Rock Climbing, Labor Day and Ski Season

Ok, so it's been 2 weeks since my last post, and I can not believe how much we've done since then.

It started with my first trip to Austin, for a few meetings. Austin is very hot and humid. 5 miles after leaving the airport, navigating my way around in my rental car, I started to notice a change in the vegetation. The scenery looked exactly like that the Mpumalanga bush veld. With the humidity and bush vegetation, I had to keep reminding myself I was not back in the bush but in Austin, Texas.

The "bush" vegetation in Austin

The Austin skyline

Later that week, back in Denver, I attended sales training, and met some other AE's from around the country. It then really makes you realise how big the states is and how many people there are in the mix. I also met a great ex-South African guy who's based in Denver and been here for 10 years. It's great to have someone in the office who you can speak Afrikaans to and have a good laugh.

It was also a busy week for Downtown Denver, with the DNC convention (Democratic national Convention), where Obama did his acceptance speech for the Presidential Candidate for the Democratic Party. Thousands of people descended on Denver to attend the convention, thus causing major road blocks for the week.

The weekend brought on the famous Sniagrab sale(bargain spelt backwards), which is the Sports Authority annual ski sale. All ski equipment is basically discounted up to 70%. Chris and I got some great deals on Ski pants, jackets, ski's, gloves and the list goes on. Now all we need is some great snow, which they say will be here by 10th October.

Bring on ski season - my new ski's

On Sunday, Chris caught the light rail to downtown Denver for the annual "Taste of Colorado" festival, where they have tons of food, arts and crafts and bands playing. It was rather hot and there were so many people, that we decided to check out the Denver Art Museum. The museum is massive and has 5 various levels split over two buildings. It was very interesting, Chris and I definitely sharpened up on our cultural skills. After tasting some local cuisine, listening to a band and watching a bunch of old ladies putting on a dancing show, we decided to beat the rain and catch the light rail home.

Downtown Denver - 16th st (the main st)

A shopping Mall on 16th ST

The Main train and RTD Station

Looking at the Denver skyline from the Art Museum

The Granny Dancing Show - they were rather good

The World Trade Centre Towers (the Denver version)

Band playing at the "Taste of Denver"

Chris at our local Littleton train/light-rail station

Monday was Labor day public holiday, so off we went to our local park, to chill under the tree and have our first real "braai". I loved it and going to miss the nice warm weather as Fall (Autumn) sets in slowly.



The east Coast of America has been battered with a series of Hurricanes over the last week. Hurricane Gustav made land fall last weekend, in New Orleans, three years to the day that hurricane Katrina caused absolute devastation. Luckily Gustav did not do that much damage thus time round, however, the world is now watching what hurricane Hanna and Ike which are looking big and may cause major devastation to the Florida coast.



Friday was freezing cold, you can definitely feel fall in the air, and soon the leave will turn colour and temps will start falling. In a way I'm looking forward to wrapping up in scarves and boot and cute hats.



This weekend I went rock climbing with Mel and Jenni. I've been very keen to try this out for a while now, so we headed off to a state park near Castle Rock for a day of rock climbing. The park is situated in a canyon, where, there once was a dam in the early 90's, which broke and flooded the area. They never rebuilt it and now it's a state park. Chris was not too keen on the rock climbing idea, so he went off for a hike while the gals conquered the rocks.

Chris, Mel and Jenni

Remains of the dam wall which broke
We did what is called Top Roping, where you climb to the top of the rocks, hook up the climbing gear and drop the rope down. Once you are back on the ground, all harnessed up, one person controls the rope "the be lei" while the other attempts to climb up. The first time round, I managed to get half way up before I got stuck on a slanting straight piece of rock. The second time round I managed to get over the straight piece right to the top and then abseiled back down (or as they say here repelled down). I absolutely loved it, and look forward to my next climb, which Mel said we will try at Golden. I did manage to, in true Lesleigh style, half sit on a cactus and twisted my ankle on the hike back. With a limp and spikes up my butt, we ended the day with a great bbq (braai) in the park.


View from the bottom of the rock face

Mel on her way to the top Me conquering the wall


Almost there

Finally, at the top

Mel doing it like a pro

Jenni makes it look easy

My hot man

Well, that's all my news for now, can not believe Chris and I have almost reached 2 years of marriage, on the 24th Sept. Chris has booked a place in Breckenridge. I can not wait, we may be lucky and see some snow at that time already.