Colorado

The Maroon Bells

We flew to Denver which would be our base for a couple of weeks. Meredith's friends Emily and Joe were getting married and she was maid of honour. American weddings are much like British ones, although this one had a bluegrass band which was great fun to dance to. It was a lovely day and Meredith fulfilled all her girly duties well!

I like Denver a lot, it's a nice sized city with a great view of the mountains. The people seem to be very relaxed and friendly too. We went to the town of Boulder a few times which is further towards the mountains. It's right underneath the "Flatirons" and the foothills into the Rockies. It's got a reputation for being a hippy town and is also home to the University of Colorado campus. However, my dad was more familiar with it for being the home of "Mork and Mindy", in the 70's TV program starring Robin Williams.

The Flatirons

After a week or so in Denver we drove into the mountains for a few days. We stopped in Keystone for a night, which is one of the ski resorts. It's also a beautiful place for summer hiking and mountain biking. It's a bit like Windermere in the English Lake District except with much fewer people and higher peaks. From here we drove to Vail and onto Aspen. The drive to Aspen is spectacular, especially the road through the narrow Glenwood Canyon. Once in Aspen we had a couple of day trips: one to Maroon Bells and the other through Independence Pass to the Arkansas River for some white-water rafting. Both had amazing views of some of the highest peaks in the mountains. I'd like to return for more hiking, rafting and maybe even some fishing.



I really enjoyed Colorado, hopefully I'll be good enough at snowboarding after this winter to go back and try out some of the great places they have there. It was especially nice to meet the Seymour family though, who were very kind during my stay.

The Seymours - Callie, Dick, Karen, Ansley and Meredith

Hawaii!!!

The first part of our trip on the way to Colorado took us to the island of Oahu. Hawaii is the No.1 tourist destination for Japanese people and all over the island there were visitors and people who have moved there for a more relaxed lifestyle. Oahu is the island with Honolulu on it and is the most inhabited one. Some of the other islands sound wonderful, especially the big island (actually called Hawaii) which has few people and is still very volcanic, with black sand beaches and active volcanoes. Next time I'd like to go island hopping and have more time to see the other islands.

After a few nights in Waikiki we hired a car and drove up to the North Shore where we had booked a studio apartment for a few days from a lovely couple called Mike and Wendi. The beaches on the North Shore are beautiful and much less crowded than Waikiki. We went snorkelling in Shark's Cove and saw lots of sea turtles.




It was a lovely relaxing week, I could have happily stayed there for the whole month.