Baseline Height, Sunset in Denver and the GPS system

14 March 2009: Once again, I had a restless night. Though I was extremely tired, still I couldn't sleep almost the entire night. I felt like there was nothing I could do about it. However, I was lying in the bed for quite sometime in the morning until the second time my cousin knocked on the door. Good thing he did though otherwise I probably would’ve slept till afternoon. Anyway, I woke up around 9 o'clock, washed my face and came down to the drawing room for the morning tea. We had a brief chat before finally deciding to proceed for yet another sightseeing tour at around 10:30. It was the third day of my trip to the United States.

I finished my breakfast and then thought of checking emails. I looked cursorily through few important messages. My cousin had started blowing his car horn signaling that it was the time to move "Beep... Beeeep. ...". I signed out of my gmail account and rushed towards the car. He took his car out of the gear and soon, it was coasting down the road. It was once again a nice sunny day in Colorado.

The first interesting place that we visited was the IBM company in Boulder. It was indeed a state-of-the-art facility nestled at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. Then we went on to visit a beautiful lake located nearby the IBM premises.

After spending around half an hour there at the lake site, we headed for the University of Colorado at Boulder. The university has a beautiful campus located in a wide area with several architecturally constructed buildings. Below is a snap-shot of one of the buildings in the university campus.

Our next destination was indeed a splendid place located almost at the peak of a mountain called 'Baseline Height'. View from the height was simply stunning! We could look hundreds of feet down the hill and probably thousands of miles all the way to the horizon. The weather was very pleasant and a bit windy. I sat on a rock for a while, closed my eyes and tried to capture that moment. But, I had to wake up. I recalled few lines from the novel, Land of the Living, by Nicci French, "when you wake and nothing changes, that must be reality...". And the reality was, it was my last day in Colorado and we had to visit Denver next.

We took lunch at a Nepalese restaurant and soon, we were on our way to the Denver city. The time was too short to actually roam around the city. However, we managed to visit some of the interesting places in Denver. But, frankly speaking, big cities never attract me. They all appear similar to me...concrete jungle, mad crowds, rushing vehicles, artificial smiles around... don't they all look alike? I captured some views of the sunset in Denver though!

The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a global navigation satellite system (GNSS) developed by the United States Department of Defense. It can be used freely, and is often used by civilians for navigation purposes. It uses a constellation of between 24 and 32 medium Earth orbit satellites that transmit precise radio-wave signals, which allow GPS receivers to determine their current location, the time, and their velocity. (source: Wikipedia)

It was almost 9 PM when we finally called off the trip! We got into the car. In a big city and with no more natural lights around, I was just wondering if my cousin could find the correct route back to Fredrick. But thank god! He had the GPS (Global Positioning System) installed in his car. One can never get lost anymore, and have to stop and ask; "How can I get to ...?" With the GPS you will never have tough time anymore while going to a completely new place. Like other developed countries, in Japan the use of navigation system is quite common and now, it's been introduced also to some major cities of India. Lets hope that some day, we will be able to use it in Nepal! But for that to happen, first our leaders need some sort of GPS in order to run the country smoothly. Well, there's always a tomorrow!

We reached back to Fredrick in about one hour. And, it was well past mid-night when I finally went to bed. The trip to Colorado had came to an end. Needless to say, I was completely exhausted! But no regrets even though I could not get enough sleep for last few days. After all, everything in life comes at a cost!