Encountered 'Big John' in the Denver Greyhound Station. No, not a large American loo (sorry, bad joke even by the standards of this diary) but a real nutter, the self-styled travelers friend who put us right about all things Winter Park and even gave us a rubber stamp each so we wouldn't forget him. A quick call to Amtrak and would you believe it, we had another seat on the train to Winter Park. Around a couple of blocks we dashed, picked up all of our tickets and queued for our boarding passes. Then we joined another queue to get on the train, and queued, and queued - yes the train was late. It seems it had made mincemeat out of a herd of cows and the engine needed overhauling.
Arrived at Winter Park a couple of hours late* and bumped into two of the oldest youth hostelers I'd ever met - Lorna and Sheila from Aberdeen. Sheila was living in Chicago and opening Body Shops around the States. Nice work if you can get it. Eventually got booked in to the hostel and then we hired two mountain bikes. Headed uphill to the toboggan run and Oz got it all wrong by getting in the slow lane and being held up. Cycled all the way back to Fraser and then back up to Winter Park by nightfall. Chatted to an English couple on "WorkAmerica" who were applying for jobs at the local Safeways. Have a nice day.
* A mad conductor named Henry Ford was on this train. He was full of jokes and quiz questions like this: Name the 10 parts of the body spelt with three letters, no slang words allowed.
2011:
I forgot Big John. I've a vague recollection he was mentioned in a Lonely Planet but can't find anything about him on the net.
I don't know why we didn't stay and look around Denver - probably to do with the flights we had booked out of LA and our itinerary not being flexible enough to add some extra stops in. I've since been back to Denver several times and almost relocated the family there in 2001 - but the Dot Com crash stopped that. It's a pretty nice place.
Henry Fords question - spookily this was my daughter's homework question last week !!
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