Boulder

To the east, completely flat for 1630 miles, then sea. To the west mountains. Looking forward to a month of cragging in this climbing Mecca that I've only just got around to visiting; perviously written off as a few insignificant loose cliffs in the mid west. I was spending a lot of time in California at the time, none-the-less, a typically sweeping and overly generalised opinion.

I contacted a couple of old friends living in the Bay Area before leaving the UK to see if they had any climbing contacts in Boulder; shockingly neither of them knew anyone at all. How could that be? Main stream climbers from California not knowing anyone out of thousands of climbers resident in the Boulder area? Those Valley boys need to get away a bit more.

First on the list was a shopping trip down town on the push bike. After waving and nodding to a couple of hundred cyclist the task overwhelmed me; there's just too many of the buggers. I was feeling like Crocodile Dundee on his first day in New York.

A visit to the Patagonia Store, REI and the Apple Store. Those shop assistants are just so friendly! I was more than happy to hand over substantial amounts of cash in exchange for premium priced clothing and IT equipment and, even feeling up-beat, positive and communicative myself; laughing joking and generally enjoying the experience. A nauseous hangover awaits no doubt.