Denver was such a relief, the folks of Colorado or specifically Denver where super relaxed easy going and not at all with any of this distinguishable hang ups of the South or East Coast. Nando's friend Duncan use to work with him doing production. But now he has escaped the hot weather with his wife and they are now living in a beautiful converted carriage house in a great neighborhood with great neighbors. We parked the bus in front of his house and none of the neighbors complained or even raised an eyebrow, well maybe a couple eyebrows lifted.
Heading to Red Rock.
We headed out to Red Rock which is a huge amphitheater built in to the side of red rocks. Reminded me a lot of some of the theaters I saw in Greece. Acoustics were good and someone took it upon themselves to perform for us and Luciano decided to jump on stage, to sit and be entertained.
Colorado is one of the first states to have decriminalized marijuana for medical purposes. Other states have perhaps decriminalized medical marijuana but they don't protect their marijuana businesses from federal prosecution. I don't quite understand it, but I know some acquaintances who were arrested for being employees of a medical marijuana farm in California, but in Colorado that would have never happened to them.
We got an opportunity to tour the medical marijuana operation from seed to dispenser. Commercial marijuana is grown hydroponically, we toured a warehouse where a few strains of cannabis had been cloned over and over by simply cutting the original plant, dipping it into a rooting hormone and placing it into a container and letting it grow.The warehouse had several rooms with plants at various stages of growth with different lighting for what the plant requires for that specific stage. There were giant tubs of nutrients that each plant was connected to with umbilical cord like hoses that were like veins throughout the entire warehouse. It sort of reminded me of when Neo wakes and discovers he was in the matrix.
Have you ever noticed the aurora of plants that are in a shopping mall or in an artificially landscaped parking lot compared to those that were grown directly in the ground? I believe that plants grown out of the earth don't have access to the history and mythology that their interconnected and extensive root systems provide them with. It is like nursery grown plants don't know what they are. They ask us, is this what I ought to look like, is this right? Probably could be applied to human beings too.
Maybe it was all the pot everyone was smoking, but Denver was like a European flavored West. Everyone was thoughtful, conscientious, mindful and relaxed. Not that it wasn't with it's American attributes of consumerism, franchises and burgers and fries. People haven't completely recovered their lives, but they are trying and teaching their kids to be good stewards of the earth. Also, the schools were amazing and I only looked into preschools.
We hung out with Duncan and his friend Mike, we drank locally brewed beers, ate ice cream, went for walks, cooked really good food and watched Luciano jump the neighbors fence repeatedly to go visit his first love, Mary.
We left on Monday and headed to visit our friend Ryan who lives in Boulder. He wasn't home when we stopped in and those mountains had been tempting us so we headed up to Rockey mountain national forest. We were going up hills and down hills and maneuvering this 40 foot bus through these rockey mountains. At one point I could see we were on a narrow slide, I could see the road below us and Nando saw a sign that informed him much too late that no vehicles over 25 feet since the road was so steep, so like any driver would, he went in reverse down a winding, narrow mountain road until we found a drive way which we pulled into barely and turned around. There was a little sweat dripping from my brow.
So we continued our way looking for a State Park camp that I found using oh!Ranger, but it lead us a stray and into Estes Park and into trouble. It was getting dark and we were desperate, in and out of the National Park we went, but no camping was found. We ended up in a Salvation Army lodge and trapped by complete blackness, Nando hit a tree and busted a fuel hose in the rear WVO tank. He patched it with tape and we just concluded that we should stay in the National Park and explain later. We spent the night and it got nice and cold on the bus. Nando made breakfast, Mona ran loose as usual and we all got prepared for a day out hiking and soaking in the landscape. So it was a shock to us when the old fellow in the toll booth was a complete jerk to Nando and called the park police on us. So I went out with the kids and had a sweet white talk with him, which seemed to dissolve the matter to a mere forgiven mistake. Yes, I'm saying he was racist. The park cop came and we chatted to him, he didn't seem to care at all, he was more interested in how the bus worked and our organization. He gave us a few recommendations of where to hike and what to see.
So we drove a little and went up the side of a mountain and followed a stream up to its fall. It wasn't particularly impressive compared to others that we have seen, but it was nice to be there, it is such a moderate climate and everything is green and lush. The water came crashing down over huge volcanic boulders that have been being polished by this water flow for thousands of years. There were the famous American cutthroat trout, fly fisherman in rubber pants and wicker baskets on their belts. we made a little mistake of deciding to carry the children all the way up. Which is not so unusual for me, but carrying Luciano for four miles up and four miles down left us all feeling exhausted emotionally and physically. So at the end of the day, we were starving and eager to retreat to somewhere safe and calming. So we headed back to Boulder but stopped in between to eat terrible Mexican style food and then headed to Boulder to visit our friend Ryan.
He lives in a suburban house in a suburban neighborhood,we knew for sure the neighbors would give us trouble, but his roommates Henry and Cookie were happy to move their cars and let us park the bus in their drive way. We caught up with Ryan, watched Mona and Dexter (Cookie's dog) play and run wild in their back yard and on the second night we cooked dinner, drank wine and finally heard the complaint from the neighbors about the bus.
So we left and went to where Cookie suggested up the mountain to Magnolia Drive, where there was free camping. However, because of this, it was like a parking lot. We met a family from Florida, ironically, who had an airstream and had been travelling as a family for awhile, but when the when the ATVs and dirt bikes pulled in for the weekend, we decided to ditch and headed towards another State Park.
But to our forgetful travel bug minds, it was Labor Day weekend and there was not a single campsite available anywhere, The road curved and went up and down, until the mountains became walls of trees all around us. The sky grew dark and darker and suddenly we saw Denver in front of us like a UFO hovering in the distant sky. There was lightening just above and occasionally the city would light up in white and blue electrical strikes. It was beautiful. So we shrugged and headed back into Denver without complaint.
We ended up parking behind a large Goodwill and eating a pizza in a late night bar/pizzeria. We slept well, shopped the Goodwill in the Morning and played in Washington Park all afternoon. Later we met up with Duncan, Mike and this time Georgina and enjoyed a late night dinner, sipped wine and enjoyed good conversation. They had a Labor Day BBQ and we relaxed in perfect weather and watched the children run wild.
We parked in an abandoned school and enjoyed the rest of the weekend, visited Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs and prepared to head to the Grand Tetons.
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