Denver, Boulder and back to Denver

Well the arrival in Denver was a blast of fresh air after New Orleans. The original plan was to travel from New Orleans to Austin and then onto Denver. The evacuation to Dallas kind of changed that as I would have had to backtrack to go to Austin (aside: we were originally going to be evacuated to Baton Rouge, Louisiana or Houston, Texas and so the original plan would have still worked and I was actually going to head to Austin with one the guys from New Orleans but Dallas changed all that). After flying into Denver (I couldn't face another 18-hour Greyhound) and catching the bus into the centre, I could hear what sounded like a jazz festival. This wasn't so much of a surprise after the previous festivals that I had been through since being ion the States. However, carrying on it turned out that this was not just any old festival but 'A Taste of Colorado'. Basically it is a combination of festival and funfair back home, so there was a variety of music stages, fairground rides and a whole assortment of food stalls. I can't think of anything that could have been more different from the scenes in New Orleans. In some ways it was good to see so many people enjoying themselves but in others all I could think about were the friends that had departed in Dallas.

The next day, which happened to be Labor Day (US spelling!), was very quiet with most of the public buildings closed. I spent most of my time replacing the stuff that I had had to give up in New Orleans. I also used my time to email everyone back home to tell them my story (most of which is now the previous post in this blog). Writing that email was a little emotional but I couldn't really show that I did it whilst sitting in a cafe / bar and would probably have got some very wierd looks. I also used the time to pick up some books to replace those that I had already read. Because they were cheap I picked up some classics: 'War of the Worlds' - just seen the recent film, 'A Picture of Dorian Gray' - just seen 'A League of Extraordinary Gentlemen' and was wondering what the background to the Dorian Gray character was, and 'Frankenstein' - having just read a book on science and gene therapy. Will probably do a bit of review of these as I read them.

On the Tuesday I headed up to Boulder - a whole $3.75 from Denver! Boulder is a university town and very laid back. The aim was to use this as a base for walking in the mountains (which were meant to be just a few blocks down from the hostel but were just a little further - major understatement - call that a 30 minute walk and you would be closer to the truth!). Having said that the first day was spent mostly in the library responding to the flood of emails that I got as a result of send out the New Orleans email - thanks you guys, you don't know how much I appreciated those mails, especially the ones which said that it had made you change your mind about the whole situation. Whilst we were in New Orleans we had said that we would do all we could to let people know about the good things that we saw in New Orleans and I hoped I did my little bit. I also rememebered that my cousin worked on a local newspaper back home and she used the basic text of the email in her story as well.

Well the next 2 days were spent hiking, the first up to (almost) Green Mountain and then next up to Royal Arch. There's not really a lot to say about them other than the solitude (the first time in a few days / weeks when I could hear nothing but nature). The other wierd thing was reading the warning signs about ticks, mountains lions and bears. I had just got out of a hurricane and now wild creatures wanted a go! Luckily (or otherwise), the wildest creature I saw was a very inquisitive squirrel (he did pose quite well for the camera though)!

On the Friday I headed back to Denver, with the intention of a quiet night before catching the train over the Rockies. However, I had forgotten about the Oktoberfest that was taking place in Larimer Square that night. Having been to a few in Germany I had to see one in the US. To be honest it was a bit quiet - probably something to do with having to buy coupons for the beer first!