Colorado

Went to Denver, Colorado to visit Bill, a friend of mine, who is a professor at the University of Colorado. He works as a melanoma (a bad kind of skin cancer) doctor and also as a lab scientist. His wife Jill and their 2 boys, David and Sam, greeted me when I arrived as he was away doing a cancer clinic in a rural area. Sam who is 2 and a half years old greeted me with a powerful spray of their garden hose. It was a hot day anyway.

David (or Davy) and Sam (Sammy) are extremely intelligent. David, who is 4 years old, knows the gastrointestinal connections of esophagus to stomach to small then large intestines! And corrected me that ´that´is not a ´shoulder blade´but is properly called a scapula. Helps of course that his parents are doctors but he knows lots of other non-medical stuff too. Sammy knows words like binoculars and stethoscope. And is able to repeat long complex senteces to which he adds ´too´to the end. ´I want a chicken naked burito without black beans and a raspberry ice cream too´ Something like that.

When Bill got back to Denver we went to his ancestral ranch near Boulder in the foothills of what´s known as the Flatirons, which is part of the Rockies I think. It was a blazing hot day when we went. Bill suggested I go for a little hike and take along plenty of water. It was a beautiful walk with nobody else around but a few birds and lots of wild flowers and the mountains. One sees why they are called the Rockies. But wild spring flowers and hot day meant hayfever for me.

Says Bill, ´Too hot for any wild animals. Some rattlesnakes maybe. You´ll know when they´re there. If they bite you, your arm will just get a bit necrotic. You won´t die. Don´t worry about it.´