We’ve been using the 1 Second Everyday app for a good few years now to string together a whole load of short videos overlaid with music, in order to provide a documentary of our travels. But I think the initial inspiration for the app when they designed it was to see how things change over time – I’ve seen 1SE compilations of a puppy growing up or a baby’s first few months. How about then, an aspen tree’s daily journey from summer bloom to fall foliage. That almost imperceptible transition from emerald green to golden yellow. All I had to do was pick a tree, any tree, and take the same one second video shot of it every day throughout our month’s stay in Keystone, Colorado. Better pick one that’s handy then, one that I’ll see every day, oh here we go, a prime specimen on our balcony.

Hmm, well that prime specimen did its damnedest to hold out on me. It soon caught on to me filming it every day, only there was some miscommunication around the purpose. There was me, patiently waiting for the tiniest signs of yellow, egging it on to change color. And there was the tree, exhibiting classic Hawthorne effect as it realized it was being watched and wanted to show off its glorious green leaves for as long as possible. While all around, the other aspens were giving in to their seasonal coming of age, my one insisted it could be the bestest greenest tree around. The whole damn month. Seriously. Of all the trees in all the world… and I had to pick this one.

I’m actually not going to subject you to the video, only for you to conclude that you wasted 30 seconds of your life. Here’s the photo version that should take a mere few seconds instead…

Meanwhile, the neighbor’s trees on 15th September…

Apart from my disastrous attempt at documenting a single tree’s autumnal journey, we needn’t have worried about missing out on fall. Half way through September, that cold snap brought about the first sprinkles of icing sugar snow on the mountains, and all around the aspens took that as their cue.

Despite the chillier mornings, we continued to take it in turns to cycle round the lake into work.

One morning’s bike ride into work was particularly memorable. I leapt off my bike to snap a photo of the stunning rainbow appearing before me. Only for the elements to create a perfect storm in the mountains, the rainbow emerging like a phoenix from the flames into a fully formed end to end wonder of nature. One of life’s little special moments.

What goes up must come down and the rainbow disappeared as quickly as it came, leaving me to face the sudden deluge of rain, albeit with the biggest smile on my face. And what goes into work must come home again, so sometimes we cycled back in the evening.

The view when driving back wasn’t bad either…

And just like that, it’s back to cycling on a weekend 🙂

I think I may have mentioned the importance of hydration on a bike ride!

For the final Colorado weekend, we took a little road trip out to see some different fall scenery. We took the bikes of course 🙂

The ride we did to Maroon Bells, near Aspen, was fall to a tee. A perfect day for riding, with crisp clear skies and seasonal colors all around (making up for the poor showing on the balcony!)

Over the Kebler pass was a super pretty drive, albeit still a tad early for peak colors.

We took to our feet near Crested Butte, to give our butts a rest from the saddle.

Unbeknown to us when we decided to stay the night in Crested Butte, this coincided with Vinotok, a local festival to celebrate the transition from summer to fall. (Obviously my balcony tree didn’t get an invite!) Sounds harmless enough, in fact if I was playing that game of Balderdash where you make up word definitions, I think I’d go with “a joyous pagan festival of wine drinking, merriment and celebration”.

The word Vinotok actually translates as ”all that dies shall be reborn”. Otherwise known as ”Burn the Grump”. This is but a taste of what we got…

There was certainly wine drinking and pagan celebration. A wreath of twigs and flowers was almost mandatory – as you can see, someone took pity on me and gave me their very sorry for itself wilting version. With that, we joined the throng of a thousand marauders in a massive costume party parading down the main street.

The night was dark but all around burned torches of fire, held aloft by jovial revellers. We moved ceremoniously along, shoulder to shoulder with characters wearing medieval masks, intricate face paint and decorative elk-horn headwear. All this to an increasingly riotous chant of ”Burn the Grump, Burn the Grump”. The event culminated in a massive bonfire amidst more chanting and ceremonious drum thumping.

What a bizarre night!

Our final week in Colorado gave us peak color.

We spent a fab evening with our friend from Evo, Aaron who invited us over for dinner and a sunset stroll with his dog, Wilson.

All that was left was the long road trip home…

… with a slight diversion to Mountain Tap brewery in Steamboat Springs, for this…

On our way via dinosaur country.

And a quick stop at the Bonneville salt flats before home.

The last word however, goes to my Como bike. My pride and joy. My new lease of life. At the start of this month long trip, I set a goal to ride 100 miles. That seemed a bit low for an ebike to Darren, so he upped my goal for me to 250 miles for the month. Meanwhile, rather than set his own mileage goal, Darren decided his goal would be to just beat my overall mileage for the month. OK, game on.