Great Sanddunes

And my final station of our road trip brought me to the destination of my very first road trip through Colorado: the Great Sanddunes National Park. From all national monuments and parks in Colorado this is my favorite. There are not that many places around where you have 14,000 ft (4,200+ m) mountains surrounding high plains, a small dessert in one corner and a little creek in between all of this!

You might wonder why those pictures are a bit blurry... well, it seems like I have no luck with digital cameras lately... my first one got stolen in Steamboat Springs beginning of this month and my second one broke after we left the Black Canyon. So we ended up with one of these disposable cameras. Surprisingly it was working quite well and we had at least some pictures taken in the sand dunes.

And Torsten was up for climbing the highest dune as well which takes around two hours of hiking through the sand... one step forward followed by 1/2 step sliding down the slope again. But the view is reward enough!

Later that day we went already back to Denver... for a dinner with friends at my favorite restaurant... stay tuned!

Black Canyon

Once again I had a visitor from Germany calling by! Torsten from Nuernberg wanted to see Denver, Colorado and all the rest he missed on his last US trip two years ago. That's why I took him on a road trip through the rugged south-western Colorado including the Black Canyon, Curecanti lake and recreation area, South Park (something close to the TV show), Alamosa and the Great Sanddunes.

The first stop on our road trip was a part of Colorado I didn't see myself so far: the Black Canyon of Gunnison... which is already kind of funny as the closest town to the Black Canyon is not Gunnison but Montrose which is a good 40 miles closer. Oh well... what do I know? This time I was only a tourist myself ;-)

What I know is that it is a quite astonishing canyon, twice as deep as the Empire state building tall. The painted wall seen on the picture on the left is amazing and looks like a giant Picasso!

But after hiking the canyon for a couple of hours Torsten and I agreed... first of all to the astonishing views of the canyon were worth the trip but also that we got scammed! The Black Canyon isn't black at all... well kind of I guess... but calling it the Grey Canyon doesn't have a good sound to it... marketing is everything, even for National Parks ;-)

Starbucks everywhere...

Most of you might know that Starbucks started off in Seattle as one among many small coffee brewing companies which are a quite common sight throughout the city. So it is interesting to see that Starbucks became the multinational coffee empire what it is today... and of course visiting its roots. The Starbucks store #1 is one of the main tourist attractions here in Seattle and of course I had to get my coffee fix there as well.


Also interesting to see is that the Starbucks logo changed over time and on the above picture you can see their old logo which is quite different to what we have today...
Wandering through the different neighborhoods in Seattle makes you understand how the lifestyle of the people living here created this unique coffee culture which got exported across the globe. And I also started to understand why Starbucks is filling other cities with that many coffee shops throughout the world. That is exactly what they did here in Seattle... so you have a Starbucks at every block. Sometimes even two or more! Coming to a city near you soon :o)

This concludes my fabulous trip to Seattle and when I arrived back in Denver most of the snow was already melted. You have to love Colorado for that!

More Seattle

Of course I had to clime Seattle's landmark 'the Space Needle' as well which my tourist guide calls 'the most expensive elevator ride you'll take in your lifetime'. They are right about that but you'll get a fantastic view of the city in return. Also worth doing is the vintage Monorail between the Space Needle and the city... and yes it takes only 5 mins total.

Beside the obvious tourist attractions millions of people see every year I also saw some not that commonly known attractions as well. Like the Fremont Troll for example which can be found not under the Fremont Bridge (too obvious I guess) but the neighboring Aurora Bridge's north side. It took me quite a while to realize that ;-)

And I also saw some destinations around Seattle like the Snoqualmie Fall which is twice as high as the famous Niagara Falls... but maybe a bit less impressive :-)
Anyhow... I really fell in love with Washington State which much looks like Germany when it comes to vegetation and landscape. That's maybe the reason why you find so many Germans settling in this area... including the all-Bavarian town of Leavenworth (with Sommerfest and Oktoberfest) which I didn't have time to see unfortunately... maybe with my next weekend trip? ;-)

Seattle from above and below

And finally I made it to Seattle! No minor blizzard can stop me ;-) Interesting enough I had two fantastic days up in Washington State which is better known for its rain than for its sunshine while the rest of the country had thunderstorms, tornados and blizzard... the lucky shamrock in my Guinness worked already!
But back to Seattle... a very lovely city I have to say. I really like the different neighborhoods which I didn't see like that anywhere else so far.

By walking through the city center I noticed those little windows in the sidewalk at most intersection. What is underneath? Well this is one of the many secrets of Seattle. For more than 30 blocks you have 'hollow' sidewalks which were put in after a huge fire destroyed the entire city in the late 19th century. At that time they decided to rise the street level by one storage which took the city a decade to put in. In the meantime you had already most of the buildings rebuild which actually lost an entire level which went into the underground.

For several decades you had two different levels of sidewalks... one for the offical business upstairs and one for 'other' business downstairs. Nowadays you have guided tours through this underground city. Very interesting! I wish I would have seen this during the prohibition which must have been very very interesting :-) But Seattle had some more surprised for me so stay tuned...

Whiteout on the runway

My next weekend trip supposed to take me to Seattle, Washington. What I didn't take in account was something much closer home then the far north-west of the United States... the Coloradan weather.
As a rule of thumb you can say: every time when you least expect it or really don't need it a blizzard pulls in. Regardless which season :o)

Even though it was just one of the minor spring blizzard we had so far it was enough to bring the entire air traffic to a squeaking hold for that day. And my plane was delayed by 4 hours... with an additional half an hour waiting on the runway to get the deicing. Oh joy. I finally arrived at my hotel at 1 AM. Oh well... at least I made it! And the very next morning I was ready to explore Seattle... that's what I call dedication ;-)

The L word at the big X

April 15th is traditionally the tax day over here in the States. And it seems like everybody is once again surprised by the upcoming deadline to finish their income tax returns. But this year my company also had a surprise up their sleeve. After having their last 'workforce adjustments' in June of last year we knew that there are new clouds on the horizon once again. On Monday we knew already that something big is going down and we were right...

The official numbers are 6% reduction... most of them in Europe (Ireland got badly hit). For more information just read the official statement. Anyhow... I got 'adjusted' as well... which is really a strange feeling. I am glad going through that at least once in my lifetime but I would love to leave it at that. At least we had a very nice layoff party at the end of this day... and they even put a lucky shamrock into my Guinness... for good luck I guess :-)

And I also had a very nice layoff dinner with my roommates at Joe's Crab Shack... lucky enough Dani was working here before so she could order the 'proper stuff' for us.

Well after nearly 6 years with the big X it is time to say goodbye. Best of luck to my remaining colleagues... they will need it in the coming months. I still feel that I got the better side of the deal! So long...

What is a... roundabout?

Coming from Ireland where roundabouts are a quite common sight at your daily commute I was surprised to see that the US went an entirely different way when it comes to traffic control. Traffic lights are more common here than anywhere else I went so far. Even in Germany it is easier to step over a roundabout from time to time ;-) But in several communities over here you can find them if you look hard enough...

Interesting is how different towns and cities explain those to the public over here. One of the more innovative ways I found in Steamboat Springs... a 'traffic circle' apparently is a little one way street spanning around a little circle... or simply a roundabout :-P

Rocky Mountains Oysters

Well... one story remains from our Rocky mountain trip I didn't mention here yet: Rocky Mountains Oysters. Well... I'll not tell you what those are actually are (just in case you want to try them anytime soon and not to spoil the surprise for you) but to be honest now... so far I thought they are a myth or at least something put together for messing around with tourists ;-)

But they are real! It is a real dish served in real restaurants here and enjoyed by real locals and real (unknowing) tourists! And for what they are they are not too bad at all. I was surprised!

And as you can see... we survived to tell the story! Try them on your next trip to Colorado yourself!

Steamboat Springs

The last part of our journey took us to Steamboat Springs which is a little ski resort in the far north of Colorado. World famous for their champagne powder snow which they got plenty from the last weekends blizzard. Of course we were not really interested in skiing but more in their local hot springs and hiking trails. Somewhere on this picture on the right you can see the famous Fish Creek falls... somewhere below all the snow that is.

Unfortunately it wasn't all fun and games... and somebody stole my camera while visiting the local museum :-( Oh well... it could have been much worse I guess... at least we were able to take some pictures with other cameras for instance... After a long and intensive discussion with Mr. Lincoln on that bench I felt much better... interesting enough he wasn't saying too much. I guess a good president is also a good listener :o)

But we still had a great vacation up in Steamboat Springs... a very nice place which I am sure to see again soon.

This concludes our long weekend trip throughout the Rockies! Thanks for the fantastic time I had, Christine.

Hanging Lake Hike

But on the second day of our vacation the streets had already cleared up which gave is the chance for a 'little' hike... to the Hanging Lake. This is already a quite challenging hike in the summer time but as you remember from my last post, we had a blizzard over here which added a few levels of difficulty in form of ice and snow. So this 'little' hike of 30 mins each way turned out to be a bit longer...

In fact around 3 to 4 times longer. So we were counting the numbers of bridges to cross... in the picture above you can see number 4 of 7. But the reward was astonishing enough: this green crystal clear lake framed by the white of ice and snow. Fantastic! I am sure to come back the next time in the summer time though ;-)

And here is the Hanging Lake exploration party 2008: Christine who took the exploration lead, Jasmina who kept an open eye for bears and mountain lions from her vantage point and myself who was there just for his good looks I guess :o)

But our adventure continued so stay tuned!

Glenwood Springs

My next weekend trip took me once again up the Rocky Mountains. Christine was visiting from Germany and after staying in Colorado for more then 3 years, she felt a bit homesick ;-) So I took two days off and we went up the mountains heading to Glenwood Springs. A pity though that a major blizzard (the last one for this season?) pulled in at the very same weekend...

I wasn't really worried but my colleagues were... so I borrowed a shuffle, starter cables and snow chains of Thomas and filled my car with food, water and cat litter. Yes... cat litter! Apparently it is very good for getting some traction between snow and tires when getting stuck! Interesting what kind of things you learn moving to a different country ;-)

But as you can see on the pictures... it was absolutely necessary to be prepared even though we didn't have any troubles getting to Glenwood Springs which is a three hour drive from Denver... over there though we got snowed in on Saturday. So we visited the nearby caves which had a constant temperature of 55 F (13 C) which were really nice and cosy with all the snow around us ;-)