Our most recent adventure took us into Denver, Colorado on a fine Thursday morning. The journey itself was completely uneventful aside from noting that the summer travel season has decidedly arrived, a fact readily obvious at the Atlanta airport with its corridors packed with obviously seasonal travelers who are more or less lost in an airport, carrying too many bags and too many children to reflect anything other than rank amateur status. Mr. H and I can pack for 5 days in only a carry on apiece and there is real joy in blowing past the huddled masses at baggage claim on our way to our car and freedom from the madness. Every plane we have been on has been packed to the gills, and this was no exception, to the point that while the wonks on TV, radio, and in print continue to claim that the sky is falling and travel is down, it seems to us that travel is anything but down, or at the least, that the airlines reduced capacity plans are working all too well.
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Of more than passing entertainment to T on landing was to watch the in-flight information system that lists such fascinating facts as one’s altitude, location, wind speed, etc during flight. Being flat-landers who live at 682 feet above sea level and took off from 1,026 feet, landing in Denver was a new experience with the altimeter still reading 5,281 feet once we were actually on the ground. Having been several hundred feet below sea level in Death Valley in April, this trip several months later would seek to place T at some of the highs of the North American continent to compensate for the lows of April. It strikes me as ironic that low elevations bring high temperatures and high elevations bring low temperatures, but of course this is what is called an inverse proportional relationship.
After landing, we took out across the relatively new toll road that skirts the north of Denver through what are still agricultural prairies, although this is rapidly changing, and we were immediately struck by the physical beauty of the location of Denver Metro, with the snow capped background of the Front Range looming to the west with the unbroken expanses of grassland tumbling down to the Mississippi at least a thousand miles away to the east. Our primary destination was Broomfield, a town that must have been an agricultural blip on the map even 20 years ago, that today is a highly upscale suburban community on the northwest side of Denver. Denver struck me at least as a very new city, or at least one that is consistently re-inventing itself, investing in itself, rebuilding, renewing, and recreating, as well as expanding at practically breakneck speed. Denver is a young city apparently cashing in on the tendency of technologically minded persons to also be relatively outdoorsy and ecologically minded, and what better place than Denver for an outdoorsy and ecologically minded person to set down into a profession that keeps them well connected to the transport grid through a major hub airport, multiple interstate connections, blooming industry and business, all conducted in the shadows of the awe inspiring Rockies.
We were headed to Broomfield because our hotel was there, and our hotel was only there because I had some free nights at a W property to redeem and this location fit the criteria. Free nights will draw me to a place I might not otherwise stay, without doubt. This property was brand new, and I mean so new you could still smell the paint and adhesives used to put the final touches on. This was an Aloft property, Aloft being a new concept hotel owned by the W brand, itself part of the Westin and Starwood chain. There are a high concentration of tech firms in Broomfield, most notably IBM, and the hotel is clearly designed to appeal to a younger, hipper, more technologically advanced group than I, and even more so than T.
After all, this is the year that even I turn 40 and T is a few years ahead of me, and at some point, our interest in the latest developments and crazes died. After all, it was only last week that my infusion nurse explained to me who the hell Kate and John were (I still don’t know why I should care about the lives of two people stupid enough to have 8 children nor about the boring and pathetic lives of those who dedicate time from their own lives to watch them or their messy divorce) that stares at me from the headlines in literally every supermarket check out aisle. I almost broke down and bought a copy of People just to put my mind to rest about who these fools were! Thankfully, my doctor’s office subscribes and saved me the $4 to gratify my only mildly stimulated curiosity.
Aloft models itself on a “loft living” concept, which to me translated into a less than ideal bed, very little space, and an inset portion of the half wall that divided the entry area from the bed area that had a curtain across it to masquerade as a closet. The shower was clever appearing in that they don’t go in for the wasteful little bottles of shampoo etc and mini soaps that you will use less than half of, leaving housekeeping to toss the bulk of it plus the packaging, instead opting for bulk dispensers on the shower wall, so totally reminiscent of high school gym glass or modern health clubs. Sadly, despite its visual appeal, the shower leaked.
What the room did have, and this is apparently of top priority for the younger wonky set, was a HD flat panel TV with this box thingy attached. T tells me it is properly called an “automated signal switching device.” As the maintenance guy, who was in our room when we opened the door, talk about a shock, explained, it would allow us to pull out our Xbox and plug it right in and play. OK, stop, what the hell is an Xbox? A porn device? Nope, turns out it is a game thing of some sort. However, I never got beyond Pong and never sank a week’s worth of allowance quarters into a video game at the corner store, so these trends passed me by. But I confess, it fascinates me to think that highly educated professionals are tromping through airports with me carrying game devices in their baggage so that they can blast aliens, or whatever these games do today, in their hotel rooms during their off time. To think that I still carry a book with me.
The place was clean, new, and so were the staff, who were relentlessly cheerful. The bar, while unpopulated, promised Thursday as ladies night complete with X-rated martinis, and while I confess I was intrigued as to how a martini gets a X rating, I didn’t bother to go down and find out. We did like the mini food shopping area in the lobby that even stocked Ben and Jerry’s ice cream along with drinkable coffee, but T was less than thrilled to have to go down there to get ice for our in room evening drinks or to get coffee in the AM due to a lack of sufficient supplies in the room. Perhaps the younger set targeted by Aloft thinks that coffee time is a social time, whereas we tend to think of it a dangerous time in which only the foolish speak, waiting for the caffeine to percolate through our tired and 4 decades old bodies. I should imagine that some of the younger and hipper amongst my acquaintances and friends might greatly enjoy Aloft and its attractions, but I would say that the only reason T and I would stay at one again
would be if we find ourselves with free room nights to expend. Again, there is nothing WRONG with the place, we just are not in its demographic. But hey, you have to love the “Hybrids Only” parking in the front of the hotel, especially if you are driving a hybrid instead of a Nissan Pathfinder, which is decidedly not a hybrid.
Since it was maybe all of noon, we decided to drive up to Rocky Mountain National Park, accessible through the town of Estes Park, not terribly far to the northwest from where we were staying. I was in Estes Park somewhere probably closer to 10 years ago than I would like to admit, and time certainly does change things. The town I remember was a great deal smaller with far less blooming of vacation condo complexes than greets the eye today, or perhaps I just don’t remember that part of it. Today the town is overgrown and screams tourist trap from every t-shirt shop and ice cream parlor on its overcrowded main drag. Again, perhaps I don’t remember it correctly, but to me it will always be the little town in which I saw a classic car painted in a two tone color scheme that would prove the inspiration for how I would paint the den in my California house.
Rocky Mountain National Park is one of the most visited parks in the entire system, and perhaps this isn’t surprising given how easy it is to get to from a major urban area like Denver. And yet, there were a surprising rainbow of license plates from all over the country as well as a diverse selection of languages being spoken from across Europe and Asia. I have never been clear how a Korean tourist planning a trip to the US becomes aware of locations such as Rocky Mountain National Park, but since I can’t really read most tour books published in other countries, perhaps it is something that is highlighted as of particular interest. Maybe friends pass the word, who knows, but surprisingly to me, it was a highly popular destination for people from across the US and the world.
If you go to the park and drive Trail Ridge Road, the attraction will become pretty immediately obvious, in that the panoramic views are hard to beat as is the rather unique chance to visit an alpine tundra environment, above the tree line, without having to huff and puff through the thin air on a hiking adventure. One hits and passes tree line at somewhere about 11,000 feet above sea level, the point above which trees cannot grow, and that signals the beginning of the alpine, as opposed to arctic, tundra environment of short, tough, and tussock-like grasses, still covered in deep snow drifts in mid-June, with the attendant warnings to stay away from the snow since it is unstable and overhangs dramatic drop offs, creating an avalanche danger area. If one were unwisely and unadvisedly tramping across a snow drift that dropped off to start an avalanche, you would be in for one hell of a wild and quite possibly fatal ride. It is in situations like this, or around boiling hot water and mud in Yellowstone or Lassen National Parks, that I especially hate the apparent inability of parents and grandparents to control their heathen offspring, who wander oblivious and dangerously close to disaster for themselves, those below them, and for those who will inevitably have to risk life and limb to recover the remains. Personally, I would let the bears, eagles, and wolves take care of the latter part, but we all know that such will not become endorsed policy any time soon. Sadly, I didn’t get to witness the demise of any loud mouthed little brats, but still, they make me nervous as they tromp out over restricted snow banks, convinced that the world has no barriers or limits that apply to them, while the theoretically responsible adults are too enamored of the views and momentary silences after being locked in the RV with the brats to question why their ears are no longer ringing. Sensibly, we don’t even bring a small dog with us to disrupt our quiet explorations of the world. We hire a sitter and you would think that parents would have the sense and courtesy to do the same! To be clear, WE DON’T LIKE CHILDREN under the best of circumstances and I personally remain convinced that adults only airlines, stores, vacation spots, everything ultimately, would be a huge hit amongst the childless majority of those who can afford to travel since all of their time and resources are not poured into the insatiable maws of screaming brats. Granted, they are necessary once they grow up to provide goods and services to me, but I really think I should be able to avoid interactions with them until they are at least out of high school, and even then some of them are questionable!
But back to the point, Trail Ridge Road is a relatively easy to negotiate window on to a very high altitude world that many will never be able to experience or witness. Be warned though that as you climb, the amount of available oxygen will markedly decrease, so that short and easy hikes out to a viewing area may become far more of a challenge that you were initially prepared for. Over the course of our adventure, Tim would find himself gasping for breath in Breckenridge, at 10,000+ feet, and I would develop the expected nausea and fatigue, plus on return to Atlanta, abnormal blood test results suggestive of red blood cell cancer, but really only the result of the body trying to make more oxygen carrying cells to compensate for a reduced amount of oxygen to carry. Altitude has its costs, but in the end, I think most would agree with me that it is worth it to experience the otherworldly beauty of being two plus miles up. Tim found it entertaining to mimic the warning chimes of Delta jets as we too descended past 10,000 feet, but in our case, we were still in an earthbound vehicle. Honestly, there are not many occasions in which the 10,000 feet above sea level mark is reached, marking the point at which allowable portable electronic devices are either able to be used, or at which they must be put away, depending on whether arriving or departing, while still touching terra firma.
I gloried in the scent of the pine trees which came flooding into the car, pine trees, the crisp clean scent of snow, the cool air, the birds chirping and wheeling, it was practically like a Pine-Sol commercial, but without the annoying jingle and chemical after scent. Sadly, this is all heavily threatened by the pine bark beetle, an insect the size of a grain of rice, that got started destroying pines by the millions in Canada that has found its way south. The beetle carries a type of fungus, assuming I got the story correct, that shuts off the flow of water and nutrients to the tree, killing it quite effectively and then transmitting itself by the airborne route. This explains the VAST swathes of dead trees in the Rockies, including in the national park, that are being replaced my deciduous trees, an obvious difference even when in full leaf and no doubt much more so in winter. Apparently, the beetle was formerly controlled by freezing out in the winter, limiting its spread, but now the winters are too mild to control it, and I leave my readers to draw their own conclusions as to the cause of this latest natural disaster to afflict the wild places of our world.
We crossed the Continental Divide on the way down the mountain, and for those who don’t know, this is a geographical line which extends from Alaska to the southern tip of South America, which divides the watersheds of the continents from east to west. When on the East of the Divide, all the water will eventually flow to the Atlantic, much of it in Colorado through the Mississippi River by way of the Gulf of Mexico, and this explains why we could cross the Arkansas River so far from the actual state of Arkansas, and most all of those streams, waterfalls, and rivulets will eventually feed the Mississippi through the Arkansas, or the Platte, or any number of other tributaries and feedings over time and miles. On the western side of the Divide, all water flows to the Pacific, mostly through the Colorado River to the Gulf of California, although as any westerner knows, most of that water will be diverted to grow food to feed the rest of the US appetite for fruits and vegetables, or its appetite for entertainment and residence in Las Vegas, Phoenix, or Tucson, to name only a few of the cities and industries draining the west of viable water supplies. Of course there are also water flows that are trapped by the Great Basin geography, doomed to never reach an ocean, because to do so would require water to do what it can’t unassisted, reverse gravity and climb a mountain to escape. But this is a remarkable geographical feature and the effect remains the same even if the route to the Atlantic changes from the Mississippi to the Amazon. We would dance across the Divide repeatedly over our time in Colorado, for it is anything but a straight line, moving and changing repeatedly with the changing topography of the mountains, adhering to a rhythm all its own.
We stopped on our way down the mountain for a lunch that was mediocre at best, but not all was lost, because on our nightly beer and soda run to stock our in room refrigerator, we chanced upon Pho 120, a Vietnamese noodle restaurant for those not in the know, and as might be predicted, we would eat dinner there three more times during our stay, every night we were in Denver in fact, including on the way to the airport for our 1:15am flight out. After all, we have been known to find pho in Seattle as well as other places we travel. We have a serious romance with pho, although I am not entirely sure why. I know I love it for the fish sauce, made by pressing heavily salted and fermented sardines and collecting the liquid that comes out. The details of what is in it probably don’t bear close thought especially because I love the stuff and don’t want to think about it, whereas T is just a general fan of most all soupy things including Campbell’s Chicken Noodle, so this beef and rice noodle variety with lots of basil, bean sprouts, lime, and extremely hot peppers sort of fits that general mould but in a FAR more tasty and satisfying way for less than $7. I will never completely understand the naming convention peculiar to pho restaurants whereby a seemingly random number figures in. In Atlanta, for example, we eat at Pho #1 which could make sense as in “the best pho restaurant in Atlanta” if it were not for the presence, immediately across the street, of Pho #79, a number with no particular meaning to me, or now, Pho #120 in Denver. I mused that perhaps there was a national registry of pho restaurants, and this one was the 120th to sign up. T is pretty sure this is not the case, but it is the only even remotely plausible explanation I can think of, and believe me, I understand that I am using the term plausible loosely.
Pho 120 provided one more source of mystification in the form of a van parked outside it on our second visit which sported a prominent “choose life” anti-abortion bumper sticker, which by itself annoys me because of the ridiculously sentimental idea of what life is and the need to preserve it regardless of all the reasons why doing so might not be in the ultimate best interest of humanity, to say nothing of my overwhelming desire to ask so called pro-life people just exactly how many otherwise unwanted children they have adopted and are providing loving and caring homes to, along with education and other advantages and opportunities. I could almost respect them if they ever once put their money where their loud mouths are instead of just ranting and trying to force their visions of morality and behavior down everyone else’s throats because they have some monopoly on moral correctness. I have never yet met an anti-abortion loud mouth who has adopted an otherwise unwanted child and I don’t expect to. My personal feeling on the point is that I would like to envision a world in which abortion isn’t necessary, but since it is these same loud mouths who so frequently oppose effective family planning options and education, they seem to be working for abortion instead of against it. Clearly, as indicated by both validated and controlled scientific studies and by the Bristol Palins of this world, “purity rings” just don’t work. Besides, if you are against abortion, fine, don’t have one, but you can’t seriously believe that it serves anyone’s best interest to have a 14 year old raising a child, or that forcing a woman to bear the child of her rapist attacker is even humane. If you don’t believe in abortion, fine, don’t have one and furthermore, go out and adopt and LONG TERM SUPPORT AND NUTURE a neighborhood crack baby. Trust me, it won’t happen, that would be too hard, but putting on a bumper sticker, that takes no effort whatsoever and geez, I feel so good about myself now! Of course I have to ignore the blatant exploitation, abuse, and early deaths of these children that I am also implicitly supporting by attempting to force them to be born in order to live with myself, but I am well practiced at self-delusion, so this won’t be a big stretch. After all, I can make myself believe that those massive mountains and the myriad fossils they contain were “placed” there just like they are slightly over 4,000 years ago by a perfect god, not the product of millennia upon millennia of geological processes as Satan-laden science would have me believe.
But I promised myself to dilute the vitriol against stupidity in this narrative, so really I must try. But I have to point out that what really captured my incredulous attention about this particular “choose life” sticker was that is was immediately above a Marlboro sticker. Clearly, we must choose to have this baby born so that it can live in a tobacco smoke filled environment to develop the life affirming diseases of asthma, bronchitis, and pneumonia, while growing up in the social environment that supports the idea that smoking is somehow a good thing so that the child can grow up into a person that dies a slow and painful death from one of the myriad forms of cancer or other disease fostered by smoking tobacco. Now it all makes sense! Choose life so that it can be snuffed out later, or at least severely limited, by a lifetime addiction to tobacco. Surely you all have to see how much sense that really doesn’t make and why it would capture my jaded and sarcastic eye.
But regardless, the pho was amazing, and I wish I had a huge steaming hot bowl of right now, pleasantly spiced with red chili paste and fresh green smoking hot chilies, as well as salted with dried pressed anchovies, if for no other reason than that it would clear out and clean my congested sinus cavities while tasting oh so delicious at the same time!
The following day we headed south towards Colorado Springs, that great bastion of hatred and home to mega-churches and my all time ultimate enemy, Focus on the Family. I have to give credit to hate-based organizations that use clever vocabulary to disguise their ultimate and real purposes. Colorado Springs (CS) serves as the antithesis of Denver to me, in that CS is founded on and thrives in the soil of hate, bigotry, and ignorance, whereas Denver seems to thrive more on the youth, energy, openness, and acceptance of its residents. This dichotomy of experience and expression is particularly striking since the two cities, and two ideologies co-exist within a hour’s drive of each other.
Of course, CS is also home to the Air Force academy, and it is unclear to me whether it is the presence of the military that drives the bigotry or whether it is coincidence, although certainly the military is not an open accepting bastion of diversity. I am fairly certain that the Academy pre-dates the mega-church phenomenon or the Focus on the Family reign of Christian terror, so perhaps the militaristic basis of the place proved fertile ground or perhaps it was just coincidence. Regardless, it seems shameful that such a physically beautiful place should be so scarred by the vitriolic rampages of hate.
Perhaps needless to say, we didn’t stop here, since we would refuse to support the economy of such a shamelessly self-righteous place that clearly doesn’t want us or my disease. But we did pass quite close to NORAD, the command center for all the nuclear weapons in North America, the place immortalized by the 1980s movie, War Games, the safe haven of the President in the event of nuclear war. The place is carved into the interior of Cheyenne mountain and is presumed to be indestructible. I don’t know how they tested this assumption, but I further hope that the time never comes when we have to find out if it works or not. If you drive near it, you can’t miss it, because all roads that lead to it are clearly marked as not for you on pain of ugly penalties, spelled out in detail for you to read before you decide to charge the barricade. I strongly suspect you wouldn’t get far. Once upon a pre-9/11 time they had tours of the installation, but of course nowadays there is no such thing. I would have had mixed feelings about turning a location dedicated to the mass destruction of humanity into a tourist draw anyway, so perhaps it is just as well that my principles didn’t have to conflict with my native curiosity. If you like, you can read about the place at the following link, which includes a video postcard. I assume this is because you can’t get one at the real site since you can’t go there. And if you are wondering why a US military site is also available in French, that is because the site is operated in part as a Canadian military installation as well, and everything, but everything, in Canada is in both English and French. http://www.norad.mil/Home.html
Our goal in coming this way was to pick up US 50, known to residents of California and Nevada as the loneliest highway for its solitary transition of Nevada, although in California is traverses some of the best of the Gold Country. In Colorado, the route follows the Arkansas River canyon, known in places as Royal Gorge, and I think of it as a smaller but no less majestic version of the Grand Canyon. This more southerly part of Colorado starts to give way to the red rock deserts more commonly associated with Arizona and New Mexico, but make no mistake, Colorado in the southern and eastern portions is just as much a desert as the states traditionally thought of as such. This is part of the attraction of Colorado for me. AAA lists Colorado as the “bridge” and meeting point (hence the title of this piece) between east and west in the US and I find that very appropriate indeed. Eastern Colorado is an extension of the Great Plains of the Midwest, more prairie seemingly identical to neighboring Nebraska and Kansas, which gives way suddenly to the Front Ranges of the well watered and towering Rockies, across the Continental Divide and down the Colorado River canyon into the deserts of the Great Basin before crossing into Utah. I know of few, if any, other places in which one can move from a 12,000 foot alpine tundra environment to barren desert in less than day’s drive without ever leaving the state. Colorado’s diversity of climates, environments, and sceneries earn it a place on my much coveted, at least by me, list of the top 5 states in the US, a list I can make easily having been to all 50 of them. The other contenders are: California, Oregon, Montana, and Utah/Washington. I can’t choose between the two very different last place contenders, so I give them both a nod, but onc can’t really say the top 6, so I had to massage that one a bit.
We picked up US 50 and headed towards Canon City, home to a large concentration of Colorado State Prisons, including the original territorial prison authorized by Congress in 1871, as well as the Federal Super Max in Florence, about 10 miles to the southeast. This location is now a bit of a tourist draw, despite the almost 1,000 incarcerated men inside. Frankly, I have seen enough of the inside of prisons in my professional career that I didn’t feel the need to visit another one. But right behind the prison is a mountain with a one lane scenic drive that gives great views of the Arkansas River valley, and while a bit of a white knuckle experience, the views are ultimately worth it. Just stay on the beaten and paved path, for the hillsides are prison property and are strictly out of bounds.
We left the area via Colorado route 9, a small and lightly travelled road that strikes off to the northwest through a small valley hemmed in by towering peaks and the promise of the Divide country to the north. I confess that I fell immediately in love with this part of the state because of the quiet, the loneliness, and the haunting sense of the familiar that reminded me in non-exact ways of my childhood home in the Sierra Nevadas of California. Sometimes I think that everywhere I go is measured against those earliest memories, and nothing, not even the reality of the old homestead, ever compares quite favorably to what is lost in the mists of time and childhood imagined memory forever. But this section of Colorado 9 stirred something in me, and I imagined what it might be like to live there. T, of course, serves as the voice of reality when I go down one of these paths, pointing out all the obvious disadvantages and difficulties, but I don’t mind because I know he is doing what he thinks of it as his role to do, serve as the reasonable and practical one, always thinking of the why nots instead of indulging the why tos. I am eternally thankfully that someone fills the role of rational one!
The highlight of this section of the journey for us both was the arrival in South Park! Yes indeed, there really is such a place outside of the twisted and tortured imaginations of the geniuses Matt Stone and Trey Parker, the creators and writers of the Comedy Central series of the same name. South Park refers to the southern reaches of Park County, and the store and other business names incorporating South Park actually occur in Fairplay, the County seat. There is a reconstructed historical village called South Park that bears absolutely no resemblance to the home of Kyle, Kenny, Stan, and Cartman. For those who don’t realize it, T and I are dedicated fans of the television version of South Park, and honestly, once you get past the gratuitous violence and profanity, you will discover that there is always a valid, and usually remarkably reasonable, life lesson to be learned. You have to be able to find and celebrate the absurdity in everything from Barbra Streisand, to Hilary Clinton’s vagina, to Hurricane Katrina, to child molestation by priests, to AIDS, to terrorism, to appreciate the show, but no matter how far Matt and Trey push the envelope we follow along screaming with laughter and only wishing that we had had the foresight and guts to come up with it ourselves. It was like a miniature homecoming for us, to finally be in South Park.
The following day we moved from Denver up the mountains to our next residence in Breckenridge. Situated at a minimum of 9,600 feet above sea level, Breckenridge is designed to take your breath away, quite literally. The oxygen levels diminish at that altitude and can create unpleasant symptoms. T and I both marveled that people who come up this high, then go even higher, up to 12,000 feet at the top of the ski runs, and then proceed to engage in intense physical exercise. Why they don’t all die is beyond us! Walking about town in search of dinner proved a difficult experience. The town, like so many small mountain towns in Colorado, has become a cookie cutter expression of what tourists want it to be, put to the defense of these towns, they don’t have any other source of economic viability. Sadly I suppose, the experience is that it is impossible to tell one town from another, so if dropped blindfolded into Breckenridge, one would be hard pressed to be sure that it wasn’t Frisco, Vail, or any of a number of other small mountain towns. That isn’t to say that there is anything wrong with Breckenridge, there certainly isn’t and the town is quite lovely if expensive, but you really can’t expect it to be unique in any way. The local brew pub put out some very acceptable varietal beers that we enjoyed and our hotel was perfectly pleasant. It took me about a day to understand that it was originally conceived of as a time share property, and I have to say that if I was paying for 1/52 ownership I would be annoyed in that the level of comfort of the bed and sofa left a great deal to be desired, but the setting and the full kitchen were quite wonderful, with a “babbling” brook audible and visible through the thick trees immediately off the balcony, and when the clouds cleared a wonderful view of the alpine tundra of the 12,000 foot peaks came into view. T became obsessed with describing every piece of running water as a “babbling brook,” and I being typically cantankerous, had to challenge the description on purely lexicological grounds at every turn. The term “brook” originally referred to a patch of marshy ground, which of course doesn’t babble. Nowadays, it is considered synonymous with “creek” which is simply a smaller stream of water which is tributary to a larger river. If we go with that looser and modern definition, fine, perhaps it was a babbling brook, but I bemoan the loss of the specificity of language, a fact which T can readily attest to. I wanted to call it a “running rill” because rill is the proper term for a very small brook, which is a small creek, which is a small river. There is a difference and I like to enjoy the richness of the language we have inherited instead of trying to parse everything down to the simplest common terms and synonyms. Call me crazy, you wouldn’t be the first.
In spite of the less than ideal, and very small, bed, the room was ultimately lovely and gave the impression of isolation even though it was part of a much larger multi-building complex. But, we were able to our delight to leave the balcony sliding door open to the evening high elevation and to fall asleep to the sound of T’s brook, or my rill, babbling and running away down the mountain , to join the mighty Colorado, perhaps to one day irrigate arugula in the Imperial Valley of California, or perhaps to dance in the fountains of the Bellagio Hotel of Las Vegas.
The next day we followed the Colorado River down through the Glenwood Canyon, where over the millennia the river has cut a deep and steep red rock sided masterpiece for itself on its way to Utah and beyond. This was a particularly important find for T since he has seen photographs of this section of Interstate 70 in a published piece about how not all Interstates were ugly. This particular section was consciously planned to integrate into its environment through the use of tunnels, stair-step elevations of roadway going east and west, and even stacked sections, all intended to preserve the maximum amount of the natural environment. The effect is certainly one of success, and this section is more appealing, if not equally technologically wondrous, as the Eisenhower tunnel complex farther to the east. There are multiple places along the canyon where one can stop to admire the views, and even to marvel that an Amtrack train can traverse the canyon as well, on the opposite side of the river, as well as to put small rubber rafts into the raging river, swollen as it was at that time of year with snow melt and the detritus of fallen trees and other material washing down from the heights that gave the river a color of a thick and furious latte as it crashed down the steep run of the canyon.
Ultimately, we would follow the Colorado River right on in to Utah, discovering that there are indeed parts of Colorado that are not mountainous and certainly not green. Our entry into Utah gave T bragging rights to 48 states, only lacking Idaho and Hawaii (what an odd couple that is!) and it gave me my first sighting of a highway sign I could never have imagine existed, a bright yellow caution triangle proclaiming “Caution Eagles On Highway.” Wow, seriously, eagles right there on the highway? Apparently so. I realized that birds of prey and opportunity will occasionally scavenge a road kill carcass, and very rarely, I have seen the unfortunate side effects of this on an unwary bird when a vehicle comes upon it suddenly, but I have never seen a sign to warn me of the possibility. Either Utah is concerned for the welfare of its eagles, or a bird that size does considerable damage to a vehicle when it hits it. Either way, it was a new one on us, but sadly, we never did see an eagle on the road or otherwise. Antelope, yes, eagles, no.
Our discovery of Utah route 128 was a fortuitous chance encounter. It certainly isn’t a road you would use to get to Moab in a hurry, but it is a wondrous experience for those who have, and take, the time to explore it. The road literally follows the Colorado River through yet another of its many red rock canyons, and treats the visitor to spectacular views of rock formations both along the river and in the distance, including ones that distinctly remind the viewer of Greek or Roman ruins shining in the distance, made of red sandstone instead of the expected white marble. I think the ratio of photos per feet of road traveled topped out at higher than ever before on this stretch since the landscape and environment was so incredibly new and novel to an easterner like T. Having grown up and travelled extensively through these environments I could and did acknowledge their beauty but I couldn’t match T’s enthusiasm as a newbie, but I have confirmed that I should treat him to the experiences of Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks at some point in our traveling lives.
We gassed up in Moab, another town that has changed dramatically since I first visited it, again, longer ago than I would like to think. Moab is a paradise for the outdoorsy set who want to white water raft, rock climb, and otherwise hike and exert themselves in the heat and glaringly un-shaded expanses of the Utah desert. I fear that T and I would have quickly been as red as the rocks surrounding us, and as it was, we both appeared tan when we returned to Georgia, despite a relatively limited amount of exposure.
We would be due to check out of the hotel the next day and have a long stretch of time to kill since our flight was not until 1:15 am the following morning. We did think that a 10am check out time when the official check in time was not until 4pm was a bit unfair, but we were able to negotiate for originally a 1:00pm check out that was later modified to a noon time departure. T successfully, if hesitantly, negotiated his way out of the underground parking structure, with nothing and no one the worse for wear, a reality not guaranteed the night before, and away we went back down the Glenwood Canyon to pick up Colorado Route 82 to Aspen and over Independence Pass.
The approach to Aspen belies what waits on arrival. The route is mostly flat and about as uninteresting as Colorado gets. Who would imagine that Aspen, the winter playground of the ultra-rich, would sit at the end of the most improved, and presumably routinely plowed, section of this road. I can imagine that part of the attraction of Aspen is that it isn’t situated, as Vail or Breckenridge are, within easy striking distance of Interstate 70, making it harder to get to, and therefore more exclusive. What distance doesn’t accomplish, prices will, and Aspen has to be, along with Telluride, another isolated playground, one of the most expensive places to play in Colorado. The town, as you might expect, is small, charming, and extremely well maintained, almost as well maintained and groomed as the myriad of personal jets parked at the airport, jets mind you that rival many I have flown on as a commercial passenger in size and capacity. I can only imagine what these people do that creates such a cash flow, but it must be astounding. Or, perhaps Aspen is where you go when you pull open one of those Wall Street golden parachutes we have all heard so much about. To land safely in Aspen, you would need one as closely approximating 24 karat as you could get.
We remained on Route 82 to reach “the other side of Aspen,” an expression that a select number of my readers will understand for its special reference to an iconographic legend from 1983 and the beginning of a larger legend that powers on to this day. You reach the other side of Aspen by driving past Glory Hole Park, and no I am not kidding, that is really the name of a city park, and again, I realize this will likely only be of significance for a small and select number of my readers, but if you are in the know about the pop culture definition, it will have to strike you too as hilarious. I have to wonder if anyone has ever told the Aspen city fathers what the term means, aside from its innocent associations with mining or oil extraction.
Leaving Aspen the hard way, by continuing up route 82, opens up stunning vistas as you follow the Roaring Fork River up to its origins in the snow fields straddling the Divide at the 12,000 plus feet above sea level mark. This high up you will have the chance to view the Aspens for which the town is named, and to notice, if you look closely, that some are girded with chicken wire to protect them from the beavers in the river that will chew them down with teeth impressions that look remarkably like they do in any credible cartoon image. Independence Pass itself, at 12,095 feet above sea level, was one of the highest, if not the highest, points of our journey. We came down the other side through marshes resulting from the multitudes of beaver dams that block the snow melt on its journey to the Mississippi. It is truly remarkable to see and know that those pools of snow melt will eventually flow down to the Gulf of Mexico in a continuous cycle whereby storms from the Gulf blow in across the plains depositing snow in the mountain peaks along with moisture from much farther north, to return to the Gulf once more, potentially years later.
We followed the Divide, crossing and re-crossing it several more times on our journey into and through Leadville. Situated at an elevation of 10,152 feet (3094 m), Leadville is the highest incorporated city and the second highest incorporated municipality in the United States. A former silver mining camp that lies near the headwaters of the Arkansas River in the heart of the Rocky Mountains, the city includes the Leadville Historic District, which preserves many historic structures and sites from Leadville’s dynamic mining era. In the late 1800s, Leadville was the second most populous city in Colorado, after Denver. The United States Census Bureau estimates that the city population has shrunk to only 2,688 in 2005. The town, sadly, doesn’t appear prosperous, but the views from the Safeway and Laundromat are stunning. But I have to imagine it would be a bitter, hard, and cold place in which to be poor.
We continued down the mountain, had one more steaming bowl at Pho 120, and then headed out to the airport and the conclusion of our adventures in the Rockies. We did learn that the new Denver International Airport rolls up everything shortly after 10:00pm, so waiting for an early morning or very late night flight quickly becomes hot and lonely since they shut off the climate control and nothing is open aside from the random vending machine, but at that point I don’t think we cared too much. I had revisited one of my favorite states and T discovered a new favorite, having run from the prairies across the mountains to the deserts, Colorado does indeed serve as a stunning bridge between east and west and should be a must for every travel minded person who has even the most remote of chances to visit. I practically guarantee that you too will love it!