Eight and half hours sitting in the worlds hardest Aircraft seats (for Dave G these make the EC120 seats look like Lounge chairs) we arrived in Denver.
For the first time on this trip, since leaving Australia, we had a piece of paper to fill out to enter the USA. Unlike Australia and NZ, every other country we’ve visited seems to try keeping the nauseous paperwork to a minimum for travellers. Again, like every other place there was no bag scanning. But the highlight of going through border security into the US was getting photographed and finger printed, although I was hoping for something a little more personnel.
As we walked outside to get the bus to the rental car depot (which was about 15 mins away) we couldn’t help but notice it was flipping freezing… local temp was a frigid 0º C.
After finding, yet again, that the online car booking website had misled us with the size of car we’d booked we decided to upsize a medium SUV, after all this is the USA and we couldn’t be driving a crappy Australian made Camry ….. that wouldn’t be cool.
Our Wheels a GMC Terrain (Probably a crappy Holden product)
Buy this time it was 9 pm local (but to us it was past midnight). I was
still crook and as Jo has coped with the left hand drive thing better than me
she drove us safely to the hotel. By this time Cam was starting to shut down,
but was so hungry he wasn’t going to sleep. So it was a quick trip down to the
bar to pick up a feed then everyone hit the hay for a rest.The next morning everyone woke early but feeling a fair bit better, after a breakfast at the hotel, served on polystyrene plates (seriously America is it that hard to wash crockery?) Jo did some washing and sorted the bags out for the trip.
First stop was the Buffalo Bill’s grave and Museum which was on Lookout Mountain overlooking Denver. If you don’t know who he was then read wikipedia.
Whilst driving up there we noticed white stuff all over the trees, this isn’t something we’d seen before… yup it was a frost and quite a large one. The locals assured us it was unseasonal and things would warm up…
That be Ice Within 5 minutes of getting out of the Car I learnt that you can’t see Ice a lot of the time, but that doesn’t make it less slippery. That fall didn’t do my back, sore after the plane trip any favours.
Still the views from up there was outstanding although the kid had more fun playing in the ice. However it wasn’t long til Cam had a meltdown because his hands were cold, I have to wonder what he expected.
North and South Table Mountains (Denver is to the right)
Denver
Colorado Rockies
After a while admiring the views (you can see 4 states from there) we took the short walk up to see Buffalo Bill’s grave, he is buried on the right with this wife on the left.
Buffalo Bills Gravesite
Then it was onto the museum.
The Obligatory photo op at the door
That was interesting with the history of the man and his show along with a lot of stuff his foster son collected over the years.
William Frederick "Buffalo Bill" Cody
Short Bulls Headdress Sitting Bulls Headdress
Sitting Bulls Peace Pipe
The kids also got to try lassoing a cow… it's harder than it looks.
For lunch we all decided to sample a traditional US delicacy, the Hot Dog. This proved to be very tasty, with the sausage nicer than the ones at home. And to make things better it was serviced with a side of chips (not hot chips, potato crisps. Chris D, although not Smiths they were quite acceptable)
Next Stop was Dinosaur Ridge, where there are hundreds of dinosaur fossils. Denver sits in what used to be a massive seaway so there are fossils everywhere, people even find then digging in their gardens.
In one area alone there were over 30 Iguanodon foot prints and along with foot prints from a bird like dinosaur.
Bird Dinosaur Foot Print
Iguanodon foot prints (coloured black with Charcoal to make them stand out)
There we took the guided 45 min bus tour rather than walk it as we still had
a 130 mile drive before we stopped for the night. The tour was pretty cool as
the guide was a young palaeontologist and he was pretty passionate and
knowledgeable. His name was 'Thor'...
Fossils are the dark red pieces, there are various bones in this pic
We saw heaps of fossils and the most amazing thing to me, a profile
fossil of a Apatosaurus foot print. The guide even explained how to tell it was
a fossil.
Apatosaurus foot print (I've added the black line)
Fossilised Sand Ripples
More Fossilised Sand Ripples
Cam and "Steggie"
Cam and Iguanodon
Wagon tracks are the dark lines in the centre of the image
The guide also pointed out Red Rocks Amphitheatre is a rock structure near Morrison, Colorado, where concerts are given in the open-air amphitheatre. There is a large, tilted, disc-shaped rock behind the stage, a huge vertical rock angled outwards from stage right, several large outcrops angled outwards from stage left and a seating area for up to 9,450 people in between (thanks Wiki).
Red Rocks Amphitheatre
After the tour we checked out the associated museum which had some more fossils, plus casts of various other fossils that have been found locally.
Allosaurus Bone
Allosaurus Claw and another claw
Tyrannosaurus Tooth (right) Triceratops Horns (left)Calum - which side is right and which is left? I don't think T-Rex had a double tooth!
After this it was in the car for a couple of hours as we headed south west to Salida. Those be some of the mountains we're going to drive over.
This blog was bought to you by the fingers of Calum.... Who'd have thought I had another one in me
Til next time.......
This little critter was hanging around with a heap of his mates in the paddock next door to the Dinosaur Ridge museum. We were told that he is a Prairie Dog. We've seen our first native Americans!
What can one say but thankyou for taking me with you through your beautiful photos and wonderful comments.
ReplyDelete