I’m currently writing this from a hotel room in Seattle; sorry I’ve been quiet, but I’ve been working here all week, and was in Beijing all of last week! This entry is part one of two about my recent trip to Colorado, and was written over a period of several days (in a consulate office, on a plane, in a hotel room, etc!) in multiple countries!

Colorado Part One:

(Written as I sit in the Chinese Consulate, in Manchester)

I’d hoped to write more about my travels in Colorado, but the trip was so exhausting that I didn’t manage anything! I’ll more or less sum things up below, though.

After I’d finished in the meeting I was involved in, my first port of call was a trip to the Boulder Mountain National Park. This involved driving up into the high hills that I’d been staring at for the five days I’d been in Boulder, wishing I was up amongst them. The weather was - as per usual - really nice, and I slowly ascended, stopping to take photos every few hundred yards (so it seemed!) The view of Boulder was fantastic, and the trees and rocks were like nothing I’d really seen before - very different from the type of landscape you get in the UK; at one point, I heard a deep grunting noise coming from the trees, which I assume belonged to a bear, but there was no real way of telling just how near or far away it was. The only things that slightly marred the day were the collection of irritating teenage kids who seemed to congregate in the (at least technically) quieter places in the park, and the small cloud - seemingly the only one in the sky - that seemed to blot out the sun for the best part of 45 minutes! I’m sure the shape of the mountains was somehow holding it in a central position.

The following day, I checked out of my hotel in Boulder, and my big adventure began! I had more or less planned out an itinerary with the help of a really nice couple I met in Boulder at the National Centre for Atmospheric Research (I find myself in the strangest places!), and my first port of call was the Rocky Mountains National Park. The drive there took a few hours, despite being quite close to Boulder, but the countryside was wonderful. When I arrived, I paid a quick trip to the visitor centre (to buy postcards and suchlike), and then drove up to a Park’n’Ride facility, from where I got a bus to Bear Lake. Bear Lake is a sub-alpine lake that’s at an elevation of around, oh, 8500 feet. The lake was clear, the weather was perfect, and mountains rose through the trees around the lake. It was absolutely beautiful there, and I was blown away. I could also feel the elevation - even though I’d partially acclimatised after several days in Boulder (at 5000 or so feet), I was still out of breath whenever I walked even a small distance. Despite this, I went on a trail, and climbed to Nymph lake and Dream Lake… I hadn’t expected them to be as impressive as Bear Lake, but they were - it was an absoultely stunning place. After all my hiking however, time was running out, as I needed to drive a lot further to my first hotel of the holiday, in a place called Grand Lake. I drove onwards, and as the road got higher, so the views became more and more amazing. And then… disaster struck. Well, a disaster for me, anyway - my camera broke. I’ve had that camera for almost 5 years, and despite being rather old technology, it took great photos. But now, the shutter was stuck, and so despite being in the most beautiful place I’d ever been, I was unable to take any photos. It really upset me! The road climbed, and peaked at around 12,000 feet. I actually got out of the car (it was cool, but warmer than I’d expected) and wandered around some of the alpine tundra (sticking to the trail!) at that elevation. It was beautiful, especially as the sky was dark blue and the sun was slowly going down. I then returned to my car, and drove along the rapidly darkening mountain trail, until eventually, I reached Grand Lake. I’m not sure what I expected, but Grand Lake seemed like a real wild west town - small, with boardwalks for pedestrians, and lots of small wooden shops along the main street. I checked into my hotel (a close call - I arrived at around 8:30pm, and the hotel office closed at 9pm for the night, which I hadn’t been aware of!) and then stood outside and looked at the town. Crickets were chirping, the stars were out, I could smell the woods surrounding the town, and I felt like I was… well, out in the Boonies! I walked through the town, avoiding drunken cowboys, and eventually found a Mexican restaurant open. The food wasn’t so good, but I got a free bottle of Corona after the waitress forgot part of my order, so all was good. I went back to my hotel room, and - after watching far too much of Court TV for my own good - I slept!

I awoke the next day, dropped off my room key, and wandered into Grand Lake. The previous night, the town had looked kind of intimidating, but on a glorious day, it looked like a really pleasant place, with far more tourists than I’d imagined would be there. I wandered into town, and managed to find a shop that sold disposable camera. I bought three (they were very cheap, and now that i have had their photos developed, I know why!). I then walked down to the Lake after which the town in named; again, it was fabulous. The sun sparkled along the water, surrounded by trees and hills. There were various boats out in the lake, and I later discovered you could hire one and pedal (or row, or even drive) out. I really wanted to do this, but there didn’t seem all that much point given that I was on my own, so instead, I returned to my car and headed onwards. My next port of call was Glenwood Springs, which would take most of the day to get to, but was a very scenic drive… I drove through Winter Park (stoppi,ng at a Subway, which was peaceful until a troupe of high-school kids from the Denver Christian School crashed the place) along the I70 Westbound, and passed through mountains and valleys covered with green, red, and yellow trees. I constantly wished I had my camera. At one point, I stopped at a picnic area, and spent probably 45 minutes walking through the trees, and listening to the sound of a river cascading far below me. The sheer beauty of the mountains left me so desperate for a proper camera, that I eventually gave in, and stopped at a Wal*Mart Supercentre (in a town whose name I forget at the moment) and bought a cheap but functional 5 megapixel digital camera.

At this point, I should probably mention that when considering buying a camera, megapixels are an almost pointless metric; you can have a 20 megapixel camera, but if the lens quality is poor, then it may as well be 2 megapixel. In the case of the cheap Sanyo camera I bought, its 5 megapixel images are far lower in quality than my (almost 5 year old) 3 megapixel Kodak, and the settings are much poorer (as far as I can see, the only control you have over exposure is a software-based exposure compensation facility, and the white balance and focussing are really not up to scratch). I say all this to excuse the fact that the photos I’m taking with this camera are not so good…. I hope to buy a proper (digital SLR) camera at some point in the next 6 or 7 months!

I continued my journey, and stopped again at the Glenwood Canyon. This is a really nice bike trail through… well, a canyon! The canyon is narrow, and the walls are pretty much vertical, while a river runs through the middle. It looked really nice, but light was falling, and I only had time to walk around half a mile along it, before I had to return to my car and drive into Glenwood Springs itself.

My hotel in Glenwood Springs was a Rodeway Inn; it was by far the most expensive room of my stay, due to the touristy nature of the place… I think $130 or so. The hotel was nice, and a real step up from my night in Grand Lake. I settled in, and after a little rest, headed out to get a meal. I had planned to go to a niceish restaurant, but it was dark, and I didn’t really want to drive all that far. I ended up eating in a Burger King a few miles down the road from the hotel; the only notable thing about the place were the number of mexican people there, both staff and customers. I think I was the only person in the whole place who spoke English as a first language! I didn’t think Colorado had many Spanish speakers, but I was obviously greatly mistaken.