Brownlee Banter: Back in the USA

Ooh - pop culture references before 8am, whatever next!

Time to start catching up on summer. First up, I was away for almost two weeks at the annual GECCO conference, that you might remember me having been to in the past. We were very grateful to my Mum who came down to help Jay look after the girls while I was away. A visit from Grandma is always welcome :)

This year the conference was in Denver: a new part of the US for me as I've only ever been to states on the east coast before. I had a couple of things to present. These went pretty well and appear to have led to some new collaborations, which is always a good outcome! It was also a chance to catch up with several other people I work with - even though most are in the UK it's always easier to meet when we're thousands of miles from home...

Denver is a nice place, very clean and friendly with mountains visible everywhere, it reminded me of the couple of Canadian cities I've been to - but still definitely American. As my flights involved a change in New York, I also took a quick stopover in Pennsylvania to see my pastor friend Rick, who came over to Aberdeen to study a few years back and was part of our small group at church just after Jay and I got married. He is also Lydia's godfather (and very excited about it) and may well be coming for a visit to Scotland sometime soon.

Here's a wee tour of what I did.

The journey over was 25 hours from leaving my house to arriving at my hotel room, with a 6 hour wait at JFK airport.
It was a bit wet there, and we even got a little view of one of New York's bridges.

I just thought this plane looked cool!

A welcome sight at 1am after 25 hours of travel.

It's America, so the breakfasts are good!

Yes they are.

The view from my room.

A few of us went on a quick trip downtown.
This is the freeway we had to cross over on the way to the train.
As with everything in America, the scale in impressive!

Downtown Denver is the tall bit.

BREAKING: Railway enthusiast spotted near station.

The state capitol. Quite impressive but there's more in a wee while.

Denver is "mile high city" and the state capitol has a marker on it to show where.

Well, it actually has three! They're not error bars - just refinements as they get better at measuring these things.

View from the capitol building. The mountains are never far away!

And neither is an "English" theme pub.

I could have done with some shoulder work by the end of the first week.

Now flying from Denver to the East Coast.
Can you tell why it's called the "Great Plains"?

There was a wee bit of rain after Rick picked me up from the airport.

Rick was serving as a pastor at a summer camp this year - so my brief holiday meant a stop over at camp.

A jolly nice place - very peaceful.

Also quite extensive - easily a mile square.

I went for a bit of a wander around the grounds...

This is the hut that I was staying in.

The final day I was there Rick needed to drive some campers to a climbing spot, so while we were waiting for the climbing to be done we did some sightseeing. A ride on a genuine American steam train at the Strasburg Railroad!

The railroad passes through Amish country. The Pennsylvania farmland often reminds me of bits of Aberdeenshire.

The train even has log fires for the colder parts of the year (not an issue during my visit)

Choo choo!

The climbing was happening at Chickies Rock. We went to take in the view...

Prettyeh? Apparently three mile island is visible from here, but I can't see it.

Part of the land here was a little more industrial in the past - I just like how "wild west" this place looks.

The view from the hill behind the camp.

Only in America can "moving house" take on this meaning!

Just before heading home, we took a couple of detours on the way to the airport.
This is the Pennsylvania state capitol in Harrisburg.
Apparently it's designed to be even more impressive than the US Capitol in Washington DC.
They seem to have managed it!