I wondered whether Frank and Kate know them. A lovely couple who looked after us well. This is a fascinating area and a dream place for geologists. We drove through the Arches National Park where the rock formations are sculptural and the red sandstone rocks have eroded to form arches.

Delicate Arch

The vegetation is also interesting - the dunes are covered with a krypto biotic layer consisting of fungi, bacteria and moss that binds the soil together and is of course very sensitive and if broken takes decades to repair. The giant wall faces of the canyon are marked by desert varnish - they think that this might be a mixture of a fine manganese/iron layer trapped by bacteria from the dust and air. This is truly a mind blowing place to visit.

Canyon-land

We spent the afternoon exploring the canyons not far away - where the Colorado and Green Rivers have carved deep canyons into the sandstone. We drove to Dead Horse Point -this is where the movie Thelma and Louise was shot and where they drove over the cliff for their last hurrah. You can see the road in the picture below.

Thelma & Louise's take off

The eroded canyons expose up to 9 layers of different types of sediment - and the scale of it is quite mind boggling. The vegetation is also fascinating - stunted juniper, pinyon pine and cedar trees many hundreds of years old.  This has been an awesome experience and we are continually saying wow and every day have our minds filled with wonderful images to replay. 

Next stop - Mesa Verde ----

CROSSING THE ROCKIES DIVIDE - DENVER TO THE UTAH BORDER

We woke this morning with the exciting news that Steve and Sarah's little girl was born at just after 4 am. A 23 hour labour --- so Stella Catherine has at last made her appearance. Wonderful news.

Did I say we were tracing summer?

 

Brrrr-----

We left Denver this morning stopping off in the quaint mining town of Georgetown for coffee with snow drifting down. Past Vail and all the ski resorts through snow drifts with the fir tree branches heavily laden and the roofs of houses covered in snow - this in May? It's a great surprise and exquisite. Then through the Glenwood Canyon tracking the fast flowing Colorado River winding deeply through the gorge, where the rocks are layered and stacked like lego and the aspens new lime coloured leaves contrast with the red stones of the mountains. We had a pub lunch in Glenwood at a hotel where Teddy Roosevelt stayed and it is claimed that this is where the teddy originated. Apparently he went out bear hunting and was disappointed that he was unsuccessful so the hotel made him a bear out of material - his young daughter named the bear Teddy.

Home of the teddybears 

Conal cunningly disguised as a true blue Ozzie watching the passing scene in Aspen.

The temperature ranged between 32F - over 60F!
It was too cold to walk up to Doc Holliday's grave but we drove to just below the cemetery on a little kopje - and on through the beautiful valley to a monastery called St Benedict's a peaceful secluded retreat nestling in a wide valley with the backdrop of snow covered mountains. David has been there on a number of occasions.  It is a spiritual place where Thomas Keating wrote and taught and was well known for the Centering Prayer. The monks originally belonged to the order where silence is practised and there are rooms for meditation and accommodation built of stone that blends into the surroundings where people can come for a retreat  - it was a difficult place to leave.
We got to Aspen for tea and can understand why this is the most exclusive ski resort in the States - the town has lovely old buildings and the shops - well Dior, Prada -  says it all. The people walking through the streets all look as if they could be in movies. The ski lift starts right in the village & if one lost control one could easily land up crashing into Dior!

We arrived at our hotel - Redstone Inn - an old Victorian building in a tiny village originally built in 1902 by John Osgood who made his fortune from mining coal in the valley nearby. The road where one turns off to the hotel is lined with the coke kilns. It's been a perfect day driving through the most spectacular scenery.

DENVER - THE MILE HIGH CITY

Dinner at Gilly's apartment

We only just made our flight to Denver and have spent the past few days just hanging out and resting. The weather hasn't been great - overcast & raining. Yesterday we spent the morning in Boulder - it's grown into quite a large town since my first visit. We wandered down a very pretty tree-lined boulevard window shopping and went into the most fantastic homewares store where the sheer volume of beautiful stuff had me gasping. Piles of exquisite French jacquard table clothes with napkins to match and every conceivable thing one could possibly want.

Our next stop - Utah and Louis L'Amour country..... real cowboy territory.

Dwarfed by the giants of the forest

      On Sunday Steve & Sarah took us to Muir Woods to see the giant red woods. It's not far from San Francisco across the Golden Gate Bridge which isn't gold at all but a deep red. We were so lucky with the weather - although cool it was sunny and Muir Woods a sheer joy. The red woods even more awesome than expected and we had a lovely time walking through the filtered sunlight between the giant trees along a little creek. A perfect way to worship on a Sunday morning.

Reaching all the way to heaven

We had lunch in a charming little village called Mill Valley - and then back to the Apple Store where I bought this little Apple Mac - now we're online and it's a joy to have this small light easy to manage computer. Am thrilled to bits!

Monday: Each day we look expectantly at Sarah - her baby is due at the end of this week but could arrive any day and so we are never sure whether we'll wake to find that she's gone to the hospital. Lucky for us we were able to have her with us for the three days and now we keep waiting for news.

On Monday we went to Cafe Trieste in the Italian centre for coffee and then to Telegraph Hill to look for the parrots. Lovely views across the city -

Italian Centre - Steve and Conal (with me in the middle)

Sarah, the bump and me at Telegraph Hill

And then to the Thirsty Bear dodging the rain to have lunch and then to the SFMOMA where we had a marvellous time looking at fabulous modern art. A real treat.

We left for Denver on Tuesday - nearly missing the plane because there was a traffic jam and then had to negotiate the mass of people at the airport so that we had to do a sprint only making it by minutes. 

SAN FRANCISCO

Steve & Sarah were at the airport to meet us - Sarah with a splendid bump. We drove to the Embarcadero and the Fairy Building on the waterfront close to the Bay Bridge where there is a huge farmer's market every Saturday. Lovely way to stretch our legs and wander through lots of organic stalls with lovely fresh produce. After a great cup of coffee from Blue Bottle we bought sandwiches from one of the stalls and sat on a bench for lunch. While taking this photo two young mums with babies in prams asked if we'd like them to take a photo with all of us. They were sisters, one from Jakarta, who met up here. While chatting to the one sister called Heather, Sarah mentioned that she has a friend there called Sarah who was getting married - amazing 'sliding doors moment' when Heather said 'I don't believe it - she's my best friend" - So photos were taken and immediately sent by iphone. Oh the wonder of modern technology!
I love San Francisco - S&S live in the inner city where the houses are mostly terrace houses painted in pastel colours with lovely facades - and pretty gardens. Driving around is rather like being on a roller coaster with steep hills being a challenge to anyone who doesn't have an automatic drive.

FAREWELL - WAVING GOOD BYE

Gwen, Louise, Lorraine, Nicky, Lisa, Gee

Sue & Maria

We've had a flurry of farewell parties - such fun.

Maria organised a farewell lunch for me with all our mates at a Thai restaurant in Mosman - a lovely way to say good bye & catch up.

Also had a lovely send-off at Bennetts - will miss all the Cool Cats and the fun coffee breaks while trying to make an impact on the tsunami of books.

 

Kylie, Jenny, Anush, Louise, Janet, Bo, Kai, Louisa, Bruce, Li, Kylie

Conal's busy making 'padkos' and I still have to finish packing. We leave at 11h30 & so then the fun Next post will be from San Francisco!!!



REDUCED TO TWO SUITCASES

Our lives have now been reduced to two suitcases each for the next year. Quite a challenge and only time will tell whether we've made the right choices.

BOXED UP & ON OUR KNEES

 Apple Movers dropped a bombshell when they phoned on Monday to ask whether we would be prepared to move on Tuesday - a day earlier than planned. So it was fast forward and Conal and I set to packing with a vengeance. Isn't it strange how the stuff left seems directly proportional to what has been packed and one never seems to finish? Thankfully them coming a day early turned out to be the best thing that could have happened as it meant that we could see what still had to be done. Yesterday was a nightmare of immense proportions and we crawled back to Anton & Gee's thankful that we were doing this now while we are still moderately fit. So lovely to be with them on the final few days where we're spoilt and looked after.The cleaners moved in as the van moved off and we've just been back to our stripped bare house to find that there was one cupboard that the movers missed - grrrr....We left flowers for our tenants
and they move in tomorrow.
Now we only have two more sleeps until we leave ---