Boulder

I never really wanted to go to America. My list of places to visit is huge, but America never made the list. How wrong could I have been? The people are really friendly, not brash and arrogant like I expected. We went to Boulder, Colorado, like all parents we went to help our son and daughter-in-law move house, we just travelled a little further than most. Boulder is flat and boring, houses and retail units spread over a vast area of grid roads like you expect in America. BUT it is edged with hills or are they mountains. In Boulder it is easy to join the mile high club, Boulder is a mile above sea level. Those hills are steep and high. I think I’m pretty fit for a 62 year old. I’ll happily walk 15 miles along the fen paths at sea level. I have realised I am not fit. Give me a 4 mile walk, throw in altitude, steep inclines (my watch bleeped every few minutes telling me I had done another 10 flight of steps), temperatures of around 30 and at the start a lot of jet lag then my heart beats reaches 150 with no problem, I’m panting for breathe and downing all the water we failed to carry (how many walks do you have to do before you judge how much water you need). Of course the reward is stunning views and peace and quiet (apart from my beating heart and breathing). We did the flatirons, a feature of Boulder and a few other walks around. Ravens are the main calling bird. To be honest we didn’t identify that many birds but I can add humming birds and some very rare nuthatch to my list along with stella jays. towee, pygmy nuthatch and a few mammals with deer, chipmunks, prairie dogs no name a few. Of course we only remembered to take the binoculars on the last walk and we failed to see anything that walk. The national parks are interesting. The first weekend we failed to get a ticket, the second we failed in the lottery as well, but then Anya got a message (also seen by 4000+) that one extra ticket was released, and suddenly the rocky mountain national park was our destination. You have a timed entry to the national parks to control the traffic. This was a road trip. Anya at 7 months pregnant, although with a small bump is not up to her normal hikes and actually you need to drive the national park not walk it. So drive we did. Up above snow line to see the glaciers , picnic by the lake, just splendid. Unfortunately we didn’t get a photo of the moose because when we stopped to look at it (we were in a long line of very slow moving cars) the motorbike that had been hugging our bumper didn’t stop. We had to drive on to the next layby to assess the damage. We did get lots of other fantastic photos.

We didn’t just walk, we went to see Beethoven piano concerto in a barn, splendid concert, if rather uncomfy seats. We ate in a restaurant own by a sherpa, he only did Everest 10 times!. And we ate at Matt and Anya’s favorite tea house 3 times. We played lots of games. Oh and we spent the first 3 days building Ikea furniture.

One highlight was going to the scan for the baby, and to see her kicking around.

The last day had a slight blip, I managed to get us a parking ticket, boy I was so annoyed. Will I go back to the States? Well my granddaughter is due in October so I will let you guess the answer to that.