Denver
Wednesday
After a 14 hour flight, I arrived in Houston before a mildly unpleasant 2 hour flight to Denver (American domestic flights, I have decided, are bad). I arrived at 4pm on Wednesday afternoon and after catching the train from the airport to Union Station I walked to the Ramada Midtown. My first impressions of the city were:
- It is very clean,
- The buildings in the Downtown area, mostly made of stone, are very attractive,
- The cars drive really slowly and sometimes stop on the road to let you cross, and
- It was quiet and empty. I didn't see many people.
First impressions
The first half of the walk was very nice, taking me through the downtown and through a park. I noticed that there are so many dog owners here, all walking their dogs in the evening. The second half, outside the downtown was quirky. The pavement turned to large uneven stone slabs, and the buildings, now residential were all unique, in a good way I think. There was a noticeable change in the people. It was, however, easy to tell the difference in class.
The edge of the downtown area
The Ramada was quite dingy. Luckily I was staying there for just the first night. My room was a badly lit stereotypical American motel room. One window next to the door, which opened to the car park. I was, however, glad to stay there. It allowed me to see another side of the city that I wouldn't have known about if I stayed Downtown.
Thursday: Structures Congress Day 1
The next morning I packed my bags and headed back to the Downtown. I was spending the rest of the time with Lip, my supervisor, in a two bedroom apartment. It was really fancy. I dropped my bags there, got changed and then headed to the first day of the conference.
- Sessions attended
- Seismic Analysis, Behaviour of Full-Scale RC Special Moment Frame Components Subjected to Collapse-Level Earthquake Loadings, Tall Buildings, Performance-Based Design of Tall Buildings - From Research to Applications
In the evening, Lip and I went for dinner at a Japanese restaurant. Lip was quite pleased to find that I eat vegetarian, since he eats vegan. After dinner I spent my time rehearsing for my presentation the next day.
Friday: Structures Congress Day 2
- Sessions attended
- Storage racks, Seismic design for non-structural components,
Friday was the day of my presentation. Lip left his editorial board meeting early to come and watch, which was appreciated. The presentation itself went well. I was worried that I would go overtime, but one of the presenters in the Storage Rack session couldn't make it, so I was able to go overtime. The audience was primarily people in the industry and I had a lot of questions. I had already considered the all of the questions in my research, so was able to answer well. I think that they were quite interested and impressed. The other two presentations were interesting too.
Friday evening Lip invited me to dinner with one of his friends, Ron Ziemian. We ate at the restaurant 'Rioja' which was extremely fancy. It was also very interesting to meet Ron, I learnt a lot.
The street outside Rioja Restauraunt
Saturday: Structures Congress Day 3
Saturday morning I decided to do a little bit of exploring outside of the downtown by going for a run. I headed South-East, towards Civic Center Park. The park was quite grand. Here I saw the first of many squirrels while appreciating the government buildings and monuments surrounding the park. From the park I headed North towards a Safeway supermarket to get some supplies, then back to the apartment to prepare for the day.
Cowboy in Civic Center Park
Unusual animals
- Sessions attended
- Working internationally, Closing lunch
After the conference was over, it was time to start properly exploring the city. Lip and myself hired some city bikes and rode to the Botanical Gardens. Neither of us were impressed that we had to pay to enter, so we skipped them and went the City Park. We had a look around the park and then headed back. In total, it was about 1 hour, 20 minutes of riding. Luckily the city is quite flat.
We then used the bikes again to head to dinner. We went to a vegetarian restaurant, Watercourse Foods, about 15 minutes ride away. I had a 'Southern style' vegetarian meal which was crispy cauliflower, mac'n'cheese and kale salad with a hot sauce. It was delicious.
Delicious Southern style meal
Sunday
Our last day in Colorado. We hired a car, checked out of the apartment and drove up to Estes Park, stopping in Boulder on the way. Outside of the city are the Rocky Mountains, and we got a little taste of it. On the approach to Estes Park we had some snow, but not enough to settle. We visited the lake, wandered around the town and stopped in at a Mexican Restaurant for giant Burritos. After lunch we tried to drive up Prospect Mountain. Turns out it is private property, but we got about 2/3 of the way for some photos. We also stopped to look at a paddock/backyard full of elk.
On the road to Estes Park
It's pretty cold at Estes Lake
On the way back, we stopped in Boulder again. This time to see the University of Colorado campus. It was a beautiful campus. All of the buildings were constructed from sandstone bricks. We saw the engineering building and then went to the planetarium. They were hosting a show so we sat in for a while. We planned to leave at about 3:30, and left the planetarium at 3:35. After a quick toilet stop and walking back to the car, it was about 3:50... Not much time to get back to Denver. We made it back in the nick of time to meet our Uber driver who go stuck in traffic on the way to the airport. It was a relatively stressful trip, but we still arrived in time for my flight (Lips was an hour later).
University of Colorado Boulder Campus
From here it was another 2 hour flight to San Francisco and then a delayed flight back to Auckland. I spent a total of 4.5 days in the US, and 6.5 days away from New Zealand. It was a very long week, but a very interesting and rewarding one. Lip has suggested that I look into the 2018 Conference of Cold-Formed Steel Structures in St Louis, Missouri, so perhaps I will be visiting again soon.
James