this is the end (my darling friend, the end). i borrowed this sentence from jim, i hope he won't get mad at me. but seriously. this seems to be the last post of this somewhat irregular and somewhat uncomplete diary of my trip to the u.s. of a. i would like to share some more pisc but since my laptop refused to cooperate with me coupla days ago, i've been hoping that the pics are not gonna get lost at least. if you feel like that, check http://my.opera.com/theorange/albums/ some time in the end of october. if something new comes up, my pics were saved.

i got a story to tell you in the very end. well, it's not much of a story, rather a piece of information. i saw a bear two days ago. i was hoping this would happen one of these days in here (since it definitely won't happen where i am from) and it did. i was running on a bike trail along the yampa river here in steamboat springs in the evening and i saw him. he saw me too so we both turned back (me after a while) and walked/ran on in the opposite direction. well, that was my first "close encounter of a bear kind" (sorry for that, steve) ever. and living where i do, it'll stay like that for some time.

and just to finish with, i'll list some of the things i always wanted to make a note about on this blog but never found time. these and many more. you can ask me some more once we meet somewhere...

... huge cars ... no locking of houses ... no recycling ... no smoking ... huge breakfasts ... no walking ... long time from work ... smalk talk ...

this was a spectacular trip, thanx for that. and thank to the gse team of wonderful people.

here they are, the pics. it did not work at one at night but it works now at six in the morning. which means (apart from the fact that i haven't slept too much:) that you can check out three new series of pics at http://my.opera.com/theorange/albums/. enjoy.

pictures online. i just spent some time selecting pictures to put them online to http://my.opera.com/theorange/albums/ and for some reason teh opera server refuses to cooperate. so you will have to wait a little bit to have a look at pics from clack canyon of gunnison, silverton and mesa verde. i'll be back.

sorry to be late. i mean, i had some i-net connection over the last couple of days but no wireless and i am lazy to write my posts on somebody' s home pc. so i just didn't. plus there has not been that much happening. after we left buena vista some days ago, we went to the city of pueblo, that is big but not too inspiring and headed to la junta, lamar and burlington then. all of these are in the plains areas, which means that even though i may add soem pics from the canyon near la junta in some days, it was really not much to see in these last days. but the places were real and some of them looked what i would expect the rural u.s.a. to look before ever coming to colorado. today we made it from burlington (which is almost in kansas) to colorado springs that is the last stop on our trip and a place where my little sister is gonna pick me up and drive the long way to the beautiful steamboat springs that's everybody talking about:) looking forward to that a lot. i am spending the last four days of my organized colorado experience over the city of colo sprgs in a house with the most beautiful view ever. i would share a picture with you, had i not lost the usb cord long time ago. so just be patient and you're gonna get to see it sooner or later:) g'nite from the hill over the city (as opposed to "city upon a hill":) - i do not think anybody reading this can really get this play on words, if you do, let me know!) see ya ...

some days off(-line). i obviously took couple of days off, spending most of them offline. we made it through telluride and durango in the meantime. not that there wouldn't be enough to write about. telluride is said to be the most beautiful ski resort (beating both aspen and vail), durango offered the beautiful trip to mesa verde, the national park full of remnants of the life of the native pueblo people. and then yesterday to pagosa springs with my first visit to hot springs ever. it felt okey after that and i enjoeyd both the hot springs and the cold river of san juan. and here we are today in the town of buena vista and i am enjoying the place a lot. seems to me that the word "amazing" has made it to my top ten of english vocabulary (including articles and prepositions) for a reason in the last some weeks. teh countryside looks different again and we met about 20 pieces of animals during our five-minute drive from the party tonite only. mostly deer and rabbit. looking forward to tommorrow.

and here a little bit of mesa verde ...

wild wild west, here we go! so this was www (not meaning world wide web this time) in real. silverton is a little bit of a tourist attraction but the feel of the dusta roads and guys with huge hats seemed real. and the steam engine was real for sure. wow, i enjoyed this.

some pics ... as promised. i finally got online for more than couple of minutes today. so here i go with the long promised pictures from the black canyon of gunnison.
i hope to get some more pics into my picture gallery asap.

people amaze me. being in colorado isn't obviously being in an average u.s. state. colorado is the state with the highest altitude, with one of the fastest growing populations, with the highest life expectancy (6 of the top 10 counties of the u.s. of a. are here in colorado) and if you expect to see obese people in the streets, you will not see more than in europe. i've been especially amazed at the activity of people in higher age. i know that meeting rotarians is not the same as meeting average americans but still. hearing a person 80 years old talking about his/her yesterdays bikeride is really not unusual. my hosts in montrose are simply amazing. both of them well in their seventies, each of them still does sports. i only managed to beat Joy 21:18 in ping-pong tonite and Tom is definitely better at frisB than any of my teammates in here (even if he was better than me, i would not admit that:) four years ago, they were in peru and the galapagos,
Tom rides a bike, Joy plays tennis. plus i would like to be as funny as they are when i am
over seventy. yesterday, Tom took a picture of Joy and me a brought it printed three minutes later. at dinner, i asked Joy about the recipe of the wonderful chinese vegetable dish and i'll get it per email from her. plus they do both so much community service within or outside rotary, i am simply amazed. good to know that life does not (have to) finish once you retire.

btw: i haven't told you Joy's and Tom's house is in the highest place of the whole town and my bed on the first floor which means that i spent two night in a highest bed in the whole community:)

btw: we've done some hiking this afternoon and i've seen a beautiful "black canyon". i think i am coming back to colorado to tour the natural beauties because europe cannot compete in this in any way. i'd give you picture but i've left my cable in grand junction so i need to buy a new one first.

plus: congrats on all the recent birthdays. especially if you turned thirty!

semi-desert and desert (not only in utah). we've been in the city of grand junction for the last two days and the next two as well. a new hosting family, very nice people. i've been to the colorado national monument last evening and saw some things you would not see in europe. what can wind, water, snow and ice do to the rock, that's amazing. and let's not forget the river as well. after that experience i should have been prepared for the visit to the arches national park in moab, utah (my second visited u.s. state:). but i do not think i was. the beauty way incredible. i'll give up describing and let you rather see some of my pictures taken at the place. i think i may have seen the most beautiful nature places in my life so far.

check out more pics at http://my.opera.com/theorange/albums.

wild wild west, finally! well, this title may be a little bit exagerated but the town of paonia deserves a little bit of emotions. after we have left aspen couple of days ago, we stayed some hours in the old snowmass. it's an old village just one valley from the snowmass village where we were staying but it's a different world and different time. there is no construction going on in there, they've got maybe two dozens houses in the whole valley, the views are gorgeous and the calm there is breathtaking. to make this description shorter, simply the first place where i could imagine living in the states, although being a city person in general. the few hours there were beautiful.

we were taken to the little town of paonia next. it's the smallest place we've been to so far and everybody has told us that this would be a very special place. some people would say us that th eplace is boring, others that it is damn conservative, still others that almost all the people are LDS (latter days saints - mormons), and still others that it's just rednecks living there. well, all of these were wrong. and by a lot. paonia was our best stop so far and we really enjoyed every single moment in there. the place is small. about 1.500 people there. but it was the first place with a real community i experienced here. the feeling that the people do care about what is going on around them was everpresent. my host family lady works as an aditor in a regional (10 western states) environmental and generally counterculture magazine high country news (www.hcn.org), was born in nyc and has got her digree from the columbia university. well, haven't seen that many rednecks around:) i managed to play a game of soccer in a local mixed mexican-american team and became an instant fan of the local high school football team paonia eagles. well, paonia has been a highlight of out tour so far, no doubt about that.

www.paonia.com

never been that high! oh yes, i just made it to the highest altitude of my life today but i'll get back to it later. we came to aspen from carbondale saturday morning. we got a nice condo in the hotel, which means that we'll all be staying together in one place. that's nice for a change after tha days with our hosting families. later we explored the explore booksellers bookstore that for some reason fulfiled my image of an intelectual bookstore in new york or boston. just that this one is in aspen and i've never been to neither new york nor boston:) the dinner was at the best japanese restaurant in aspen, which was the first really nicely designed place (according to my standards, of course) i've seen here in the states. but, being in the first japanese restaurant in my life, i am obviously not gonna be the biggest lover of japanese food after all. never mind.

the breakfast took place in the one and only five star hotel in aspen and after that the best part of the day started. we headed for maroon bells close to aspen to make i little hike. the scenery is simply amazing! we've seen a lot in vail, we've seen carbondale and surroundings but the area around aspen is really amazing and completely unique. i walked up to the buckskin pass and the last part was muddy, then later 20 centimeters of mixed water and snow and in the end up to 40 centimeters of snow. real fun in the middle of september. the buckskin pass is 12 462 feet = 3 798 meter high which easily makes it the highest peak of my life (even though it's no peak but just a pass, of course, but i had to turn back and meet the others). which means that even the people who found it really fun that i reached the highest place of my life couple of days ago in a car and wearing a tie and that i am growing older (and there really were people like that, believe it or not:), well, even these people will have to admit that i am definitely not growing older:). i felt almost like a local guy up there, wearing my north face jacket, shoes and daypack. at least the rejoice shorts could signal where i come from.

and after this beautiful hike the icing on the cake came in the evening when we had a dinner at ann's and allen's in snowmass. the place is far away from the main road and the genius loci is strong. you could not imagine the views they've got from their windows! and there is no construction going on in there. we've been to a new house in aspen today, built for 20 million dollars and with a nice location and view. but this was a completely different league. i could easily live in snowmass ...

btw, i made some pics on the hike today, you can check them out at http://my.opera.com/theorange/albums/

never had snow that early! we just left glenwood springs and carbondale this morning and headed for aspen and snowmass. the kast two days in carbondale were really nice, meeting people, seeing places and really having fun. we enjoy our presentations at rotary clubs meeting more and more and it gets really funny sometimes. it was time to say bye to our hosting families. the weather has been pretty unpleasant in the last two days. everybody's been telling us that colorado would have over 300 sunny days a year which means we've just gone thru the exceptional days with wind and clouds and rain. as we were heading for snowmass this morning, it was raining pretty hard but as we entered snowmass the rain changed into snow! never had snow as september 16 back home! well, so after we got to our home for the next two days, which is a very comfortable condo for the whole group of us, we had to run out again and make a picture of all of us in the snowfall. i hope you enjoy that picture:)

in case you'd ask why i am writing this blog, let me explain this just a little bit. as you may know, i am just spending six weeks in colorado at the so called group study exchange (gse) organized by the rotary international. we are here a group of four "young professionals" (that's the way they call us:) and a team leader, all of us from czechia and slovakia, touring the rotary district of southern colorado. our task in general is to meet the people, stay at rotary families, learn as much as possible about our jobs in the other country (which is in my case scouting and youth work in general) and learn as much about the country as possible. and on the other hand, we are here to share information and feeligs about our own countries, make presentations at numerous local rotary clubs meetings and represent where we come from. we try hard:)

i write this blog since i do not particulary like to repeat all the things to all the people who may ask (no matter how many or few this may be) and so i am putting this stuff online. it is just a temporary blogging activity, similar to what i did, when i was having the time of my life in bärlin couple of years ago. so if you enjoy this, check this site from time to time, if you don't, it's fine as well. should you feel like to write a comment or an email, feel free to.

fighting the age in colorado. one of the things that would amaze me a lot, is the way people spend their free time. and especially older people, those who are (or should be) retired. my impression is that back home in czechioa most people would really retire and they just would not do too much apart from taking care of family. it is a lot different here. all the people do biking even if they may be in their early (or not so early, in fact) seventies. everybody does cross-country skiing, many people weould do downhill skiing, most would do hiking. it is definitely different from mainstream america and it is smth i like here a lot. being aware of the fact that it is not average americans i am meeting here, it still leaves me amazed at how active may and want to stay, even if they may have stopped working.

they've taken me to a high school! yesterday, after we had the opulent lunch (that i did not finish since everybody was finishing their lunch while we were starting our presentation) at Aspen Glen country club (probably the most snobbish place i've ever seen), i had a chance to see the real u.s. high school. and almost all that i remember from brenda and jason (was ho really jason?) walsh from the early beverly hills 90210 was confirmed in reality. just the school looked more real and more fun to be at. you should see their library where some of the kids really were sitting and studying for the next lessons. amazing!:) and the place seemed to be really fun for teh kids to be at, i could tell from the way they greeted their teachers in the corridors. so thank you, debbie, for the chance to see that first u.s. high school in my life!

wednesday and thursday were cool days. we came to Vail and that's enought to make the days special. apart from performing at various rotary gatherings, we had a nice time with our hosting families and enjoyed some free time (!) as well. a hike to the "lost lake" worked out well since we lost the other part of the expedition already on the road driving to the starting point and enjoyed the hike in a small group of three. it was even better like this, we had beautiful discussions and enjoyed the scenery. it's really smth up here in Colorado. we have not run into a bear or an elk here, these encounters are still ahead of me then, but what you see when you look around, that's amazing. listening to lots of people why they moved in here, you'll find out there are alomost no "natives" in here. which is understandable since for instance Vail had two cottages back in the sixties and has 5.000 people plus incredible huge building industry at the moment.
looking from a window of any of the houses there (not that i would have been to all:) makes you understand why the people come and settle down in here (even though the prices are exorbitant).

tuesday starts in the office of the mayor of denver, taking about 20 mins of his precious time. the guy is really nice and very easy to communicate with. he even was in pilsen and liked the city a lot. i can understand this pretty well. a visit to the national renewal energy labs (nrel) was fine as well. i can see the amaricans do some amazing research in the field (not the i would be able to judge) and so there is something more to the environment other then the usual comments as "we have to do smth about the energy consumption of our house (said in the huge suv car we usually drive here and that may have gas consumption close to the one of a hummer car)" . we drive to vail in the afternoon with a guy who used to work in international business for dozens of years and with uno before he retired a couple of yrs ago. a very interesting and inspiring chap even though i cannot agree with his view of Kaddafi (whom he worked for somewhere back in the seventies). i talk back a bit at the lunch even though we were adviced not to mention potentially hot topics. but i mean, difficult to shut up in an issua like this one, being as political as i am. we go to vail after the lunch and stop over at the pass at the altitude of almost 12.000 feet (slightly less than 4.000 meters). i remember how much energy it cost us to get to triglav in slovenia - my highest place so far. and this was just opening the doors of teh car and step out side. but the view ...! we stay at sb else's house for two nights now. the guy is originally from the netherlands and we expect some more people for the diner. there are 10 of us in total then, and what is funny - it's no real americans at all. one dutch, two of british origin and then the five of us from czechia and slovakia. funny, in teh centre of the u.s. of a. luc's telling me about a bumpersticker he saw somewhere last week - i find it damn funny and as soon as i see it somewhere, i am buying it. it reads "and old indian (native american) saying - vegetarians are bad hunters. and that's it for today.

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the monday is supposed to be the first real day of our trek around colorado. i went to bed at one and got up before half past six, working on the powerpoint presentation of our team long into the night (hey, folks, let's not forget about my jet lag, okey?) and went on in the morning. i should have the presentation done in czechia already but not only the last couple of weeks were very busy and i really did not find any spare time to do it. so here i go as usual, doing the thing after the last moment. the first presentation of the presentation (this looks even worse than it sounds) will take place tonite. i let everybody comment on the presentation , add their own particular personal information and hope i find 30 minutes during the day to include the comments and add-ons. well, i don't. i am spending the day with michal of the boy scouts of america in castlerock, about 20 miles south of denver direction colo spgs. we start at the bsa county office in denver. michael is a really nice guy and we have some nice discussions throughout the day. the office looks very well organized, neat, calm and effective. the age average would be around 20 yrs more from what we've got in prague at the hq's. i meet a guy responsible for property - they've got a lot of land and some campsites and ... just that this is nit really my cup of tea so i enjoy the visit to the campsite better. michael (a day later i find out that he did his college at stanford and graduated from mit - wow) shows us (meand our colorado rotary guide) around te huge place, nice picnic and all. i especially envy their fundraising - so much private funding is admirable. but with our non-tradition of philantrophy, no way these days (and years). on theway back we touch the topic of atheist and gay and lesbian leaders in bsa - and michael seems to be rather liberal compared to what i think about bsa. but nevertheless, i would not be in scouting if i lived in the states. i would not stand this religious-based hipocrisy. an afternoon "wine and cheese" at micky's - i am staying here overnite as well. a dinner at the county jail and our first presentation. we do well (and damn long as well). could have been worse. the visit to the jail itself turns out to be an experience. not a pleasant one at all. i did not expect to see real people spending their days (and weeks, months, years) behind bars. no idea what i expected. i need to sleep on that, i think. on the way back micky askes me in the car whether we had rehearsed for the presentation. well, i tell him just "we should have" and he gets the message.

the first full day here was fine. we start meeting new people and seeing new places. i wonder how long it will stay interesting - the meeting of new people, no matter how special they are, the five weeks may easily happen to be just too much for this, i'll see. we saw the musical cats this afternoon - was not bad but again, no idea why theatre should be more of art than movies. this was just a show. i mean: it was a nice, interesting and amusing show, the actors were doing their job well and i liked it a lot. but anyway, no tchaikowski (not that i would know too much about that guy).

5:15 in the morning and the alarm clock goes off. i did not sleep much last night since i left the office at eight and stared packing my stuff at aroound nine. but it's okey now. i made it to the bus station and i made it to the airport. in time. meeting all the other four on the team. first flying to copenhagen (most probably the most beautiful airport i've seen so far - scandianavian design at its best), then to washington d.c. - u.s. soil for the first time in my life. it does not feel too special and it does not feel too different. we run for our connecting flight and we manage. the flight is about three hours and i watch the movie "the sentinel" for the second time in one day - even though in spanish this time. we get greeted by a welcoming committee at the denver airport - four people from the rotary, holding the czech and slovak national flags. they look nice. we miss four pieces of our luggage (that's my first time ever, it must have come), they'll arrive at the later flight. let's go to hotel. the hotel is full, we need to go into the one on the other side of the street - the one that looks (and surely is) much more expensive. not bad. we say g'nite to our coorado guide of teh first couple of days and the first day is over. my first american day is over. it did not feel any different from europe. no idea what i was expecting. well, you do not get that much surprised after a 32 hours day in fact. it's time to start fighting the jet lag. i wake up about 6 times at night. it's okey anyway, i like it.