Living in Edwards, CO. Elev 7220 ft

Life In Colorado, USA	2008 Winter Season, Colorado

Right, onto the post I've been waiting to write about for a month now!
I've been here living in Edwards since driving out on Jan 2, and it's been the most insanely awesome month of my life! I knew without really knowing that it'd be incredible when I got the job, but it has so completely surpassed my expectations, I'll just do my best to write about it.

My excitment was mounting when I woke on Jan 2 to a stunning view from Stacey's apartment in Aurora of snowy sidewalks, snowy rooftops and beyond, the gleaming white Front Range under a clear blue sky. See, when I drove into Denver, it was dark, the day I flew to Oregon it was cloudy, and when I flew back it was dark, so the mountains had remained hidden until that moment, and I knew that in the afternoon, I'd drive out into them finally, and probably not come out of them for a while.

It was great getting behind the wheel again after nearly a fortnight away from my Jeep (I missed it), all my gear still sitting in the back, I headed for Sapphire Technologies with my google map printouts ready. On my way into the office I walked over the snow covered median strip and sunk past my ankles, managing to get snow in my shoes and on my suit pants. Off to a great start. After I met the face behind the voice who got me the job at RTP, Todd escorted me around town to get my errands done and have lunch. I got an oil change, bought an ice scraper, snow shovel and tyre chains, then managed to make a huge mess of my sleeves doing a test run of the chains. Finally, in the afternoon running a bit late, I headed out onto highway 470 that skirts south of Denver, then north along the foothills to intersect I-70, the gateway to the mountains. I-70 is a piece of work, electronic signs report weather conditions ahead with expected travel time, & as the road weaves up into the mountains, I drove with mingled excitement, awe and caution. At the height of the pass at an elevation of 11 158 feet (3401 m), the 1.7 mile long Eisenhower Tunnel punches through the Continental Divide, becoming the longest tunnel in the US Interstate System and the highest vehicular tunnel in the world. On the other side, despite good road conditions (wet but no snow cover) I still passed three wrecks on my way to Avon, one sedan had slid under the back of a semi which had half ripped the roof off, another car was in a ditch, and an SUV had run off the road, hit a snow embankment and flipped to lay on its roof.

I arrived in Avon close to 5pm which concerned me, as I had nowhere to stay, and was relying on using the phones & internet at the office to arrange something. Upon my arrival, I met the HR manager & after quick introductions, I explained my situation and we begun looking for accommodation. Todd back in Denver was helping as well, but after 20mins of calling & searching, there was NO accommodation whatsoever in town. Holidaymakers were still here from New Years; the nearest room was in Gypsum, 30 minutes west and $200 a night! Carol sent out an email to the staff saying a contractor had arrived in town & could not find lodging, and fortunately for me, a guy named Andrew had just vacated his guest room at his house and, without having even met me, offered to come back to work to escort me up & stay. Needless to say, he's an absolute champion and we're now good friends, I even got to watch Oklahoma play in the Fiesta Bowl (a respected college football event) while I begun my research for somewhere to live.

I started work the next day, learning loads about life in the mountains, places in town, stuff about work, soaking it all up the best I could, & canvassing what little accommodation I could find, with roommates.com, craigslist.org & the Vail Daily. I didn't get much sleep again that night (2nd night running) from anxiety over my lodging, next day I teed up an interview with 2 people looking for a third in a 3bed duplex in Homestead Meadows. Another 3rd night of bugger all sleep & in the morning the only new ad was titled 'Mountain Bare' and was a 4brm house with at least 2 other guys living there looking for room mates. They were massage therapists, who enjoy the odd meditation session, and quote "setting is clothing optional, so if you are affronted by nudity, stop here now"! I can't believe I was so desperate I was even thinking about it, but later at work by chance, I was having a conversation with my boss Steve about the crap accommodation situation when this guy happens to walk up & say 'well I'm looking for a room mate.' His name was Nate Sutterer & he was in fact the CFO of the company! I was all to happy to look at another place as I hadn't heard from the pair the prev night, so we checked out his 2bed apartment in River Pines in Edwards he was renting by himself, which is just down the road 10min from work. He has a dog Gusto, awesome dog, the place was great & we had lunch at E-town, the restaurant/bar which is a stroll away from the units, got along really well, agreed on a price & that was that :) Less than 48 hours from my arrival I had accommodation squared away in one of the toughest times for it, and the relief was almost physical. I can handle just about anything with this traveling business, provided I have somewhere to sleep when it's below freezing outside!

So I spent the night moving in, saying goodbye to Andrew's family (wife 2 kids dog & cats) and saturday getting organised, & then sunday Nate & his girlfriend Emily (who lives in Denver) took me out onto the slopes of Beaver Creek, the ski resort 10 mins down the road next to work :) I was hooked up with spare board & boots, Nate used one of his half price passes on me & we spent the afternoon at Bachelor Gulch, an area of the Beav which is centered around the stunning Ritz Carlton 5 star resort. In the afternoon it snowed steadily & I was boarding through a couple of inches of powder until lift close, unable to grasp the reality that I lived only a couple miles away.

Just about every day since has held something new & amazing, just like my arrival to the states in Norman Oklahoma. The river innocently flows through the valley past work & home, my bedroom window looks out onto the Riverwalk shops, & the winding snowy path that follows the river. White bumps in the river are snow covered rocks, which meet with the snowy river banks, & in places sheets of snow covered ice completely hide the flowing water from view. It takes a song or two on the CD player to warm the car in the mornings, often I spend a couple of those minutes sweeping snow off the windows and bonnet with my gloves. Four wheel drive comes in handy for snowy uphill road entries, a committed run-up is sometimes needed for everyone else. Days that I wear business gear to work are fun, when I cross the car park in my work boots, the slick soles cause me to slide, stumble & skate across the ice & snowpack while i'm trying to appreciate the icicles hanging from the rooftops. One morning I saw the air glinting with thousands of fine particles when I looked towards the sun, like sparkling dust, and I was completely mystified. Found out later that it was frozen fog.

Dad wrote me in chat one night responding to my news of getting a job in the mountains of Colorado, and he said "there's temperatures there you haven't even dreamed of." haha! Well that's for sure, my coldest morning I've seen evidence of so far has been -4F, which is -20C. When it gets like that, outside exercise is impossible as your throat can freeze, exposed skin (ear lobes, fingers) are at risk, and the river which is made of snowmelt and can only be a fraction above freezing, actually steams.

The craziness doesn't end there. Water up here boils around 92C, the weather can go from sunny to snow showers in minutes, and post does not get delivered to your door in these mountain towns. Everyone has to rent a PO box, and there is a queue, first come first served. Pretty dodgy actually, they stuffed up my application to share Nate's PO box & my pay checks bounced back to Massechusets, took me a full month to get them. The driving is always interesting too. Most of the main roads are treated with sand/gravel and magnesium sulphate, which turns everything to a lovely brown slush, but is supposed to be better for your car than salt. When it snows, the formidable local fleet of trucks with ploughs get out & you don't want to be driving next to them when they start ploughing snow 10 feet to the side.

I haven't told anyone from home this story yet (sorry mum, dad, but I know how you worry). In my second week here, Greg & I were planning to hit Vail, which would be my first visit to the largest ski resort in the United States, and I was going to pick him up from his place down the road at 7:30 AM. So there was no snow on the roads, & 1 week is the perfect period of time to become blaz-e about driving, and well there's a bump on a gentle left turn not far from my apartments. I believe a combination of black ice and acceleration caused the rear wheels to break traction, and the car veered left into the oncoming lane (no traffic thankfully). I tried to correct steering to the right, but the roads were so slick it went past straight and I started spinning to the right, so somehow I had the presence of mind to whip steering hard right and throw the brakes on so I slid in a straight line up the road, coming to a stop in the middle of my lane facing the wrong way, and the 3 cars that were following me. Probably slid 25m all up, I put it back in gear, got in the other lane, did a u-turn and went on my merry way. After taking stock of what happened, I started laughing at myself for how ridiculously calm I remained throughout it all, I was even pretty stoked. A few mins later I saw a Bachelor Gulch staff truck getting towed out of the snow banks after sliding on the ice, and even upon my return at 3:30 PM that afternoon, there were 2 cars in the snow banks on opposite sides of the road in the same place I spun out. Evidence of several other impacts were in the snow banks from that day, and I know that I was very fortunate. When I called Todd, starting the conversation with 'hey guess what happened to me this morning' his reaction was 'what already? you've only been there a week and a half.' haha But DON'T WORRY MUM, DAD, I can see trouble spots now and am getting better every day at knowing how to drive real winter conditions :)

Besides, everywhere is so close, I only have to get petrol every couple weeks, and so much stuff is just walking distance from home. A grocery store, a cinema, a restaurant/bar, a liquor store, the riverwalk for strolls and exercise, coffee shop, book store and of course Moe's ;) What more can you ask? Well, apart from more warm clothes. Walking Gusto is funny, in cold weather (single digit F) after 10 mins his paws get cold and he tries to avoid walking on them, so he walks on 3 legs with a hind leg stuck in the air, alternating every 10m or so, stopping to bend over sniffing another dogs markings, leg still in the air. You can't stop laughing. Nate says if you're too far from home he will stop walking & you have to pick him up & carry him back!

So I'm learning an awful lot about snow. I've seen dry, fine champagne powder snow, wet clingy snow, large fluffy light snow, heavy dense snow, wind scoured snow, even cold snow as opposed to 'warm' snow. Many areas of the mountains have seen the best January snowfall in a decade, and there has been high avalanche danger. When I was in Oregon one snowboarder crashed into a well of quicksand-like powder and suffocated, and separate avalanches killed a couple of back country skiiers. The locals I work with know a great deal about back country snow conditions, and even they say they don't know enough to risk doing it with so much snow. One of the deadly back country avalanches had a 12ft crown (the crown is the top of the avalanche where the snow breaks away) That means there was already 12ft of snow at the beginning let alone what got churned up further down. One avalanche buried 2 cars on a highway a few nights ago, authorities said there was more volume in that single avalanche than in all of the avalanches in that area for the past few years combined.

But it's all good, avalanches will always happen to back country skiiers who can't resist the lure of fresh powder, I'll stick to getting up early to catch first chair and blaze new tracks at the resorts after evening snowfall. It's such an awesome thing, speed is key & the bumpy grooms & packed snow gives way to a soft cushion where you feel as if you're floating, a wake of snow splashes around your knees & over your trailing hand, & you leave a cloud of powder 10 feet long. Steering is totally different, instead of sliding through turns you go exactly where you lean & point the board, like surfing with fins as opposed to without fins. Days like that, people are whooping and laughing, smiles all around, and your only problem is deciding which run to tackle next, or which line to take through the trees. As Nate says, 'What nice problems to have'.

I'm working on convincing Nate to buy a waterproof camera like mine so he can take some action shots of me too. He could have got a good photo this past weekend, I spent half the day finally getting into the tree glades at Vail, and when I stopped to have lunch in Mid Vail and took my helmet off, there was a great big twig sticking out of it :) With world class ski resorts only minutes away, and my 5 mountain pass permanently hanging off the chest pocket of my parka which I negotiated into the deal for my job, I'll be making sure I'm out there every weekend for the rest of the season.

Life In Colorado, USA	Vail Resorts, Colorado

Moving to CO and Xmas in Oregon

Boardman, Oregon (21 December 2007 - 1 January 2008)

As much as I knew I was going to miss Oklahoma and my friends, the impact of leaving was dulled because of a non-stop schedule for an exciting end to 2007. I was going to be visiting the Callows in Oregon, whom I met in New Zealand a year before, and then moving to the Rocky Mountains for a new job with Resort Technology Partners.

Two nights before I left, Todd Sarah and I had an early christmas opening presents, and I got out my box that my family shipped to me from Australia, that'd been sitting on my floor for about 3 weeks. Todd was stoked with his genuine Australian boardshorts picked by Andy from home, black quicksilver and perfect for the ol dirtybird. Sarah had a new outfit and lotions & I was spoiled with leather gloves, a navy blue business shirt & a black scarf. BUT, out of the box from home came an Aussie beanie & scarf (green & gold), Aussie beer cooler, a giant Australian flag windshield thing for the car, even four little Aussie flags! Todd's loungeroom was covered in Aussie gear and I was convinced Mum & Dad had robbed a souvenir shop.

But it was great, soon after arriving in the US I realized I didn't have much Australian stuff to show with pride, only really had my Aussie boxer shorts, which doesn't really count you know? :) So now i'm set, gave Todd a spare flag & took the stick out of another & tied it to my suitcase handle so I can spot my typical black suitcase apart from the other dozen ones like it on the airport baggage carousel. I then got to packing everything I have in the back of my car to move to Colorado. The plan was to finish work with Metavante on December 14, giving me almost a week to hang out with my mate Paul who was my first visitor from home (champion!), pack everything up and drive up to Denver. My friend Stacey, being the awesome girl that she is, let me stay overnight (again) at her place in Aurora and offered her car port to stow the Jeep & all my stuff, while I flew out to Oregon for Xmas and New Years. I would return on the 1st. Stacey was even kind enough to drop me off at the airport before work in the morning, so I hung out and had an awesome breakfast burrito in the terminal at a mexican joint.

Sitting in the gate lounge early for the flight, I was fooling around with the laptop and the dodgy airport wireless, when I suddenly realised, I was surrounded by beautiful women. There were 5 in the seats around me, all stunners, reading books, listening to music or on the laptop, and I thought mmm, I love Colorado... to the point I was inspired to message Todd about it. His reply was that he was stuck at work, in his fishbowl office with his co-worker/subordinate who can't understand english. I probably found it funnier than him. On the flight, I was in the middle seat again, had a good run of window seats there at the start, now it's like a curse and I never get it, always peering past people who don't care about the view outside and would rather sleep. But I sat next to a girl who I chatted to, she'd been all around the world and stuff and was only 18 (lucky with parents) and she was born & bred in Salt Lake City. She told me some interesting stuff about the place, how the Mormon pioneers followed their prophet across the uninhabited countryside in the late 1800's until he saw a great lake, decided that would be the spot to build their city (saw it in a vision apparently). Too bad the lake turned out to be a gigantic useless salt marsh that often puts off an odour that reaches all the way to the mountains :) Pretty funny hearing it come from her, as she's one of the few people from the area that isn't Mormon. Still, out the window, the calm Great Salt Lake reflected the patchy cloud cover against a backdrop of snowed mountains that encircled the city. Known as the crossroads of the west, it was an impressive sight.

After a delayed flight to Pasco Tri-Cities in Washington, I finally landed and met up with Clay, who came to pick me up. He was on xmas break from his studies at the University Of Idaho in Moscow (no joke that's the name of the town). Down across the border to Oregon, I was introduced to the quiet little town of Boardman, and met up again with Dawn and Shannon, and met for the first time Dawn's partner Robyn Graff and his son Trevor, who had recently moved into the house. Dawn and Robyn work as teachers at Riverside High School, where Shannon and Trevor go to school and Clay graduated the year before.

I have so many highlights of my stay there, starting with going quad biking with Clay on the vacant land next to the house; Graff owns the bike and they had ridden a bunch of trails into the brush, complete with little jumps, steep drops and sudden hairpin turns. We went out in freezing conditions and when our hands were going red with cold we decided to head back for gloves, and for me to grab the camera. I'd only just begun filming on our cruise back down the road to the trails when it begun sleeting on us! We had no goggles so that was that, sleet in the eyes sucks a lot more than rain.

Another day we all got up early to make a road trip out to the Bull Prairie Lake in a mountainous national forest area to the south. Graf loaded the quad bike on the trailer and a couple hours later we turned off the main road onto the access road buried in over a foot of snow. I was paying keen attention to Graff's impressive driving, sliding around corners a bit with a trailer in tow and going maybe a tiny bit faster than I would have thought to be 'safe family driving' :) Upon arrival, I first saw the open flat white expanse which I knew to be the lake, but was shocked to see two groups of people out there! I hadn't expected that, and sure enough the lake was frozen enough to walk on, though a huge fracture and tyre marks at the boat ramp showed that the ice wasn't thick enough for vehicles. We piled out of the car and began a snowfight, I quickly put on a pair of snow shoes & pants as the snow was up to knee deep. Graff got the bike off the trailer & got out the rope and truck tube for some 'snow tubing'! Both the driver and the person being towed were perfect targets for snowballs and the bumpy snow made for some good tubing and crashes (though not as hard core as on the lake with Todd behind the wheel).

I also went off and explored, since it was only the third time I'd seen snow, and never so soft, fresh and deep. Out in the forest, some drifts were waist deep, and Flare the golden lab would stumble as he walked when his paws broke through some of the icy layers. What was so stunning, was it was absolutely quiet (when the quad bike went away up the road), and every 5 seconds or so clumps of snow would fall from a tree branch, knocking off other clumps and leaving a stream of falling powder and sound of a soft thud. I checked out one of the jettys for some photos, and saw Shannon and her boyfriend Cory walking clear across the middle of the lake. So I looked over the end of the jetty, very tentatively tested my weight, and stepped off the end onto the ice, onto the lake! It was such a profound experience, walking on a lake, haha stepping off a jetty for crying out loud. Nuts. Graf and Dawn were setting up chairs and fishing poles and the esky/cooler out on the ice & I helped him cut out a few holes in the ice with the axe. There were two main layers of ice, probably 4 or 5 inches thick all up. He had corn for bait? I guess that's normal, but yeah haha, slim pickings in that ice fishing business, people who know me know that fishing aint really my thang. Graf and Trevor set up a fire on the ice and began cooking lunch, while I stood to the side trying to figure out what happens when you build a fire on ice. I mean, I had never thought about that before :) and after a little concern, I reasoned to myself that a fire couldn't melt through the ice because it'd just go out when it hit the water. Which is exactly what happened, after a while a puddle forms, and eventually burning sticks will fall in the water and go out, and there is no chance of us hearing a big crack and all disappearing into the frigid water :) Although there was one problem, a male problem, see when one guy cuts a hole with the axe, every other guy there has to try to see if he can cut a better hole, soon there are holes everywhere. Ambling about the fire I walked backwards half into a hole, lucky the lower layer of ice held my weight, but Trevor was not so fortunate, he fell up to the knee into one of his holes :)

There was more excitement at the end of the day when Graf decided to take Dawn and Shannon each for a spin out on the ice on the quad bike. I could tell he'd done it before, the trick was to keep the throttle flat and maintain speed, with gentle turns going in wide controlled sliding turns across the ice. To slow down would put too much pressure on an area of ice, and there's a strong chance of breaking through. On Shannon's turn, Graf twice broke ice, probably that top layer, and he confessed after he came back that it scared the hell out of him. Pretty gutsy driving at 30mph straight down the boat ramp to the side of the big hole someone's truck made earlier. Oh don't forget, with your girlfriend on the back first time, and her daughter the next. He certainly had my attention, I didn't even want to think about what a sinking quad bike and flying / sinking riders would be like. And some people think that I'M crazy.
But all was good and nobody died and they lived happily ever after...moving on, Clay Trevor & I went to Anthony Lakes ski resort another day, where I tried skiing for the first time, and Trevor's first time snowboarding. The valley of the town of North Powder was in sunshine and clear skies, but clouds hung over the mountains where the ski resort was, and it snowed the entire time we were there, first time I had finally seen *real* falling snow! I rented blades, which are half-size skis and are easier to learn on apparently, and within 2 hours I was going down blue runs with Clay. Trevor did a good job of being 'one of those snowboarders' who fall spectacularly every few minutes for the amusement of people on the lifts. Anthony Lakes was quiet, even though Clay said it was busy, he's been spoiled, it wasn't hard to get on a run all by yourself. It was cold, Fahrenheit in the teens, I lost feeling in my toes and fingers more than once. Towards the end of the day it begun snowing harder, and I'd been crashing a few times; on my last blue run, the altitude and strain on my quads caused me to weaken at a few critical moments, and instead of turning left, I'd go right, off the packed groom and onto the powder, the nose of my skis buried and I did a forward flip to land on my back. I did it three times ay, can still feel the snow falling down my neck and back against the skin!

The Callows have a cool Xmas tradition with a hand-knit quilt made by Dawn's mother like an advent calendar. Each day, it was someone's turn to choose from a selection of remaining decorations to hang on the appropriate day on the quilt, and everyone else had to guess which decoration would be picked. Shannon won, I can't remember the prize, but it was the morning ritual for all of December to get everyone together. After Xmas, the Callows were going to take me to Washington to Dawn's father's place a third of the way between Portland and Seattle. Early in the morning we set off West along I-84, which follows the awesome Colombia River, a very windy place. The westerly wind was pushing a near 2ft swell down the river in places, and I realized with a shock that I hadn't seen white horses (wind waves) since leaving Australia. We drove through the area of the river known as the Gorges, which is famous in Kiteboarding circles as the consistent wind funnels through a narrow gorge creating epic kiting conditions. When we started the drive, it was overcast, but a short way along the river it fined up for a while to sunny blue skies, and then past the Gorges and the Dalles Dam, it fairly suddenly turns to rain, then a mix of rain & snow. We came to the Multnomah Falls, a famous Oregon waterfall, and stopped to walk over and have a look. As far as lofty waterfalls go, it was the most impressive I'd ever seen, falling in two sections 542ft and 69ft high, and this cool arch bridge spans the lower falls. It's the second highest year-round waterfall in the United States after Yosemite Falls. The whole area is so constantly wet from high rainfall that it's declared as rainforest, one of the most northern latitude rainforests in the world, the trees are covered in moss inches thick. Dawn went to take a photo of me and accidentally shot a drop of water falling infront of the camera so it covered my face!

We drove near to Mt Hood which is a beautiful mountain, and past Mt St Helens, and I could see nothing for rain and snow! I was really bummed, but Washington is everything that I've heard; beautiful, but wet. Green and lush, and really wet. Went exploring the neighbourhood where Don (Dawn's father) lives and there is an old train track bridge that had been disassembled and the bridge span left sitting on the ground by the river. Weird to see a big old chunk of bridge lying around, sitting off the ground at one end!

I got a lot of reading done at Don's and we played card games that night, Dawn, Clay, Shaz & I were quoting movies, messing around & laughing so much I really felt like part of the family, which meant a lot, I made the right decision in spending Xmas with them. It was only the next day we headed back as Shannon had more basketball practice. Clay & I hung out a couple more days, some of the cool things we did was go for a night session of snowboarding/skiing to Meadows at Mt Hood. Once again Clay didn't crash at all (he wasn't going hard enough) and I had a good crash at speed right in front of him, dug a heel edge and went down hard on my back, goggles flew off, the works, Clay barely missed me & saw the whole thing. Meadows was pretty cool, bit more fun than Anthony Lakes, couple of guys on the lift in front were playing Marco Polo with other guys below, who called us fish out of the water. Also from the lift we saw a skiier line up for a jump, he wedged his right ski into the snow on the side of the jump, boot popped cleanly out, & he did a huge sprawling forwards face-plant, 'winding down the windows' flailing his arms around in circles the whole way. He was ok, it was soft snow, I could hear him laughing along with everyone else.

The Callows loved Carl Barron, I played both his DVDs for them and they were even quoting him by the time I left. We also played Monopoly, a college edition, and I neglected to tell them that my family won't play with me anymore because I win too much :) So after many threats of flipping the board and giving property away they declared me the winner, and we also played Game Of Life, although it was very different to the Australian version my parents have, has pros and cons, you don't sell your kids off at the end in the US version, and you can land on spaces that let you steal someone else's income, permanently! Until someone else steals yours. That was a bit funny, I was an athlete on a doctor's wage one sec, then a teacher's wage the next.

One last highlight was when Clay took me to the wildlife reserve in Boardman, and after cruising around he took me to a lookout on a hill. Unbeknownst to me until he told me as we drove up to it, that it was named Callow's Overlook, after his father who was the Reserve Manager and Biologist. Dawn had told me that it was only a few months after the family moved to Boardman when the accident occurred, a light aircraft plane crash during a waterfowl observation flight. Callow's Overlook is, in my opinion, probably the most peaceful location with the best view in Boardman, and a very fitting tribute to the work Mr Callow did for the refuge. Clay pointed out the area where the family lived in a trailer for the first month or so, until they found their current home, and I can't begin to imagine how hard it must have been, and how strong Dawn and the kids are to have pulled together as a family and made it through. They are all so awesome and they know how much I appreciated their hospitality and company, and I love them like my own family.

So on the 1st, my flight back to Colorado departed in the early afternoon, and for the second year running I was flying out on New Years Day bound for unknown adventures. As I said to Dawn, back in NZ when we all had met a year before and became friends, it was one of those things where you'd like to stay in touch, or see one another again, but on opposite ends of the world, you don't know if it will ever happen. But I made it happen and not for the last time, that's for sure!

2007 was good to me, that's very much an understatement, and I'm just so incredibly fortunate to have an even more exciting outlook for 2008.

Boardman, Oregon (21 December 2007 - 1 January 2008)

The best of Okla

Life In Oklahoma, USA

My stay in Norman Oklahoma is now over, just a few days short of 9 months since I arrived in the USA on March 3, I drove out of Norman back on the road for Colorado, and it was sad to leave. There are too many amazing things about the place to mention them all, it was great for Paul to come & visit in my last week so I had someone from home to show all the cool stuff. Like Moe's, tex-mex food and makers of the best burritos in the world! I swear I should open one up back home on Orchid Ave in Surfers Paradise by the nightclubs and make millions. Paul got some sense of the vibe of a college town, but he didn't see OU college sports, the football, the tailgating parties and the crimson frenzy of the crowd. I miss going for my runs on warm summer evenings through my neighbourhood and parks; bright orange flashes from lightning bugs and the sound of crickets made the place feel surreal. The old neighbourhoods and streets lined with enormous trees and lush grass and American flags flying from the front porches of the huge houses. And in spring, I'd come out of work at lunchtime, spin in a circle to see storm upon storm after storms building in every direction, between patches of blue sky, white billowing clouds, dark grey rains and distant giant storms. The threat of severe weather was more exciting than fearsome, lightning was crazy and the thunder crackled in the air instead of booming like back home, the supercells of tornado alley are an awesome thing. My favourite of all; afternoons on the lake after work. Blazing in 95 degree heat, kickin back in Todd's Ski Nautique with a beer and music pumping with friends, watching Nate wakeboard, attempting back rolls and stacking spectacularly every time. The sunsets there go on forever because the land is so flat. And yeah I'll miss that apartment complex where the college girls all hang out by the pool, studying, sunbaking or playing water volleyball.

Almost everytime I meet someone, I get the same question in the same ludicrous tone... why Oklahoma, how on earth did you end up in Oklahoma? There's actually loads of fun stuff there if you look for it. I was especially fortunate to have met such fantastic people who had similar interests and introduced me to so much new stuff. For a single guy to go alone to another country and not know anyone and have such a great time, the real credit goes to all of my friends in Oklahoma, you know who you are.

Life takes such a different pace in that part of the world, with different priorities, it's not uncommon to find people who go to college, get married, and then start their careers. I can see the appeal; a wife, a house, a truck, a yard and a dog, the American dream. The living is so affordable, all of my friends were in their mid to late 20's, most had a house, a car or cars, a motorbike, or a boat, some were getting married.

I absolutely love the place. Never met such friendly people. Thinking of just how random were the circumstances that led to my stay in Norman, when I could have ended up anywhere in the US, makes me feel incredibly fortunate that the chance I took paid off. It was a great place to live for the most exciting 9 months of my life so far, and I've made friends for life too. But I'll always call the Gold Coast home, with the sun, the surf and the beaches.