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01.09.2014 Day 11: Boulder and Onto Estes Park
Let's just put yesterday behind us shall we? Since then everything has been brilliant.
Woke up slowly, and gradually creaked our way off to a local Waffle House for breakfast. Sitting next to us was a nice American guy and his Korean wife, and we all got talking. We told him we planned to drive up through the Rockies to Seattle and he gave us all kinds of excellent advice on the best route.
We started with a gentle cruise through to Boulder. It was Labour Day in America and everyone was on holiday. Also as luck would have it, Boulder was having a festival. We arrived and parked up and walked through the big open mall, wandering into little boutique shops, and watching the street performers.
Yes Ok, I bought a silly pair of useless sunglasses. Then we meandered down to the festival. We sat on shaded seats and ate hotdogs and drank fresh squeezed lemonade and listened to the live music. We checked out the stalls dodging the crowds of happy Americans milling around everywhere. We found a stall that said "Australia: New Zealand: America" so of course we had to check that out. It sold hats, and the NZ connection was Hills Hats in Lower Hutt Wellington who sent hats through to the seller. He was very annoyed because customs hadn't released his latest order and we said next time, we would bring them ourselves.
This city is very ..how do I describe it... very 80's. Lots of psychic shops, and emporiums, and women in long hippy skirts and everyone seemed extremely laid back. Of course, Colorado has made cannabis legal and we wondered if that was the reason, but we truly didn't see anyone who looked anything but sharp minded. There were also lots of families and older folk also enjoying the festival, and we left thinking what a nice town.
We drove then determinedly onto the route our friend suggested, he said "get to Estes Park" so that's where we went. We knew very quickly this was the way we wanted to go, as the scenery became more and more stunning and we drove higher and higher, to finally arrive at a mountain town surrounding a lake. Very reminiscent of Queenstown but not quite as slick. This was Estes Park. We found an inexpensive place to stay and got advice on the best place to eat. 'Dave's smoke house' was the suggestion, and it was a good one. Good ol' Dave was Californian chef who found his way to this mountain town. We had starters of Catfish tenders (first time I have eaten catfish..mmmm) then Ken had pulled pork and beef brisket with corn bread and sides of green beans and coleslaw. I had chicken marsala, with a divine mushroom sauce that tasted like there was so much wine in it, I was lucky I could talk after eating it. I had the same sides as Ken. We washed this down with huge glasses of iced tea. Suffice to say we couldn't eat it all, and left with boxes of our uneaten food which we shared with the cool Mexican guy who was working around the hotel.
We both slept like logs, to awake to a second part of our Rockies adventure. Over the Mountain trail to Steamboat Springs. More on that next.
- comments
Candie Ahhh...the Rockies are gorgeous aren't they? I haven't been to Boulder since the mid 80's but I remember well on how beautiful the drive up was. Once was there when it snowed too...the sun glistening on the snow covered mountains...it was positively breathless!
Candie And...glad to see you celebrated my Birthday in the Rockies! I would've given my eye teeth to be there! :D
Ros aww Candie, we were sorry to miss you too. If we had known it was your birthday we might have had a celebratory coke for you while we were there :)