#Denver & the Rockies

We get to Denver. We have travelled about 2000 miles on the train to get here. This is Denver of Denver Broncos and the Denver Boot. It is a major US city - population 800,000 and the hinterland over 3 million.

Denver is known as "the mile high city" because the 13th step of the Capital Building is 5280 ft above sea level - exactly a mile. However there is no sensation of being high. Denver is flat - it is located on a pararie. We did a guided tour of downtown. It was hardly a walk around Stratford ! The oldest building was about 1850 ! - but our guide made the best of Denver's cowboy past.

A thought for my son in law Phil who loves his baseball. Stood outside The Coors Field - home of the Colorado Rockies. The Coors Field is the highest baseball arena in the US. The thin air doesn't help the pitchers but does help the batters. Consequently they made the pitch bigger. See Phil I am getting into it ! - ha ha.

While it was good to visit Denver itself and experience a different American city our main thought was to use it as a base to get out and experience some of the natural terrain made so familiar to us in westerns and other pioneering stories.

We had a day trail walking in the Roxborough State Park - about 90 minutes from Denver. This is a beautiful area where the heavily eroded and shaped sandstone cliffs are a feature. We are between seasons. Is it that darn global warming again ! It is mid November. It should be cold - possibly snow covered. We have all the gear. We experience warm sunshine - bright blue skies and dry air from the altitude. We walk to almost 8000 feet on this day.

A quick description of US national parks as we have found them. There are many of them. They have dual purpose - recreation yes - but primarily to preserve habitat. There is a reasonable charge to enter and parks are laid out with trails and graded as to distance and difficultly. Visitors are free to choose the trails they want to do with the minimum signposting and interference. Having said that you are strictly forbidden to leave the designated trails and free camp. The purists would find this difficult to live with but it seems to work for the few people we came across. We enjoyed the designation - we knew we should be safe in an area warning about rattlesnakes and advising how to react if you encounter a mountain lion.

If you see a mountain lion :Stay calm and don’t run. Make yourself look big and speak firmly. Slowly back away while facing the animal. If it acts aggressively, throw rocks/sticks and stand your ground. If attacked, fight back — protect your neck and head !

On our next day we drove into the Rocky Mountains. While the cost of living is high in the US we hired a BMW X7 for about £35 per day. On the second day we set off from Denver and run out of fuel after a mile on a horrendously busy 3 lane freeway. Fortunately we rolled onto a decent hard shoulder but still felt very vulnerable. Our conclusion was fuel was stolen overnight. Eventually we were rescued by a free roadside emergency service - a brilliant young lady. First time I have dialled an emergency number I think. 911 in the States.

The Rocky Mountains - The Rockies are legendary. They run 3000 miles from Canada to New Mexico. I will write more about them when we cross them on our next stop over. From Denver we drove into the Rockies National Park. It is massive with spectacular vistas which are hard to capture with a camera.

Please see mob photos below :