So, I got to Denver.
I think, on reflection, this is the crucial fact I need to convey at this point. I had written an unnecessarily long diatribe concerning the circumstances surrounding my movement from SLC to Denver, but on reflection it was at least as boring as the journey itself. Suffice to say, having got to the bus station a little before 6am, I ended up on a service that took 3 hours longer than the one I wanted, and it left well over two hours late, so gone 9am I was still in the bus station. Oh well, I guess it's not like I had any plans for the day (!).
The journey itself was rather more picturesque than I had so far encountered on my trip. Mountains, rocky bluffs (like the ones you get in cartoons) and bigger, prettier mountains did all they could to make the remaining lashings of flat nothing in between less boring. It was great to drive through some of the small mountain resort towns in the Rockies too. They look like a Swiss mountain village had a love child with the Wild West and they have all the charm of both. I can only imagine how awesome they must be in the winter!
Alas, the bus seemed to thwart me at every attempt to take a picture that encompassed the awesomeness, the huuugeness and the prettifulness of the mountains, so I guess you'll just have to imagine!
Over the day we managed to catch up an impressive 1h30, and eventually made it into Denver at 8.30pm. And I have to say, I'm very glad it wasn't any later. My trip, though pleasently pretty, had not been without stress, since I wanted to stay in Boulder that night, in a hostel that wouldn't take bookings, and whose front desk shut at 11pm. In fact, I wasn't entirely sure that it didn't shut at 10pm and sat on the bus praying just a little bit that I would find myself with somewhere to stay...
I arrived. And it was open. *sigh of relief*
Unfortunately, my relief was really short lived. Having arrived, I more or less immediately wished that I hadn't.
I'd headed to Boulder partly because it seemed like a cool time, and partly because though the hostel doesn't get good reviews, it seemed like the best of a pretty diabolical bunch when compared to Denver. Turns out, though, that it's on a street with almost nothing but frat houses, and I'm pretty sure, on reflection, that this was the first weekend of the new school year. It was very much the place to be (or not as the case may be...) The entire street was having a party, and I'm not exaggerating one iota. It was probably really fun if you weren't trying to sleep. The party proper continued until 4.30am, with the not-insubstantial hardcore going to bed (or, well, somewhere else... ) at 6.30am. Nice.
Well, I certainly wasn't going to stick around and see what Saturday had to offer. Come the morning, having slept for perhaps 3 hours, I put my bags in the storage and went to find breakfast; a tired but surprisingly happy bunny with a day in the mountains ahead of me.
Through the wonders of social media, Lara (who I was friends with when she was an exchange student in Sixth Form) had seen that I was headed Denver way. She offered to take me up to their cabin in the Rockies and show me around. This worked out perfectly because I had really wanted to get in to the mountains, but couldn't work out how. Perfect. See and old friend and see the mountains :)
I really wish I had some pictures, but stupidly managed to leave my camera in my other bag. I'd had a taste of the mountains when we drove in the previous day. The Colorado Rockies are (I think) bigger than the Canadian ones – at least, they look like they are. Every bit as majestic too, although, lacking snow, perhaps not quite so pretty. Certainly somewhere I could spend a lot more time though.
Sort of what the cabin basically looked like, except that it had been loved for the last 70 years, not neglected... Had a proper roof and sealed walls, and inside, all the the homecomforts you could wish for.
Lara's cabin(s) were nestled in the side of a valley just outside of Boulder. They stand as charming remnants of another era. There are two of them. One was an old mining cabin from when there was gold prospecting going on in the area. The main one was built by the grandfather (and his brothers) of her boyfriend. And perhaps I should retract my words about other eras; it was build as a 'wooing cabin' – i.e. a bachelor pad in the mountains. Not so much has changed after all. It's a proper log cabin with all sorts of useful curiosities and vintage cleaning products (all genuinely put to work) and enough random crap to keep me entertained for hours. Running water is engaged by wedging a pipe into the stream and weighing it down with a rock and the heating is provided by a charming log fire place, complete with bread oven. All quite lovely. :)
After chilling out with various dogs that had come along, collecting and chopping fire wood and having a picnic, it was time to head back. Lara and co asked if I wanted to join them for dinner with some other friends, but it was getting late, and I was quite determined that no matter how bad Denver hostels might be, I wasn't gonna spend another night in party-central, Boulder. I thanked them for a wonderful day out, left them too it and made my way back to Denver.
As it turned out, my Denver hostel experience was infinitely better than Boulder. It was so quiet in the hostel I went to that I ended up paying 20 bucks for what was essentially a private suite. Techincally, it was a six bedroom dorm, but I was the only one there. And it had an unusual layout, basically because the rest of it was a hotel, so the dorm had it's own bathroom, a microwave, and a dining and lounge area with satellite TV. The main reason that this place had got bad reviews was because the building is old (a whole 109 years!) and that it's surrounded by night clubs (I figured it couldn't be any worse than Boulder- at least night clubs kick out at some point before 4am!). Since I was on my own I could shut the windows without getting too hot, it was a vast improvement on the previous night – and newly decorated as well since the new management are trying to upgrade. Not bad for 20 bucks.
Today (*i did write this when I was in Denver – just failed at putting it online!*) it was time to have a lie in! Especially since I'll be on a bus all night again tonight! Upon finally leaving the hostel, I headed straight to the greyhound, anxious not to repeat my mistakes of SLC – I was damn well gonna get on the bus I wanted this time round!
One of Denver's 'hertiatge sites' - a building that was clearly a terrace at some point, sat all on its own in the middle of a car park, with no clear explanation as to why... Americans are weird...
That done, and luggage dumped, I set out to explore the city of Denver. This city surprised me. It's really very pleasant. It has nothing particularly noteworthy going for it, just lots of nice little projects and gardens that altogether make it seem very liveable. And the looming Rockie mountains certainly do no harm to that impression either. Lara always maintained when we were in school that Colorado is the best of the states. And while I've not exactly done extensive exploration, I'm inclined to agree that it might be up there as state-wide awesomeness goes, beyond just individual cities. (In fairness, on this trip the bar wasn't exactly set high; it's not too difficult to have more that absolutely nothing in your state. Or perhaps it is, judging by what I've seen so far!).
One of Denver's more inexplicable pieces of public art work...
I opted to go for a fairly chilled out day in Denver, and save my cash for Chicago, so instead of going to the (lovely, I'm sure) botanic gardens or art museum, I went for a wander, and then on to investigate the free concert going on in front of the state capitol. 16th Street Mall is a very long, almost car free main street, serviced by free bus shuttles. It has art all the way along, places to sit (and chess tables, if you like) and decorated, functional pianos that you are invited to play, on every block!
A block from the end of that street is the US Mint, which makes more money on its site than anywhere else in the world! I really wish I could have gone on one of the tours there, but unfortunately managed to miss them in every possible way. Maybe next time... Finally, the street ends at the state capitol, which looks exactly like state capitols everywhere (except Chicago, apparently – see next post!).
In case by some miracle you had missed the fact, today was the 10th anniversary of 9/11. Between the state capitol and the city admin buildings there is a huge memorial and concert going on. This is where I headed this afternoon.
The proceedings started with a parade down the mall and various speeches. It is bizarre to me that the whole commemoration there (and presumably in a lot of places across America) ended with a fly past. I understand that this is somewhat traditional thing, and kinda cool, but it's surely the single most inappropriate way of commemorating an event like 9/11 that you could possibly come up with... ?! Or is that just me? I feel like the twice that they went over us, there was both that buzz of excitement that comes along with such events, but also a collective holding of breath, as everyone wonders if something could go horribly wrong and they would fly into something...
Each to their own, i guess?
Anywayz...
As I write, I'm sat under a tree, enjoying the beautiful sunshine to a majestic backing of the Denver symphony orchestra. Possibly this scene will only be topped when The Beach Boys come on in about 10 minutes time!
Greyhound hours so far ~ 45. And then another 20 tonight!
No comments:
Post a Comment