HELLO LONDON!

We had to travel via Chicago on United Air and all I can say is that they are a no frills kind of airline - none of the usual hand-outs that we've grown accustomed to even in cattle class - not even a bottle of wine with meals. Correction - you could have a bottle of wine but had to buy it $7 for one of those miniature bottles. But - we arrived at Heathrow early and must have been the first to land because we shot through so quickly that we were at Peter's just after 7 am - record time.

Peter lives just across the Battersea Bridge and Battersea Park is at the end of the road. It's a wonderful location - we walk past the Norman Foster offices and the donut building he designed, across the Albert Bridge (presently being renovated) , past the house where Scott of the Antarctic lived to King's Road, Chelsea.  What I love about London are the layers of history and unexpected surprises around every corner.  We love wandering along King's Road people spotting and boutique gazing stopping to have our morning cup of coffee at one of the Italian coffee shops - the shops of course are deeevine and the people fascinating. Just anyone who is anybody can and does pop up in King's Road. Being here is such a treat. Peter's daughter Jessica and her husband Symon, live next door and they share the garden and there is a constant flow of people and we never know how many people there will be for dinner. Peter went to Ballymaloe cookery school near Waterford and produces delicious food effortlessly like a magician. We've met up with so many of our family here - we met the twins born to Chris & Davina on the 13th May, Cathy (Stephen's daughter) who lives in a flat two doors away and Caroline and Lucy (Stephen's wife and daughter) spent a few nights here.

The twins Archie and Hugo Lanigan-O'Keeffe

GOOD BYE DENVER

No trip to Denver is complete without a visit to the Tattered Cover Bookstore. It's moved from Cherry Creek, Maeve's local shopping centre so it's more difficult to get to but David kindly took me there yesterday. I'd had indifferent reports about it so I was pleasantly surprised. The TC is now in a little theatre complete with stage and is just as lovely although smaller - I could live there. We arrived to the smell of really good coffee - the same green carpet and wonderful wooden bookshelves, large old comfortable sofas - such a welcoming space to read and browse. There were constant references to the theatre - a reading pit with some of the old theatre seats and the dummy reading a paper that was the signature of the Cherry Creek store sitting up some stairs to one of the boxes. It's a pure delight ---

Next stop - London.....

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 ----