Entries about denver

Unlike every other day, today was different. Today the traveling tripod was reunited and the second stage of our American Road Trip begins. Full of stupid jokes and misbehaving, we headed to a trusty campground in Chief Hosa, Colorado and set up for the night.

Excited to show Adrian our new toys, we took out the Ball Bearing Rifle for some target practice in the near by National Forest. After a while of shooting beer cans, the park ranger gave us a friendly talking to and asked us to leave. Apparently there is a no arms policy in this specific park.

To celebrate our new arrival, we headed to Golden, a near by town and made good use of the microbrewery happy hours. After washing down a traditional burger with some more beer, we headed back for some sleep. In true welcoming fashion, Adrian had a little too much to drink and proceeding to fertilise the campground with his recently consumed meal! Welcome to America Adrian ☺

We awoke hung-over and partially ready to tackle our next mission, Red Rocks. In a little town called Morrison lies an Amphitheatre surrounded by large pieces of layered red rock giving it the suggestive name. Red Rocks is geologically formed, open-air Amphitheatre that is not duplicated anywhere in the world. With Mother Nature as the architect, it provides acoustic perfection for any performance. So many modern day artists hold it as their favourite venue to play at. During the day it coverts into a fitness arena, hundreds of locals exercise there amongst the various obstacles. We were amazed at how many different workouts could occur in the one venue.

http://redrocksonline.com/

When guilt finally got the better of us for not exercising, we headed to Estes Park, which is the eastern entrance of the Rocky Mountains National Park (RMNP)
http://www.nps.gov/romo/index.htm

Just minutes after entering the National Park we came across a large pack of Elk grazing in a field. Here stood a large masculine “Bull” over looking his harem of Elk that are coming into mating season. As good as it sounds, it is not always paradise for this bull. Leading up to mating season he will loose almost 30% of his body weight rounding up his girls and fighting off other bulls trying to cut his lunch. This weight loss might not see him through the cold winters up there. David Attenborough, eat your heart out! ☺

Nestled within the RMNP we found a great campground with a stunning mountainous backdrop.

To make best use of the fire pit provided we all headed up into the forest to collect some of the dead wood lying around. Our neighbour took a disliking to this and came over and told us about the “No collecting wood rule”.
Thankful and abiding, we stopped collecting wood and started a fire with what wood we collected on our first run. The weather took a turn for the worse and the heavens opened. Our trusty fire was doused so we got into the tent for an early night.

Cold and sore from an interrupted sleep, we woke up to serious condensation in our tent, soaked belongings and Park Rangers wanting to chat. Apparently our good neighbour reported us in for collecting wood.
To repay the nice gesture we placed all our left over wood on his fire pit awaiting his return.

As timber fugitives, we headed towards Grand Lake, located on the western edge of the National Park. We encountered yet another flock of Elk, which Adrian had a Mexican stand off with the bull in his pursuit for the perfect shot.
Adrian: 1 Bull: 0

Up at 12,000 ft we also got to see some wild mountain goats. Our wildlife highlight was the rare sighting of a brown bear that was chilling out on a tree stump beside the road. An old local stood with us and mentioned that he had never seen a bear here for the past 40 years. We guess luck was on our side; otherwise he has probably been wearing the wrong glasses!

All natured out, we headed into Denver for a fresh up. To our surprise we had learnt that Colorado now has legal marijuana dispensaries for Medical / Recreational use. So Luke didn’t really see a lot of the boys that day! ☺

That night we headed to Beta Club to see Dubstep artist, Skism absolutely destroy the place. Our new Colorado friends Colin and Bo from Luke’s Freeman Festival experience joined us in a night that was one to remember. At the end of his 90-minute set we got to meet the great man and have a chat!! Great Bloke

To finish off our Colorado experience, we met with Colin and Bo again the following day for a traditional Texas grill that completely blew our minds.
Full to the brim with Colorado experiences, we now head off to Utah.