You keep what you kill

We did get a pretty cool car. Thank you, Avis. They gave us a brandnew (2 miles on the meter) 2012 Subaru Outback. With Harman Kardon speakers. :-) Buena Vista was nice, right on the foot of the mountains, in the middle of nowhere. Good place to stretch your legs. We stayed for two nights, then got up early and drove south to Great Sand Dunes NP. We stopped by San Luis lake, beautiful panorama but also gazillions of bloodthirsty bugs. You couldn't get out of the car, they would have sucked you dry within seconds. So sand dunes it was. Really strange - you have these giant sand dunes in front of snow capped mountains. But it was absolutely worth it, beautiful scenery and a nice workout. We hiked up the highest dune and I can now totally relate to all those stories of people getting lost in the desert etc. You totally underestimate distances and gradients. And it doesn't really help that you are sinking/slinding back two steps for every step you take. But I liked that. Would be

18.05.: Denver to Buena Vista Accommodation: Best Western Plus Vista Inn. Food: Mother's Bistro; Eddyline Restaurant & Brewery; The Asian Palate We took off early in the morning towards Great Sand Dunes National Park and stopped for a quick look at The Red Rocks Amphitheater. Wow! I would so love to see a live concert there! By the time we had walked to the top a local Muay Thai Gym was just getting ready for a training session - if I lived there I'd do that all the time. So many steps - ouch!  I challenged them all to single combat and beat them up. We then continued sout-west on Hwy 285, a very nice drive. By the time we had joined Hwy 24, we were both hungry, so we did a short detour and stopped at Buena Vista. Well, suffice to say, we liked the setting so much that we decided to stay for two days and hike around in the Collegiate Peaks. Nice. High. Snow. Unfortunately, there was a major bike race on Saturday, so most accommodation was already booked ou

15.05. TXL to DIA Accommodation: Victorian Holiday Chalet B&B, East Colfax Ave, Denver. Food: Naked Pizza; Cook's Fresh Market; The Market at Larimer. The flight from TXL to LHR was delayed again, this time due to bad weather though, so not anybody's fault really. We still managed to make the connection to DIA, even found time to grab some food in the lounge before running to the gate. The flight to DIA was in Premium Eco, the whole thing being a companion voucher/mile redemption ticket. BA's planes are lightyears ahead of Lufthansa but looking at what Korean Air, Cathay Pacific, Air New Zealand etc. have done, they seriously need to modernize their cabin interiors in Eco/Premium Eco. Well, einem geschenkten Gaul usw. We arrived in Denver an hour late, but security and all that worked pretty well and we picked up our car from Avis. They gave us a nice upgrade, a completely fresh Subaru Outback, straight out of the factory. Nice. One of those cars that does ever