On Saturday morning I walk to the grocery store around the corner of the hostel. I don’t know if it’s because of inflation or that it’s a local supermarket, but I notice that prices seem a lot higher than last year. I’m glad that the dollar is so low compared to the euro at the moment, that compensates it again.
I get the usual things for breakfast and walk back to the hostel. After breakfast I look up where some good coffee places are nearby and I find Bird Rock Coffee and Moniker nearby. Bird Rock doesn’t have much place to sit, so I walk further to Moniker. It’s a nice hip coffee place and I decide to sit down for a while.
Travel
Enjoying a vacation day
It’s around 4.30am and I’m in the shower at the hostel where I’m staying the coming days. The shower head reaches just over my shoulder, so I have to bend a bit to get water on my head. Just a detail, but it makes me realize again how good things are back home. Simple things like a good shower are easy to take for granted until you’re in a place where you don’t have it.
The first day of travel
It’s just after 5am and I’m in the kitchen making sandwiches to take with me and having breakfast. For the so maniest time I’m asking myself: are you sure you want to go? Wouldn’t it be way more comfortable and easy to just stay home? The nice thing is that the answer to both questions is yes. Yes, it would be easier to just stay home, but also yes I want to go traveling and have an adventure.
Booked
A few week I had been doubting if I should travel again. Work is busier than ever before and life is very comfortable most of the time. And it’s exactly that second point that motivated me to start looking at flights again. Being in the comfort zone is nice, it’s easy. You know what to expect mostly from the days and weeks to come. The routine makes it relatively predictable. And how much I enjoy that, part of me longs for adventure.
Back in California
It’s Wednesday afternoon. I drove about 700 miles yesterday and another 250 miles this morning. By now I’m a bit tired, but also glad I made it back to California. A few more days until my flight home, so it’s nice that I can relax a bit before that.
Beautiful days in Colorado
When the Mango Tree coffee places closes I drive to the town of Golden just outside of Denver. It’s a nice little mountain town and I have dinner at a Mexican restaurant and walk through the town center for a bit. Then I drive to a campsite about an hour further where I’ve stayed a few years ago. It’s on a dirt road in the national forest.
Rocky Mountains national park
I have a long drive planned on Thursday. It’s more than 12 hours driving to Rocky Mountains national park and I want to see how far I can get. The first few hours are quite boring, since it’s just driving through desert land, but slowly but steadily the mountains are coming back in view and late in the afternoon I’m back in Colorado.
Tulips, Nederland, and a snow storm
After some relaxing time at Dirt Coffee, I walk around the block to another favorite place. In Tea, a tea store in Littleton that sells about 180 different kinds of tea. As I walk in, the guy at the register looks at me and laughs, saying “I remember you!”, I laugh back at him and answer, “Yeah, it’s been almost a year.”
My favorite place in America
Last night my friend Ana, who lives in this area, texted me and told me that she’ll be working at the office in Ouray and I’m welcome to join her. Ouray is a small town on the other side of the mountains, about an hour away from Telluride. After a relaxed beginning of the day in the car, watching the sun rise over the mountains and having breakfast, I drive to Ouray. I’ve driven this road a few times before and know it quite well by now. They call this area the Swiss of America and it’s not hard to see why. Everywhere are beautiful mountains.
Arches and Telluride
After a bit restless night I wake up at 6am by my alarm clock. I see that it’s already getting a bit light outside, that’s earlier than at the west cost last week. I get dressed and drive to Arches national park, which is only about twenty minutes away from where I camped.