This is a Very Odd Country

Boulder, Colorado is by no means representative of the U.S. of A. It is a university city and Colorado University pervades most walks of life here. Google has a centre in the middle of town. Nearly 80% of its population is White (6.5% Asian, 1.8% Black) and the city is in the top 25 wealthiest cities in the U.S.A. It has been rated the happiest city in the U.S.A. in the past. Happiness as a ranking though is fraught with danger and a recent suggestion that Colorado City in Arizona ranked well in the happy city stakes confounded me.. Firstly it is not a city. You are unlikely to have heard much of this town with a population of around 2,500 lost souls. Scout and I drove through it on a bright Sunday morning on our first excursion through the western parts of the U.S.A. in 2002. It was the oddest experience. There didn’t seem much to it and there was certainly no one about and it soon became apparent that those people who were didn’t take kindly to strangers. We couldn’t even buy an ice-cream. Famously though as we soon found out Colorado City is also the polygamy capital of the country and a staunch centre of the Fundamental Church of the Latter Day Saints aka Mormons. Ah. You may recall the prosecution in 2011 of Warren Jeffs the religious cult leader and head of the FCLDS. A man who apparently had 87 wives and 60 children. He is serving a life sentence for sexual crimes but Colorado City forges on in its contentedness. Nevertheless Boulder also has its virtues including the beautiful backdrop of the Rockie Mountains, the green barrier which surrounds it, a delightful city centre and a prosperous population. With 60% of its inhabitants having tertiary degrees this is no surprise.

My point is that chatting with Bouldarians about the political shenanigans now pervading this odd country leads in only one direction. And it is not favourable to a certain orange man. This is not necessarily relevant to the rest of the country. But even here the nonsense is everywhere. On every TV and radio news programme, in every newspaper and evident in stupid signage around the place – yes even in liberal Boulder. And it is nonsense with 24hour coverage of a demented challenger, a struggling and aged incumbent and a completely disfunctional Congress.. There are close to 440 million people in the U.S.A. and this is the best they can do. And now the Alabamans are telling us that a group of cells that cannot exist outside of a frozen state is actually a human child. They focus on this crap and yet homelessness is an enormous problem even here in happy Boulder. The worlds largest and wealthiest economy cannot solve its basic problems yet it is obsessed with some talented but meaningless singer/songwriter and her jock boyfriend. This is a country that calls itself a democracy yet pockets of short sighted (I am being nice) lawmakers ban well respected children’s books and try to deny voting rights to minority groups and adore a billionaire fraudster and conman with several screws loose. I can tell you its got me beaten.

L to R -Tammy and Glenn heleskiing Canada, meanwhile Pippa does the dunk, I’ve still got it and Seb is on the charge

Scout will berate me for focusing on this junk. And she is right. We are having such a wonderful time enjoying this lovely city and its surrounds. I played golf today after the Lake Valley Country Club finally shed its blanket of snow and the temperature hit a balmy 12C. Even took my jersey off half way around. The golf wasn’t great (mine) but Tammy hit her second best round and was chuffed. But to stand on the tee and drive the ball upwards towards the snow covered peaks of the Rockies in the misty distance is a memory not quickly forgotten – no matter how badly duffed the next two irons were. We love it. We love walking and biking the foothills. We love browsing the ordinary and outlandish outlets along Pearl Street Mall. JARS Cannabis, Everything Wind, the Boulder Bookstore (which has everything), Peppercorn, the kitchen shop where you can buy every appliance, gadget and cook book known to mankind and an enormous variety of great and ordinary restaurants and hamburger joints including the aptly named “Mustard’s Last Stand”. And everything is big -you can even buy giant jars of my favourite mayo!

All good things come to an end don’t they? No, for tomorrow we board a United Airlines flight to the wonders of Costa Rica. This has been on Scout’s wish-list for a long time. We argued over following cricket tours in India and safaris in South Africa but now it seems we will enjoy the delights of central America with a view to returning for a longer term run through South America itself. Looking forward to it.