Through the mountains to Leadville

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Leadville, Colorado


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Light faded, we were in the snow with 14teener mountains all around. In the lowlit mountains I felt like I was in a snow globe, nothing beyond the mountains that went on forever into eternity. Dreams of camping were laughable, finally we began to descend, but still at 10,000 feet we didn’t want to risk it, we stopped at a hostel in Leadville just as night closed like a fist around us. Cars we passed were buried to their windscreens in snow. The hostel was a funny old place, eccentric and warm. The bedrooms underground and windowless, toilets closed off with pink ruffled curtains and everywhere decorated with shamrocks for St Patrick’s Day. There was a large group of retirees preparing for a hike with wine and beer, they were kind too, chatting while we cooked and donating hommous and corn chips, the very luxuries we had gone without at our last grocery shop. Warm and safe we slept like rocks.


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Boulder

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Boulder, Colorado



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Way up on the mountain it was time for me to confront the bubbles of homesickness that had been activated by leaving the earthship crew. The loss of constant companionship and camaraderie had left a whole that was being filled with thoughts of friends and family back home. Boulder was nice, Dylan loved it, but for some reason the juxtaposition of wilderness and utter surburbanality jarred with me, perhaps because Dylan felt so at home there and I did not.

After a trip into the town, so different in the sun, we hiked into the mountains, took a wrong turn, and then trekked 25km back home. It was tiring, but therapeutic, we talked things out and made some decisions. Tomorrow a new day, I felt bad that I hadn’t looked at Boulder with softer eyes, people had been lovely to me, especially the wait staff at the brewery, but sometimes you just get in a funk right? But now I feel refreshed and conscious of how lucky I am to be experiencing these amazing places and much more aware of how I need people. There goes my lone wolf romanticisms. Perhaps I’ve spent too much time at altitude and I’m just feeling exhausted.

While I’m in a social mood, I’ll throw a question out to the web, I feel like making connections, if you haven’t commented before why not say hi? Have you found that special place you belong or are you still searching? Is it the people or the space that make it home?


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Inside out cabin

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Boulder, Colorado


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The world whizzed by the bus window in a fog, snow climbing the glass until all was crystallised. Boulder was quiet, hands were gloved. We wandered down the shopping strip, finally tempted in by a family pizza place, pangs of home and Lygon Street: checked tablecloths and posters from the homeland. Sufficiently warmed and bellies full of pizza and cannelloni we braved the cold and caught a bus. A lady I could barely understand complimented my boots and then said she was 36 and had only just been able to get a pair of Australian Uggs. Now seated another lady asked me where I got my bag and then began to rant about how one day we would be able to teleport because we are all made out of atoms and alien visitors, the whole bus starred at their laps with smiles threatening to break into laughs. Public transport never fails to be diverting.

We landed at the bottom of a hill that went up and up, we took Reuben’s advice and thumbed a lift, he said if you can safely hitchhike anywhere it’s Boulder. A lady stopped straightaway, once again we were blown away with the generosity of strangers as she took us right to our door, she said she had been in our position before and had just been desperate for someone to help her out.

Who would have thought the first sign of spring we’d see would be inside a house. What seemed like an ordinary cabin was another world. A tree towering into a daylit courtyard, timber shingles and a stairway stepping around the stoned room and daffodils sprouting from crevices. I made friends with the cat, a purring affectionate feline who was served snow in a espresso cup and lapped it up. Our hosts were English climate scientists, researching climate change. Climate modelling from 9-5, the rest of the time scrambling, hiking, trail running, mountain biking, skiing; Dylan was right at home in Boulder.


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Watercourse & fairy lights

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Denver, Colorado


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Yesterday’s sunshine vanished and a grey day swept in, I felt restless. The city had been fun for a day, but now I was keen to move on, we loved the airbnb, but they had their lives to live and their babies cough was worsening. Out of the suburbs in the process of being gentrified through the industrial district, to the river, bare branches and patrolling geese. Dylan ran, I wandered long.

A lunch of giant salad at The Market at Larimer Square and a deep fried donut to offset our health points. Across the road a homeless man had incongruously taken up residence underneath a giant hippopotamus sculpture. We wandered through the burbs, from a row house music blasted, packs of primary school kids were shepherded by young teachers and there was that whiff of weed on the breeze.

Warm sunbeams kissed the timber shingles of the neighbouring house as we waited for Sam and Laina to pick us up for a farewell meal, goodbye Denver and goodbye the last of the earthship crew. As we drove street art whizzed by vibrant in the setting sun. While we waited for a table at Watercourse a row of smiling Muslim refugees sat in a row before us, a beaming western woman informed us part of the profit from our meal would support their charity. Would these lovely ladies have to sit smiling in the entry all night? To their left a mural of floppy bunnies and ravens presided over the scene, lights were ensconced in fitting of fragile paper scales. The food was delicious, drinks were free due to slow service, desert was vegan mousse. Then we ended the night on a high Our mutual Friend, chatting, laughing under fairy lights floating in the dark sky.


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