Two Weeks of a Lady's Life in the Dramatic Landscapes of Colorado and Utah

Author's note:

The title of this travelogue was inspired by Isabella Bird, whose book accompanied me on some of the days of this trip. She was a remarkable woman and you can read about her here:

I do not pretend to be in the same league as her but I wanted to do a lighthearted homage to her intrepid adventuring with my title. My review of her book, A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains, will follow shortly.

***

I love a new trip away. You have a taster from the booking details of what to expect but it's never fully realised until you're on site.

After a long flight from Heathrow, London to Denver International Airport (pictured below), we, my family and I, arrived exhausted but eager, awaiting the prospect of leaving queues behind us and greeting the open road. A particularly cheerful border guard welcomed us at the desk in Denver, the end of queue 1. He even wished me a happy belated birthday, it having been a couple of days before departure. I took this friendliness and attention as a good omen for our time in the U.S.

Now, to collect the car for the trip. A lack of clear signage meant that we had to ask a Denver airport volunteer. He didn't understand "car hire" but was soon able to direct us to "car rental" once we had re-established our North American vernacular. Friendly and approachable, he urged us to drink lots of water to help with adaptation to the higher altitude and as soon as we could, we started swigging some liquid to avoid headaches and nausea. Denver is 5280 feet above sea level and as he pointed out, we'd come from London, very much at sea level. His offered advice was invaluable.

Let's hope our car hire situation would be as good. Budget had a long line of people (queue 2), travel weary and expectant like us. They were quick and efficient at the desk and soon, tourists were dispatched swiftly to the lot to pick up whatever had been ascribed to them. Sedan or SUV anyone?

We had travelled light - carry-on only - to keep luggage but not laundry at a minimum. This is a double-edged sword of a scenario: yes, you avoid the luggage lottery at the carousel (for which my husband has an aversion) and the anticipation and potential disappointment that this presents (a lost suticase at Christmas may have contributed to this aversion for hubby hubster) and yes, a trolley is not needed to stack your bags. However, you need to be an expert packer of the "fold and roll" discipline, plus you have the jeopardy of the overhead baggage compartment to contend with at the end of the flight. Those flight stewards are right - those items do shift, during the journey, as my old neighbour, Shirley will testify, when she was hit on the head by a bottle of duty free Scotch when the locker was opened. Ouch. It wasn't even hers, not that I think ownership would have made any difference to the size of the egg on her head.

Smaller bags though mean smaller hire cars which means more dollars to spend on fridge magnets, which can never be a bad thing.

The car hire lady, who had amazing hair, saw that we were four, that we had travelled a long way and that we would be bagged up and that maybe, just maybe, our modest choice of a sedan may not meet our comfort requirements and an SUV might be more suitable? Her generous offer was soon discounted as she was advised that we had travelled around Portugal in a Fiat 500 (pictured below) with the same amount of luggage. She looked stunned but my husband thought this may have been more like puzzlement as Fiats are not big in North America (they're not big in Portugal either - in size anyway), and he thought she didn't know what this strange British woman was talking about.

We didn't upgrade, confident we could squash into whatever vehicle we were given. There must have been a shortage of sedans as SUV was the motor waiting us. My youngster was cock-a-hoop, especially when he worked out the seats reclined and spent most of his time in the car in a recumbent position.

We left the airport for our KOA in Fountain, Colorado Springs, a bit of a drive away. No acclimatisation to the right side for us. As Canadians as well as Brits, living over seven years across the pond, we were soon back in the swing of being on the wrong side of the road, depending on how you saw it.

It was tight, our arrival at the campsite. We thundered down the freeway, stopping briefly for the bathroom and some sustenance under the "Golden Arches" and arriving there as dusk was descending.

First impressions? Noisy. Right next to the I-25, our wooden cabin's walls were inadequate for superior noise reduction; however, this was not to prove a problem for our stay.

As I lay in my husband's arms, relieved that we could rest after over a day of travelling, he apologised for his choice of KOA, the sound of trucks and Harleys rushing past beyond the wall seen as a blight, something to be endured. But soon, we both drifted off, the blast of engines passing soon forgotten as we approached sleep willingly and with full commitment, the softness of the queen mattress and the anticipation of our epic trip the comforter that enveloped us into slumber.

Or it could have been the fumes. Who's to say?

Day 2: e-biking in The Garden of the Gods