Rocky Road

Denver

A shade under 33 hours after my bus rolled out of Seattle the lights of Denver finally hoved into view in the fading Colorado light. It feels like I've been sitting in a never quite comfortable enough semi-upright position for a very long time indeed, but even though the journey took me through five states it still looks suspiciously short on the map.

Apart from the first couple of hours in Washington State - beautiful snow capped mountains in the mist to the south and east of Seattle - the scenery wasn't too much to get excited about. Admittedly I passed through all of Idaho in darkness so perhaps there's something dramatic there, but the highlight of the last few hours was realising that Colorado looks just like those old Roadrunner cartoons. You know, with those rocks and stuff.

I could probably have done with an Acme sleeping pill because there wasn't much likelihood of any kip last night. At one point I had a drunk tramp on my right singing various country songs (and at one point, bizarrely, Prince's "Purple Rain"), two bickering eight year old boys immediately behind me, a couple of annoying American teenage girls psychoanalysing each other in true "Dawson's Creek" style a bit further back, and then a huge fat man in front snoring loud enough to just about drown everything else out. I managed to read all of "Catch-22" during the trip which at least proved mildly diverting. I'm off to find some things to do in Denver when you're dead (tired).