cold, colder, freezer

welcome to the real cold… if january saw many nice sunny days (and mild for some of them), things took a turn for the worse after the pineapple express story… first, boulder got tons of snow. deep snow, deep clouds, three days in a row. we chose one of these days for denver downtown, however, we shortened our first visit to the capital of colorado because exploring the city was anything but fun with the cold and the snow, so we gave up and decided to come back another time after a short walk on the 16th street mall, and an obligatory visit to the bronco's fan shop (denver broncos were playing against the seahawks of seattle in the super bowl final on the next day and everybody in colorado was mad about that). the day after was, hooray!, a beautiful sunshiny day – although still icy cold. we went for a ride through the all snowy white plain to the mountains. the nature spectacle was breathtaking and stunning, with gorgeous pictures and panoramas of majestic mounts and red rocks covered by a thick layer of snow under the bright blue sky. our destination was the little town estes park, nested in the mountains at an elevation of 7,522 ft/2,292 m and gateway to the rocky mountain national park. the estes lake trail took us for a 3.75 mile hike around the lake. the clear air was good, but it was so thin that it made the walk arduous… later, we made our way back to boulder on the peak to peak scenic byway, the portion of the ride we couldn't make to the end three weeks ago. i sadly couldn't shoot good pics, daytime was on sunset mode and light was darkened by the huge mounts around.
the week after started to be sunny, but then, new dense snow clouds set in, i had to remove my sunglasses again, and it became colder than ever since the beginning of our stay. tuesday gave a high of 19 f/-7 c, then we started wednesday at -7 f/-22 c at 7am, with a high of 5 f/-15 c during the day… frozen nose hairs as soon as you set foot out of the door, cracked lips, chapped skin, hypothermia risk… a pain. finally, friday's temperatures went back in the lower 30 f with some sunny hours, it almost felt like _irony on_ summer _irony off_! no. honestly, that wasn't a fun week at all. too much snow. much too cold. not my thing. i was not made for the cold. i'm sick of being squeezed in all that layered clothing. but: we're having the true colorado winter experience we were looking for, with a bit of everything, and at least that's something, isn't it? btw – today we're back down at 21 f/-6 c and all white. that sucks. so, guess what??

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