Warped Tour and other such stuff

Kinda feel like I’ve been hit by a truck at the moment. Head is congested as anything and my nose won’t stop running so I’m currently dosing up on cold and flu tablets.

It has probably been brought on by the long and ridiculously hot days here in Denver but I’ve been having a pretty good time. Warped Tour was good fun, mid afternoon showers helped to cool the day down a bit, and the whole show wound up by about 8pm or so. Don’t think I could have held out much longer anyway, even if I tried.

Bands I saw:
Fake Problems
Parkway Drive
Anti-Flag
Reel Big Fish
Andrew WK
Dillinger Escape Plan
Terrible Things
Of Mice And Men
Far From Finished
The Casualties
Suicide Silence
Set Your Goals
The Jukebox Romantics
Riverboat Gamblers
Dropkick Murphys
Alkaline Trio
Face To Face
Pennywise
Every Time I Die

Highlights included ETID covering Tourettes (Nirvana) and Bill Stevenson doing backup vocals on Pennwise’s ‘Society’.

Dropkick Murphys

$3 Nachos. I like to eat healthy

Also learned Chuck Ragan was doing a set later that night at Only Thunder’s farewell show. $8, I couldn’t argue with that… The first 2 bands were pretty lame, Chuck was decent (and even brought Tim from Rise Against out to sing on one song). I wanted to see Only Thunder but it was already midnight by the time Chuck finished and as I mentioned I’ve been feeling pretty dodgy.

Leaving for Albuquerque tonight, going to be in the deep south for the best part of the next week or so. But for now I’m about to go to the movies to kill some time (I have 5.5 hours before the bus leaves). Here’s one last picture of Denver:

More Denver

First Saturday of the month = free admission to Denver Art Museum. Hurrah for free stuff!

Lonely Planet described this building as a kind of 'Sydney Opera House on speed'. Not quite, but funky architecture anyway.

I’m not really an art geek, but there were a few really cool exhibits… I’m more into the sculptures and installations. It’s hard to get a feel for it in a photo, but this sculpture below looked like an explosion frozen in time, and walking around it kinda looked like a scene out of The Matrix when time is frozen and the camera pans around the scene:

Denver streets from the footbridge of the art museum

Part of downtown Denver, this is apparently a 3/4 scale version of the tower in San Marco Square, Venice.

Boulder rocks!

Colorado. Apparently it actually means something. Apparently the place was discovered, settled, or at the very least named by a bunch of Spanish dudes. A bunch of incredibly unimaginative Spanish dudes, for they decided that upon discovering the land of red rocks and red soil, that it would be an amazing idea to call the place “Color Red”. The Spanish can come up with the holiest of all foods – Churros – and the best name they can come up with for this place is ‘Colorado’?

I hereby nickname my neck, COLORADO:

So yesterday was a day spent heading north-west to Boulder, a cool little college town at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. It’s way more laid back and a lot more scenic than Denver, and I went trekking up the mountains for a few hours. I’d been warned and read signs about bears and mountain lions (panthers, puma, etc) in the mountains… part of me was a little nervous about trekking alone through badass-animal country and the prospect of coming face-to-face with them, but part of me was hoping to still cross paths. I didn’t actually see anything, except for a mountain lion footprint at which point I proceeded to freak the hell out. I survived. Yay.

Boulder as seen through the rocks

Photo of me to prove I'm still alive

I know they call it ‘travelling’

But I think at this point I have literally spent more time in transit than in any destination.

Tuesday late morning got into LA after a ridiculously comfortable flight in business class… Seats that actually recline to a full fat bed! Arrived about 11am and hopped in a shuttle bus that took about an hour to get to Hollywood. Didn’t do a great deal of sightseeing, you see it once you’ve seen it a million times, so I opted to head down to Santa Monica instead… about an hour and a half transit there, about as long back, but I managed to get lost, so jumped on a train and went the wrong direction. Pretty sure it was about 3 hours in total trying to get back to my hostel from Santa Monica. D’oh.

(by the way, you can click the pictures to see them in full size)

Yesterday morning I was embarking on 24 hours of awesomeness (in the form of bus travel) from LA to Denver, so I went and picked up some snacks for the road. Had to take a photo of this otherwise noone would believe me:

Now I love m&m’s, and I love pretzels, but the combination sucks. See the face that little orange m&m dude is making on the packet, that’s the expression on your own face when you bite into one of these chocolate salty balls.

I could describe the roadtrip to you. But I won’t.

We stopped in Vegas at one point, I was originally stoked because it was an hour layover and I was going to go run amok and try and fit in some cool things, but with the bus being way late we only had 20 mins. I still had time to play the slots. Won my money back – and then some – pretty quickly, and then lost it ALL again just as fast. You will not soon be forgotten, one-dollar bill.

Some cool scenery along the way… I think this was somewhere in Nevada or Utah (hard to keep track when you go through about 5 states in one day):

Finally got to Denver about 9am. This place is already pretty sweet, it’s literally 1 mile high in altitude, awesome mountain scenery nearby… Had the best view on the bus this morn, but it was too dark to capture. My feet kill and I think I’m sunburnt (it was a 30+ degree day today)…

A horse on a giant chair. Sure. Why not.

The steps of Denver's Capitol Hill. Marks the 'one mile high' point.

View from Capitol Hill

Oh crap, just realised how sunburned I am. Oops.