I awoke at 4:30am unable to get myself back to sleep! So I made myself a lovely cup of earl grey and had a bath.
Me and Erol left at 7am in the end - he was awake and ready for work. So he drove me to Westlands to hire a car but I was 45 minutes early so I asked the lady sitting with her Starbucks where she got it from! I walked 1/2 a mile to the nearest Starbucks and bought an iced coffee with sugar free vanilla. Once I had for back, I then faced the shock horror that they had no cars available for rental... They were on "shut down" as they called it, which doesn't sound good! So I asked a sk8er boi at the bus station called Matt Booth if he could look up the location of next rental car place along. It was 1/2 mile up the road the other way and they turned out to have no cars either! I overheard the lady in front of me say she was going to Aspen though so I asked her for a ride! First we went to pick up her 80 year old friend Marty who had a fresh peppermint smile and a thirst for knowledge about my trip. We left the airport and were on the road by 10am. As we got further and further into the mountains I started to feel sick and my ears were popping like crazy because we were about 10,000 feet above sea level at some points! The altitude... It got me!
We stopped off for a bagel and some water, which was 'on Marty.' We drove through Glenwood Canyon, Wood Creek Canyon and Glenwood Springs amongst other beautiful places. We drove alongside the Colorado River for most of the trip :)
They wanted to check into their accommodation before dropping me off so I just went with it and 4 miles later was literally up a mountain in a monastery/holiday retreat place with no phone signal, surrounded by buffalo, accompanied by 2 people I had known for 4 hours. There were bear warning posters in their apartments! Judy showed me the Indian paintbrush plant, fresh sage (which was EVERYWHERE) and Aspen trees. She also pointed out cotton wood trees, which apparently only grow on creeks. It was quite the botanical excursion!
They dropped me off at my lodge at 4:15pm (after I had got us a bit lost and we were again half way up a mountain with no signal!) they waited until I was checked in before they left and I offered to pay them for their generosity but they said not to worry! So essentially I was fed and ferried around all day with Judy and Marty. They're the BEST!