Glenwood Springs is a fairly upmarket spa resort where the hot springs pool, at 405 feet by 100 feet, is the
world's largest. It's hard to imagine a more pointless world record than that. Even a regular size swimming pool has more than enough germs and toenail clippings and used plasters and God knows what else. Of course, I have no interest in swimming pools right now, because I'm already sporting my traditional polychromatic travel tan: brown arms, red neck, blotchy face, and everything else milky white. (Apart from the hair, which is still ginger). By keeping my T-shirt on I can just about pass for human.
It was always inevitable that there would be a bit of an anti-climax in whatever followed Utah's matchless collection of national parks. The wet and cloudy weather hasn't helped. Having said that, I've had a couple of nice short hikes here, and more importantly the Glenwood Canyon brewery serves admirable beers in its excellent
brewpub - my favourite being the Rio Grande, very hoppy but with character to match. And also another very nice raspberry wheat...I'm going to make a tentative prediction that we'll soon be seeing raspberry wheat beer appear en masse in the UK, and that it will greatly simplify the process of getting one's round in, because both boys and girls will all drink it.
A little bit of excitement on Sunday morning at the motel - overnight, an adult female bear and her two cubs had crept into the car park, knocking over bins and raking through the contents. (This is a traditional-style motel where all the rooms open right onto the car park). The next morning, over breakfast bagels, the motel owner was excitedly telling everyone how he'd heard the bin fall over and had been peering out of the door with his shotgun loaded. It all sounded a bit improbable until I went out into the car park and, sure enough, there were several bucket-sized piles of bear droppings. That must have been one big-assed bear. The presence of the cubs was especially bad news: ordinarily, bears have absolutely no interest in humans, but if you get inbetween Mommy Bear and Baby Bear then all your earthly troubles will very soon be at an end...
Fortunately I completely missed the Bear Episode because I was asleep in my room, with the door locked, comatose after all those Glenwood Canyon beers. Guys, you saved my life.
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| Looking south across Colorado from Red Mountain |
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| Grizzly Creek |
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That's the Interstate 70 freeway rolling along near the bottom of the picture.
Motorway journeys in England would be more tolerable if they looked like this. |
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| Halfway up the canyon towards Hanging Lake (see below) |
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Hanging Lake.
As you can see, the water is miraculously clear. This is because of, er, science. |
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| Hanging Lake |
