Rockies

We popped across the border into Colorado and stopped for breakfast at the town of Grand Junction. There appeared to be a lot of money floating around this west Colorado town as there were a number of stunning people driving expensive cars around the starbucks. Maybe these were the legendary California imports, who had come for a taste of the Rocky Mountain high and stayed on long after the high took hold, unable to come down and unable to get that fix at lower altitude. Ollie had suffered a few nosebleeds by this time due to our incessant climbing and falling between ground level and 12,000 feet over the last couple of weeks. We parked up in town, slapped enough money into the parking meter for an hour and a half and pursued the library and some breakfast. We found a lovely Italian breakfast place and were awed by every way you looked. Whichever street you looked down would be framed at the end by some of the Rocky mountains. It must be cool to live in a place that looks like a painting in every direction, but unlike Venice actually has some life to it. When we finished we rolled back to the car to see a parking ticket pen in hand hovering over our car. Fuck it. We'd managed to avoid a parking ticket all trip, but then I noticed it was still green (meaning we had time left). We climbed into the car and the parking attendant gave us a wink and a smile. I wondered why and then the meter clicked red. Hmm we'd cut that one fine and now we were laughing along with the attendant. He wasn't too bothered as he'd snagged a van right next to us. As we left and headed on towards Hunter S Thompson's hometown we managed to avoid some guys with a tape measure who seemed to be intent on making the cars do some impromto skipping.

We swung by Hunter S Thompson's old bar in Woody Creek while we ascended into the mountains. The guidebook has assured us it was shut, but as usual Lonely Planet were sloppy on the US. We arrived and piled into a small bar which was covered in photos and excerpts from the Gonzo journalists life and adventures. In honour of the man (a hero of mine and the inspiration for my book title 'Beer and Loafing on the Gringo Trail', riffed from 'Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail') I had some key lime pie and the strongest Margherita I had ever had. It had zero mixer and took my head clean off in the altitude. Today was going to be a fun day. Having paid my respects and wobbled to the car we headed up into the mountain ski resort of Aspen. Its a really pretty mountain town and we decided to hike up one of the hills that would provide a ski run in the winter. On the way down from our briskly steep hike we spotted on of the ski lifts and a summary of the runs. They began with the difficulty labelled 'more difficult' and went up to an X for 'extreme terrain'. Now if that was the lowest one then what exactly was it more difficult than. More difficult than extremely difficult. This was obviously a ski run for the professionals, though some of the other surrounding mountains cater for beginners. I wondered how easy it would be to come here and work a ski season. I was falling in love with Colorado by this point. As we left Aspen we followed a scenic pass to the east that closes after the Autumn. It was an immense swirl of snow, green, yellow, red, blueish hues of rock, crystal clear skies, imposing peaks and winding roads. Deciduous mixed with evergreen trees and they danced up the mountain sides forming vista after vista. This was a truly scenic drivem ruined only by two fat trucks that had got stuck together going alternate ways through the narrow roads. We didn't mind being stuck though as it gave us time to witness the snaking streams through the forest floors and the many other colours Colorado threw at you in Autumn. This was real America, this was the best it had to offer. With the South and Texas included with the Rockies, we were now certain that tourists were missing the best of America. Maybe one day it will rise phoenix like from the coasts to replace America's LA/NY image, like Obama will cut through the image Bush portrays to the world politically. We stopped off at the old ghost town of Independence (It had been an old mining town) and wandered amongst the battered and rotting buildings, corpses to a better time. Ollie began to feel a little nauseous (altitude sickness was biting) and so we had to accelerate over the 12,000 foot pass that holds the highest film festival in the World. Brief panic gripped Ollie while we were held in traffic lights near the top and this overflowed into a breakneck sprint down the mountains narrow winding roads on the other side. It wasn't altitude sickness that began to grip me with fear, but the fear of plunging off altitude at a fast speed and suffering a horrible death. Luckily we made it down and took the lower route to the highway, past the old town of Leadville (colonial and pretty with wooden buildings and home to National Mining Hall of Fame). The town was at 10,200 feet and said it was proud of being such a high town community. Ollie started bleeding again. I don't think this was the town for him.

Hitting the highway we proceeded to find out we may need the 'chain rule'. We were worried we may be in violation of this and have another run in with the law, but then Ollie realised it meant the chains you tie to your wheels in the snow to help you climb over difficult terrain. Hmm it wasn't snowing yet so we were probably ok. We then ran full force into perfect demonstrations of the insane Yankee engineering prowess. Here we were on a 6 lane wide motorway that ascended to 10,666 feet (We thought the highest in the World and we still reckon the highest of that size) and then passed throuh a tunnel at 11,158 feet high (must be the highest). Along with the 'over the side of the mountain hanging' freeways on the Blue Ridge and the bridge over the Hoover Dam, we were beginning to conclude that impossible was not a word in the US lexicon. While Canadians would build roads around mountains, so long diversions were necessary, the Americans would build over it no matter how insane. 'Hey theres a huge lake here in Louisiana' (Lake Pnchartain), 'shall we go around it?'. 'No lets build a 23 mile long bridge over the top of it because we can'. I imagine most US engineering meetings went that way. Brilliant demonstration of US positivity and 'can do' attitude marrying into one. As we marvelled at the highway and tunnel at the lofty heights of American achievement, we would soon descend out o it into the depths of Americas less impressive side. Its excessive legal culture. We descended on Denver to be consulted by a road sign that said 'Don't be fooled truck drivers, there are still 4 more miles of steep gradients.' Don't be fooled by what? They must surely know they are hurtling downhill with the ubiquitous runaway truck ramps. While we were laughing at that we encountered 'Truckers you are not down yet.' Well fuck me, really. Did the steep drop give it away. I can imagine all these dribbling truck drivers that need these instructions (probably why they need the ramps). We turned off at this point, so we did not get to see if it continued with such greats as 'congratulations truck drivers you are now on flat ground. You did it. Woohoo. Have a cold one on me, but remember drinking and driving kills. Also remember when the sun goes down, this is called night and you need to turn your lights on.'

We rolled into the student town of Boulder and found our hostel. It was right between a frat house and a sorority house so the nightlife should be good. We wandered out to the first bar we found intent on a quiet one. When we got there we found the bar was a subsidiary of the New Belgian Brewery, that it was a student bar (sortof, as they can't drink there) and did a coin toss for beers. If you guessed right you paid 50 cents a beer. I ended up guessing right six out of seven times (my luck again), but was only given 5 of them. They have to toss it four times for a pitcher, one per pint and they figured 2 dollars for a four pint pitcher was taking the piss. Damn cheats. By this point we were a bit mashed and ended up chatting with a 'Welsh' girl, who wasn't really from Wales. She was playing YMCA for her brother on the juke box and her mate Robert (he'd studied in Cambridge and was dating an Alabaman French teacher) got us playing beer pong. This game was fun but stupid. You line up about 10 cups like a pool rack and chuck balls from the other end of the table. If you land the ball in a cup the other side has to drink. We played for a bit but ended up getting chucked out for closing. The main dude invited us to his place and so we set off with a minor detour for food. On a side note the bar was full of really cool murals on student life including one for Robert Redford who I believe once washed dishes there. We met a weird tramp outside of the food place, where the owner insisted in his words that 'we must find pussy in Boulder with our accents. Its easy just get them drunk'. Charming man. At this point I was clearly the drunk one and then we met a cool tramp outside. The dude used to do capoeira and gave me a Roman style forearm handshake. Very cool and unexpected. We headed back to main dudes house for some strong weed smoking. Ollie passed out on the couch, I met some guy named Brian who was Roberts brother and in a band but not. Then some hippy dude called John showed up and insisted we all watch Jim Carey sing 'I am the Walrus'. He said you can only just make out its him singing. I disgaree. I think its obvious, but then I don't live in a house of many people where one of them lives in a closet. Strange night, strange people and we made our way out just as everyone was heading onto the roof.

The next afternoon I awoke with the mother of all hangovers. God I was destroyed. I should have realised then that I was coming down with the Whooping Cough. I would however not realise that until two days ago in Tijuana when I met a medical student who diagnosed me. It should be almost gone by now and takes between one and two months. Fucking diseases. Ollie had wanted to go up to Fort Collins and take a tour of the New Belgian Brewery. I didn't really care but agreed to go, map reading intermittently when I could force my eyes open. It proved a good free tour around a funky little brewery. They are entirely energy self sufficient and lay on all sorts of games for the staff. They are also staff owned. But more importantly they make great beer. We tried some 'Voodoo beer' on the tour (a kind of hair of the dog) and then listened to some dense blonde woman asking how good a lubricant the beer would make. Quite amusing. I was beginning to feel marginally alive at this point and we decided to go and check out Denver. We may have been joined by a couchsurfer later but they cried off and for the first time we had been left high and dry in Boulder when our host fell through with no contact.

Denver is an awesome little town. I want to live there. At least for a year. Maybe longer. It is my favourite US city bar none. We parked up by the new art gallery they had constructed which was like an insane little futuristic castle. The down town is really pretty, we found a Cuban restaurant that looked like someones house. We were even tentative to approcah it but Ollie decided the prices were too high. In the end we settled on a really good Italian and carried on our tour. You can feel the crispness and freshness of the air in every breath you take. People cycle and jog around. In every direction are mountains. The city still has half a million people and weirdly, given that we were as far from the coast as it was possible to be, at times it looked like you were in a Scandinavian port town with the rigging just in the distance. Like an ethereal spirit it creeps through you till you are hooked. Beautiful people, beautiful place, surrounded by beautiful scenery. This city would not be out of place in Scandinavia or Switzerland and yet it felt like a European/American hybrid. The best of both worlds. We decided to nip into an Irish bar while we waited for a piano bar to open. In there we met Andie. She was a cute, cool barmaid who was taking a photography course and so took random snaps of the clientele. After mocking my red bull ('what no alcohol' 'no a beer pong hangover') we got chatting on travel. It turned out she had spent many years travelling Europe and teaching in Spain. We talked about her times living with Italian men twice her age, the trashing of a Paris apartment while the owner was away checking into a Mental Asylum and the wonders of travel. Exchanging stories we made a Faustian pact that she should come to South America to take the photos for my book (I don't take any as I believe they trap you in the past, never do justice to the subject when i take them anyway, can't capture a feeling and are less romantic than memorising something through the imperfect romanticised haze of memory). Whether or not it comes to fruition it was a fun night. Ollie had been joking about what would happen if the pianists were asked to play a song they did not know and we got chatting with some random guy, only to find out he was one of the pianists. He had lived for a while in New Zealand, while dating a member of an Abba tribute band and we all chatted about how cool San Antonio was, for he had lived there also. The bar had a rubber chicken with the keys on ala Monkey Island and we chatted with Andie some more about concussions in youth as she grew up in Montana and taking photos of random kids at skateparks, all the way to DUI's and how you can't enter Canada with one. We said our goodbyes to Andie and headed next door to listen to a bit of the duelling pianos. Eventually we made it back to the hostel and found out our frat place was called Rush Pi Kapp.

The next morning we set off on the brutal drive to Yellowstone National Park. I was compiling lists of the best US radio stations (Rick and Bubba in Tennessee, The River in Athens and our new favourite Jack in Boulder) when we overheard an article relating to a kid in junior school. An 11 year old kid had been suspended for wearing a t-shirt that had said 'Obama, a terrorists best friend'. It sparked a debate on parental values where someone mentioned a sign they ahd seen saying 'Clinton is a rapist'. Hmm interesting stuff that was superceded as we entered Wyoming. There was a farmer there named Chris Crop (he'll make you jump) who was an Organic Apple Farmer. What an awesome name. Apparently there are more people in Denver than Wyoming, so we settled in for one of the most boring drives through norhingness I have ever had. Wide open nothing in every direction. So I fell asleep. We popped into Casper for lunch and I began a futile quest for somewhere to show the Spurs game or for a hairdresser. Both failed.. There was nothing here and it is only known as Cheney's hometown, with the main government building named after him. We saw two pretty girls playing with a camera and thought about offering them the option of 'coming with us if they wanted to live' but dismissed it as too cheesy. It was a dead town though. We carried on to Cody where we had dinner and had just passed through a vry scenic part of Wyoming. Looked like the west was picking up. The girl behind the counter asked what language we speak and then if we were doctors, because apparently a lot of English doctors come through town. Very odd and she was a sweet girl even if she was confusing her colleagues. We left this weird scenario and headed into Yellowstone down the road once described by Teddy Roosevelt as the prettiest in the World.

It started unpromisingly but within a few miles we weren't going to disagree with him. Beautiful vista after beautiful vista met us time and again. It was like Colorado only much more rugged. Phenomenal lakes, powerful mountains. This was some scenery. Then we hit the park. A cute ranger chatted with us about her previous trip to London and the buses there. Meanwhile we descended into the park, around the huge Yellowstone lake and into a col safari. We saw Elk and Moose on the way in and while we stopped for petrol, some Bison wondered through the middle of the petrol station. Very surreal. The we headed round to the boiling mud pits and watched them bubble and steam while crapping ourselves that a bear would get us. We saw powerful rivers hurtling over rapids and towering waterfalls. We did not however see any mountain lions, bears or wolves though they have them there. Detouring briefly in the evening out to Idaho we returned and I fell asleep. I woke up suddenly and saw a seventy foot tall moose in the middle of the road. Scared the shit out of me, until I realised dusk was playing with my eyes and instead there was a Bison eyeing us up from the middle of the road. Still quite intimidating and the stand off lasted a while before it backed off and we went to pitch our tent in the disabled spot as nowhere else was left. Our camping equipment from Walmart had held up well in the Appalachians but it was no match for 7,500 feet of Rockies. Boy did we freeze to death. All night long was sub zero. I woke up and could not feel my feet or other body parts. Ollie had abandoned the tent midway through the night to sit in the car and drive round a bit to fire up the heater.

In the morning we were direly in need of some internal heating and headed over to the geyser Old Faithful. I went inside the tourist shop to grab a hot chocolate and came out to find Ollie gone. He had caught the end of an eruption and I had missed it for a hot chocolate. True we had seen some other geysers erupt earlier, but this was Old Faithful. A hot chocolate. It wasn't even that great a hot chocolate. We did not have time to wait around and grabbed some lunch on the way out. Here we had to walk around the perimiter as the Elk had taken over the town and you weren't allowed to get within twenty feet of them. We set off driving into Montana and stopped in Bozeman for a while before hitting Missoula in the evening. As we rolled into town the radio blasted out 'The next song I wrote after I killed a drifter to get an erection'. Each to their own I guess. Some dude at the motel was pestering Ollie for a lift into town until he told him we were walking. Missoula is a pretty little quiet town and we walked across the river (Ollie tried to convince me it was better than the Thames because it moved. He's wrong) looking for a vegetarian Indian. We got to a corner of fourth and looked both ways. It was pitch black either way. Didn't look promising and I did not trust Lonely Planet enough to go hareing into the dark after a phantom restaurant. We wondered if they had even updated anything since the BBC had taken them over. At this point I realised that the other two computers in this cafe had broken and I had a monopoly, but ah who cares. I need to finish this damn thing. We settled on a pizza place, but they ignored us because it was 8.45pm and they shut at 9pm. So we were told by a barmaid next door to head to the Missoula Grill for a burger. Great service and great food. Then we headed to Top Hat for some pool. The barman was incredibly rude and just sat on the bar ignoring us for ages. We ended up playing pool and then table tennis, where we were joined bvy two Chinese girls who were studying in Missoula. Tx and Ollie were clearly the better players so we left them to it and had some drinks. We learnt the Chinese for various things and were offered the chance to stay with them in Beijing if we headed that way. Ollie may do on his trip. I would have to much later. Apparently I looked like their English teacher Lawrence as well. Maybe he had been travelling across the States. It would explain why people in Santa Fe, Boulder and Cody thought they had met me before, as well as the conman with his gas tank in Denver who had talked $5 off me.

In the morning we set off past Flathead Lake (huge and really pretty) on our way to Glacier National Park. We stopped off in Kalispell for brunch and while Ollie fiddled with the car I wandered over to a drive through coffee place and began chatting with the Candian girl there. She was from Calgary and had moved here so I asked her for some tips. She wondered what we were doing there and we chatted for a bit until someone tried to run me over looking for his caffeine fix. I don't think he needed any more caffeine. Glacier National Park is really pretty, but we didn't have enough time to hike out from Lake McDonald to one of the glaciers. We started but realised it would take too long and I think Ollie was concerned about the poster there for a missing Korean guy along with other missing posters and warnings of bears. It had become obvious to us why some States wanted guns. Too many things could kill you. The Republican and Democratic mindsets were easy to get inside of. They just led completely contradictory lifestyles and fears and hopes. The main pass was closed and would add hours onto our journey, but we decided to head up the winding road to the top (all the time behind a tour bus that looked like a cable car on wheels) and when we did it was worth the wait, as we got to tramp out over the snow debating philosophy, life and relationships with people. On the way down someone said it was a bad thing the British could just remove their Prime Minister. I replied, much to his surprise, that no it wasn't when Brown is your leader and your currency was nose diving, wiping out an eighth of my travel budget. We undertook our massive detour and headed to the Canadian border where we were grilled and Ollie had to confess his US court appearances. they let us through anyway and I was now in my 31st country. Only problem was my Yankee phone that had had no reception since Boulder and would not have any until we got to Seattle. Onwards into Canuckland.