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Published: September 24th 2006
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Colroado Part 2
The next morning we went to explore Denver. We had 3 jobs to do first though - pick up more supplies from Camping World, get maps from the AAA and go to the bank. These 3 tasks proved to be more difficult than we thought and 2 hours later (after getting lost for the first time in the US) we had only managed to get to Camping World! Thankfully we did manage to get to the AAA (2 minutes before closing). The bank, we later found out had no branches in the state of Colorado so that was the end of that.
As a city we didn’t hugely like Denver, it was a bit drab, though the mountains in the background were beautiful.
We decided to hightail out of Denver and head to Boulder. The Lonely Planet guidebook described it as a liberal, hippie town. (Thanks to the Diabetes Centre for that very valuable resource!) At first I didn’t believe them but after a couple of hours walking around their markets I would have to agree! There were stores where you could buy anything from Bob Marley hats, to collector’s comics to baggy hippie pants.
Bumper stickers abound, crying ‘Free Tibet’ and ‘Impeach Bush’ (I doubt Bush has much of a following there). Some stores had awesome home decorations like clocks, small sculptures and artwork. If we had ample spending money we would have bought a tin sculpture of a dog with long floppy ears riding a horse (entitled ‘DogBiscuit’, a take off of the film Seabiscuit) or maybe the one of him on a classic motorbike! Very cool.
Street Performers added to the fun and hilarity. A Jamaican who could squeeze himself into a small box and a guy riding a 2 - 3 meter high unicycle (while juggling fire sticks) were the highlights. A member of the barbershop quartet at Disneyland made a statement that would be appropriate here - ‘It is amazing the lengths grown men will go to, to avoid getting a real job.’
Another shop selling t-shirts also captured the feel of the place with slogans such as ‘I put the fun in dysfunctional’ and ‘Keep Boulder Weird’. Then there were the Jesus action figures and the Trump 'You're Fired' board game!
But by far the strangest thing was the huge group of streakers that went round
WHY?!
Here is a PG13 pic of the streakers. and around the town on bicycles! These were not college kids playing a prank - most were chubby middle aged men! (Thankfully not all were completely naked.) I still have no idea quite what they were about, one had the word oil written on his back with a line through it, but another had a sign that implied maybe they were going for a world record - who knows and in Boulder it is probably a case of who cares!
Overall a great little place to visit but probably not a great place to live. I think after a while even the most fashion conscious would find themselves resorting to baggy comfortable hippie pants!
From Boulder we went to Colorado Springs. We accidently ended up at the Garden of the Gods, a free city park, while looking for a general information centre. The fabulous huge red rocks would be the first of many we would see on our trip around the American South West. We then went to both the Focus on the Family visitors centre and the US Air Force Academy visitors centre. We just found these by chance as we drove in on the freeway. FOTF
visitors centre was great and even had a 3 story slide! (76 ft of curly-wurly fun!) The kids play section was awesome. It had secret passageways, an old WWII bomber plane and a matinee theatre were you could sit and watch Vege Tails. Of course I indulged in none of this foolishness and acted my age at all times!! We took a guided tour and then lounged around in the bookshop. They also had a small collection of amazing artwork and displays about each of their current projects. The Air Force Academy visitors centre was cool. We first watched a promotional video which I am convinced contained subliminal messages as at the end of it I was feeling so patriotic and was ready to sign up! They explained all that is involved in the Academy where they not only train the students in all kind of scary things like jumping out of planes but also offer them a free college (uni) education on the campus. Overall they treat their military personal much better here than back home, full pension after 20 years of service, free college education and heaps of public commendation. Eg when we were in San Diego at
Sea World before each show they would honor the troops and all their family members as it was coming up to Memorial Day.
After we had seen the Air Force Academy it was on the road again. We drove to a beautiful State Park called Elk Creek and camped next to the Blue Mesa lake. Apparently it was prairie dog country but unfortunately we didn’t see any, however the scenery and sunset was beautiful.
From there the next stop was Ourray a beautiful little town with historic buildings situated in a valley and surrounded by huge mountains. We even saw a couple of wild deer on the side of the road! We spent the afternoon looking at the shops along the ‘main road’. There were a gorgeous collection of arts and crafts shops with a surprising array of Christmas decorations available for sale (in June?!). We stopped for some ice cream at a real old fashioned candy store which sold all kinds of goodies and sat on the park bench outside to admire the view. We spent the evening tucked away in our trailer playing poker (needless to say Nick ended up with all the chips at the
Vegie Tales Matinee Theatre
This one's for you Cameron + Matty-man! end of the evening!)
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