Colorado
Been in Denver for over a week, attended customer conference and meetings. Nice to catch up with people that I haven't seen in a while. Weather turned bad on the weekend, but there's snow in them there hills, looks really pretty. Watched our friend Aston (10 years old) play football on Saturday, these kids look twice as big with all their padding, but boy did they take is seriously.
Denver is going mad at the moment because the local baseball team, the Rockies are playing off to make their first ever World Series. They are currently 3-0 up in a best of 7 final. They play again tonight against the Arizona Diamondbacks and are expected to win, so it'll probably be a late night again.
On Sunday July 25th I went for a day hike to James Peak, which sits right on the North American Continental Divide. I left home at 4:40am, and meet at Kirt and Lorri Schumann’s place in Nederland at 5:30am. Always thought that there was only one 5:30 in a day and that was just before tea. It took us just over an hour to get to the car park, where we watched a herd of about 40 Elk and a few Deer start to move into the trees once they noticed us. The early start seems to be mandatory when hiking in the mountains. The summer months are always accompanied by afternoon thunder storms. Not something you want to be in on an open mountain. In fact a guy from New York was killed last week by lightning and all his family hospitalised while they were out in the mountains not very far from where we live.
We left the car and the tree line just on 7:00 am and where immediately hit by almost cyclone type winds. The steepness of the climb together with the head on winds just about made walking impossible. If fact once I cleared the first knoll, after about half an hour, I was actually blown over by the ferocity of the wind. I wasn’t having much fun yet! We pushed on across the tundra for another half hour before we sort some shelter behind a rock outcrop, and had our first decent break around 11,000 feet. The colour of the mountains was enchanting, with red, blue, yellow, and pink wildflowers on the vibrant green of the meadow grasses.
We now got a break, not from the wind, but a bit of a down hill incline to the base of the summit. After the first hour of constantly climbing upwards it was a great respite. But now the altitude and the wind were combining to make the temperature unpleasant. The sky was overcast, the summit was covered in cloud, and it was COLD. While still in shorts the walking kept your legs warm, but everything else needed protection. With three layers on, I thought about a fourth, and last, but then thought I might need that to get warmer as we got to the top. Gloves went on instead. Lorri opted for some long trousers, and Kirt went for his sherper hat because the wind was giving him ear aches.
We pressed on and once in the shadow of the summit the wind died down a bit. Not a lot, but enough to allow conversation without having to yell. But this also meant that we had to start climbing upwards again. We were now around 12,000 feet, and I could start to feel it. Try putting masking tape over your nose and mouth, pocking a straw through the tape to breath through, and going for a run with a fully laden back pack. I know that this is something that Des Cannon would do, but not any other sane person. This is what lack of oxygen at altitude feels like. Not to mention the slow constant throb in the temples, and the burning sensation in your muscles. Did I mention if I was having fun yet.
Now even though we are in the middle of summer, and it is constantly reaching 100F on the prairie, there are still quite a lot of snow fields and ice flows in sheltered areas on the mountains. We had to cross one. This is something that I have never had to do before when hiking. Fortunately we only had to cross about 80 meters, but try going ice skating without ice skates.
Again finding a rock outcrop for some shelter we stopped for our second decent break, now 2 hours from the car and at an altitude of around 12,500 feet. The view was breath taking. Just at our feet was an almost vertical drop of 1,000 feet to a series of mountain lakes feeding from one to the other. The top of this U shaped rocky canyon was about the same altitude as we were and the clouds were flowing down though it just like dry ice. Sitting there watching clouds swirl around your feet is certainly a unique experience. Not long after sitting down though I could feel the sweat on my back starting to freeze, this was not good, but there wasn’t a lot I could do about it.
Having rested and eaten some performance enhancing carbohydrate supplying food bars that smelt, felt, and tasted like cardboard we tackled the summit. Extremely steep, and scrambling over boulders for most of the way it felt like I had to rest after every ten steeps or so. The good news though was that the wind had fizzled out to gently breeze. We continued on for an hour with heads down and concentrating on methodically putting one foot after the other. Something I once thought was unconsciously and instinctively performed.
We reached the summit at 13,294 feet three hours after leaving the car. It was well worth it, and now I was having fun. The view was nothing short of spectacular. The clouds had lifted, and we could see the ragged peaks of the North American Continental Divide from horizon to horizon some below us, and some above us. Dams and buildings glittered in the sunlight on the prairie 8,000 feet below us to the east. The Rocky Mountains rolled out to the west. Across the next valley and below us were the Mary Jane and Winter Park ski resorts. Feeling like you’re on top of the world, what must Everest be like?
We rested here a while within a circle of rocks that somebody had built up into a shelter much like an igloo without the final roof. We signed the visitors book supplied by the Colorado Hiking Club, and congratulated each other on our sterling effort. Lorri was extremely lucky to find half a grub in the apple she was eating, and Kirt had numerous attempts at trying to take a group photo with a self timer that wouldn’t cooperate. I’m sure the photos of his back will bring back a flood of memories.
Feeling invigorated by our achievement, and our rest, we headed down the summit at a run. This did not last too long, but was a sign to start removing some layers of clothing. Jackets and gloves came off. Coming down we were able to take a more direct path, although it meant crossing three ice flows. With the aid of gravity, we sort of skated down the ice. It wasn’t a very pretty picture trying to maintain your balance with arms swinging every which way, but it was fun.
Half way back across the tundra, a group of four wheel drives passed us just by the sign that read "NO MOTORIZED VEHICLES". We weren’t sure if they could read, of if they just didn’t have engines. Either way, we just waved and kept going. Kirt has a GPS and was able to tell us how far we were from the car, and how long it would take us to get there. Extremely useful I thought, and I’ll be getting one before we head home, but we had to point out to Kirt that when you can actually see the car yourself there is not much point in trying to navigate with the GPS.
We made it back to the car in two hours from the summit. A little tired and sore, would you believe that I twisted my knee just before we reached the car, and then Kirt and Lorri tell me that this was an easy walk.
It’s now a few months since I last put fingers to keyboard so there is a bit of catching up to do. I will be brief in an effort not to bore you.
Basically the weekends in February, March and half of April Craig spent skiing and had a great time. He skied Eldora, Aspen, Aspen Highlands, Snowmass, Winter Park (x2), Mary Jane (x2), Copper (x3), Loveland, Vail, Keystone, Breckenridge, and Steamboat Springs. The highlight for all of us (apart from the Aspen weekend in January) was the weekend we spent in Steamboat. A very pretty spot, we had been here last summer so it was good to see it in winter. And boy was there an abundance of snow. We drove up Friday night and the drive itself over Rabbit Ear Pass wasn’t pleasant. The road was steep and icy and we were very glad to arrive safely. We met up with 3 other families that were joining us for the weekend and we had a picnic dinner in the hotel breakfast room on the Friday night. On Saturday morning Amy and Craig headed over to the mountain to ski and Kyle, Ingrid and I headed downtown to check out the winter carnival that happened to be on. The main street was closed and they were having various horse races down a snow covered street. It was quite terrifying to watch, horses belting down the street sometimes towing people sitting on shovels, other times towing kids on skis and snowboards. It was fun to watch though.
We headed back to the mountain to pick Amy up after lunch and then we went back to the hotel to swim in the pool. Everyone else arrived back late afternoon and then we headed out to a ranch on the Yampa River for a sleigh ride and dinner. It was snowing and freezing cold but lots of fun. Each sleigh was drawn by two horses and carried about 20 people. After the ride it was back to the cabin for a steak dinner, served with potatoes and beans and it was delicious. The guy who owned the property was a jack of all trades, dressed in a drizabone coat he drove the bus that takes the people out to the property and then he drove the sleigh. He also provided the entertainment as we ate dinner, singing, dancing and playing assorted instruments. He entertained the kids and made balloon animals. He was an interesting person and obviously enjoyed what he did for a living. He’d been to Australia and so he was quite taken with the Aussie visitors.
On Sunday Craig was burnt out from all the skiing he did on the Saturday so we headed back into town to watch the carnival some more. It snowed overnight again so there was lots of snow and ice on the roads. We headed home about lunch time to hopefully avoid the traffic and bad road conditions over the Pass.
So the rest of the winter months were spent skiing one day of the weekend and then either going to the movies, swimming or just hanging out. Storage Tek had an open day that we attended, finally getting to see Craig’s office and the inside of buildings we had driven past for 18 months. From the outside we could never see a lot and the small windows didn’t help. On the inside it was a completely different story, with brightly painted corridors and unusual art work throughout. We toured the various manufacturing areas and saw the large tape library robots working. The thing that most fascinated Amy and Kyle was the large white board in Craig’s office, so much for hi-tech kids.
Our friends from Michigan came to visit for a week in March and they didn’t get a good start to their holiday. Their flight on the Friday night was delayed and then cancelled meaning they had a stay over in Detroit before they could head out here on the Saturday morning. I had the bright idea of heading out to dinner on the way to the airport Friday night so we didn’t check on the flight arrival time before we left. After spending time at the airport Friday night finally to learn they wouldn’t be arriving we headed back out the next morning at 6 am to meet them. They looked like they had just stepped off the flight from Sydney so Saturday afternoon was spent with everyone sleeping and catching up.
We toured around most of the week and had one day skiing at Copper Mountain. They also have 2 kids so the four children were packed off to day care at the mountain and the four adults were able to hit the slopes (literally in some cases). I asked Amy if she wanted to ski and she said no she wanted to play with the kids. But then we learnt that the child care was for 4 years and under so we told her she would have to 4 for the day. Well the pressure was too much and as we drove to the mountain she said she would go skiing. Poor kid, the pressure of telling a white lie is just too much. Anyway when we went to drop the others off at day care she changed her mind again and said she would be four for the day. When we picked them up late that afternoon she said no-one asked how old she was and she and Kyle had a great day playing together. What a relief.
The week after Liz and Mark headed home to Michigan our Aussie friends Ingrid and David left, heading back to Sydney after a 2 ½ year stay in Colorado. We took them to the airport to see them off and now we will just have to drive to Sydney when we get home to visit them.
During this time Kyle has been attending a playgroup, which by coincidence turns out to be all boys. He has a great time and often talks about his best friends Cody and Ryan. He has just finished swimming lessons for the time being. The local outdoor pool opens again on Memorial Day holiday at the end of May so we’ll start swimming there soon.
Amy has a few weeks of school left before the big 3 month summer vacation. She has had a great year in Kindergarten and is looking forward to getting back to Burra so that she can catch the bus to school. She has become the social butterfly, constantly going to friend’s houses and having friends over. I haven’t told her yet but this won’t quite be so easy back in Burra.
We now have about 5 months of our stay left and we have a busy summer planned to fit everything in. We are off to Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming with 2 other families in June for our big camping trip (and yes there will be bears at Yellowstone) and then we have weekend camping trips planned to Aspen, the Dinosaur National Monument, Turquoise Lake, Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Monument and hopefully Mesa Verde National Park. We are also expecting a few visitors from home over summer so that will help with the accent adjustment. So the 3 month summer break could go by quickly if we fit everything in. Come late August Amy will start 1st grade at Monarch School and Kyle will commence pre-school at a local church in nearby Broomfield. About this time we hope to ship most of our furniture home so that it will coincide with our arrival back in Australia in October. So after summer things might be a bit hectic.
I hope everyone enjoys winter. At this stage we are looking forward to having 2 summers in a row but then if it is as hot as last summer maybe it won’t be quite so enjoyable. I’ll warn everyone now that both Amy and Kyle have pronounced American accents so please be patient. Kyle is very fond of saying “Howdy Partner” so we may have to debrief him on the plane trip home.
We now receive about 7 mail order catalogs weekly. One arrived recently from an upmarket kitchen shop in Cherry Creek, one of the more affluent suburbs of Denver. Anyway, after flicking through a few pages there was an advertisement for lamb from some ranch in another state. The cost for 6 loin lamb chops was $75, yes you did read that correctly. For a rack of lamb or a boned leg of lamb it was $99 each. Can you believe it. And that wasn't all, you also had to add on delivery costs.
Amy’s school not only have fire drills they also have tornado drills.
Amy was invited over to her friend Sasha’s house after school. Sasha had received a trampoline for her birthday and I had to sign a waiver to say that if Amy went on the trampoline and hurt herself we wouldn’t sue them.
Now at the University of Alberta in Canada you can study a new fourth-year undergraduate course called “Reading Oprah”. As the newspaper article says the course “seeks to locate Oprah’s personality within a larger, intellectual and activist context, tracing her explicit and implicit affiliations with contemporary African-American intellectuals and casting her self-help work in a more politicised historical framework”. Say what…..
Miss Amy's comment to Kyle as we were driving to swimming lessons, "Kyle, why did you keep pushing me when we were in mum's tummy?", and Kyle's knowledgeable response, " 'cause".
The weather has been very mild for this time of the year, although the nights still get down to zero and below. It is certainly very different from this time last year when some days didn't even get to zero. I'm not complaining mind you, yes it was good to experience living in the cold bit I don't think we need to do it on a long term basis.
Well we had a great trip to Santa Fe and Taos for Thanksgiving. It was only about a six hour drive, 3 in Colorado and 3 in New Mexico. We ate lots of great food and got to see lots of historical places, museums and National Parks. We hiked around Bandelier National Monument where there were ruins, cave dwellings and petroglyphs (prehistoric drawings on rocks, mostly carved into the rock) of the ancient Pueblo people. It was really interesting and we had a cool but sunny days for being out and about.
We spent a bit of time also cruising around Santa Fe itself, with its narrow streets and adobe architecture. A place where you could lose yourself in the numerous galleries, restaurants and museums. We took our bikes and intended to ride around Santa Fe but after an hour and numerous punctures on my bike we decided to use our feet instead.
We had Thanksgiving Dinner at "the Inn at the End of the Trail". A lively place with good music but lousy service. We met two gay guys from San Diego on the table next to us and even they commented about how bad our waitress was. After an hour I decided to go and talk to the manager to see where our meals were, the kids were good but this was really testing their patience. Anyway we finally ate and when leaving Craig was so pissed off that instead of not leaving a tip (which I would have done) he decided to leave a 1 cent tip. We didn't go back during our stay…
After a few days in Santa Fe we headed north to Taos, another historic place but a lot more spread out than Santa Fe. There were many Indian Reservations in New Mexico and a large number of Casinos owned and operated by various tribes. On the reservations they have their own government and police force and charge tourists to enter, some even charge you extra if you want to take photos. The famous Taos Pueblo was closed when we went by but we were able to see the mud and straw adobe walls of the houses. There were also some wonderful old churches, also in the adobe style and it was quite amazing to walk around these 3 story buildings imagining how they came together.
We found a great restaurant, called Tim's Chile Connection, so our last night of holidays was capped off by a wonderful meal of roast turkey tacos and stuffed chiles.
Back home the next day we now had to get geared up for all the Xmas happenings. Again, unable to compete with neighbours in the light and tree stakes, we put up our miserly 4 foot tree (one neighbour commented, "oh isn't that cute"). But at least this year we had a tree shirt (a wonderful thing that I can bring back home, hopefully make a heap to sell them at the Burra Fair).
In the lead up to Xmas we went to meet Santa at Storage Tek and he actually had a real white beard, very impressive. We also went to the newly opened Pepsi Centre to see Disney on Ice, this year it was the Little Mermaid and again it was extremely well done. Kyle and Amy both had Xmas parties to attend, and we went to High Tea at the Boulderado Hotel in Boulder. Didn't compare to the Hyatt in Canberra but the Xmas decorations were impressive.
On Xmas Eve we introduced friends and neighbours to the champagne/midori cocktail, it seemed to be a big hit. Xmas Day saw us have a leisurely brunch while playing with new toys and then our Australian friends, Ingrid and David, came over around 2pm for an early dinner. It was a very relaxing day. The only disappointing thing was the lack of snow. Oh well, can't have everything.
Craig worked between Xmas and New year (we need the holidays for summer) and on New Year's Eve we headed down to Denver to the new aquarium, Ocean Journey. Then on the way home we stopped at the Traildust for a steak and Kyle fell asleep at the table. Back home the kids were in bed by 8pm and Craig and I opened our bottle of Dom Perignon and Lindt chocolates and watched "the Matrix" video, trying to recognise parts of Sydney in the movie. We also saw the new year celebrations on Sydney Harbour, in New Zealand and lots of other places and it was great.
Now that we are into the year 2000 we are looking forward to the true millenium at the end of this year. Amy had a 2 week break over Xmas and then we headed to Aspen for a weekend with the Storage Tek ski club. We drove up Friday night, about a four hour drive from home. Saturday morning was cold, but clear blue sky. Ingrid and David came with us and as the guys headed out after breakfast I headed up to the village with the kids to have a look around. Out of the blue Amy said that she would like to ski. We had asked her before but she always said no, it was too scary. Anyway I said okay and we found the ski school and ended up booking her in for a full day lesson. Of course young Kyle was standing there and said well if she can do it so can I, so he had a half day lesson.
After settling them in I left them to it and went back after a while to see how they were doing. Luck was on our side, things were quiet and Amy ended up with an instructor to herself. She was out there having a great time on the beginners slope. The kids used the Magic Carpet to get back to the top of the slope, it's like a travellator that they stand on and it slowly takes them back to the top. Over to see Kyle and there he was, our almost 3 year old on skis, again with his own instructor and would you believe it was a girl from Epping in Sydney. She told me that Kyle was so funny because when he tried to get momentum to go down the slope he obviously wanted it to happen sooner than it was and he started jumping up in the air to make himself go. It was so bright out that they put goggles on him and he had a great time. The half day was enough for him, he was getting tired but said he was eager to go with dad next time.
On Sunday it wasn't such good weather so we just went sledding in the morning and headed home about 1.30. We hope to get back to Aspen over summer to do some camping and hiking. Maroon Bells is supposed to be a great spot to see.
The next weekend we had Kyle's 3rd birthday party. There were 12 adults and 9 kids so we were fortunate that it got to 17C and we were able to be outside in the backyard. We had a B-B-Q and I finally found puff pastry so after 16 months of living here we were able to have sausage rolls. Ah heaven. The meat wasn't quite the same, Craig had to extract it from the skins of pork sausages. Compromise it what it's all about.
The rest of January was spent going to the Stock Show in Denver, a pool party (indoors of course), Amy's dance recital and more skiing for Craig. We are off to Steamboat Springs on February 12/13 for more skiing and I have organised a sleigh ride (with horses) on the Saturday night. There are 3 other families coming away with us that weekend so it should be a lot of fun.
What else is happening, I can't think of anymore at the moment. I hope everyone is having a good summer and when we head home later this year we will get 2 summers in a row, getting our own back for having 2 winters in a row when we arrived.
In the lead up to New Years Eve 17,000 Coloradans decided that having a firearm to protect themselves was mandatory in case of riots, etc. This is how many background checks were performed for firearm purchases in December in Colorado, one million nation wide.
I saw a Pennsylvania license plate and it had the governments web address on the bottom of the plate.
When we were booking camp sites for Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons we discovered that you couldn't reserve a site in the Grand Tetons, it was first come first served. We did manage to find a private campground in the park though and when we rang to make a booking Craig was shocked to learn that it was against the law to take bookings for tent sites. Apparently a law had been passed that stated all tent campers had to stay in the National Park. Can you believe it, we just wanted to make sure we had somewhere to stay and we are being discriminated against because we have a tent. Only in America…
Craig passed on a supposed true story about some guys that went duck hunting in Minnesota. They drove their brand new Jeep Cherokee out onto the frozen lake to find some ducks to shoot. Unfortunately the whole lake was frozen, so there was no water on which the ducks could land. Ah hah, said one of the hunters, I just happened to bring a stick of jellignite (not sure how to spell it) with me. Let's toss it out, blow up the ice and then the ducks can land. Off it went, high into the air and guess what happened, his faithful dog ran out over the ice to fetch it. Running back towards the new Jeep with the explosive in his mouth, the hunters panicked and tried to shoot the dog before he got any closer. After only wounding the poor dog he ran under the car in fright and sure enough, the dog and the new Jeep were blown up. I suppose they did get a hole in the ice for the ducks to land though…. (and by the way I didn't laugh like Craig did).