10-Day Road Trip Through theColorado Rockies
Axel Pinkow & Edward Tanguay-- August 1995
Written by Edward Tanguay
Monday, August 7, 1995
Monument to Cripple Creek
Axel and I drove out of the driveway at some indefinite timeas neither of us were really caring too much about time on thistrip. It was early afternoon. In the local Safeway we spent timetrying to find garlic sauce and then went to the post office. Onemore stop at Chapel Hills to buy the last necessity, a ten-packof socks, sent us on our way: up into the Colorado mountains forabout ten days.
Speeding through Manitou Springs we motored along up the firstmountain in the white Saab that Dave Pinkow had so kindly lent usfor the trip. Dave is an American relative of Axels living inBoulder, a second cousin a couple times removed. In Woodland Parkwe stopped at the "Donut Factory" and looked at thehyper-crowded world map of pins representing where customers hadoriginated. Five years ago I had been to the Donut Factory andthe map still made sense: scattered pins were sticking out ofhundreds of cities in the States, into cities such as Berlin,Paris, London and a few pins were in large cities in Japan andother places in the world. Today, five years later, as I lookedat the map, I saw that the situation had changed. For theintensely crowded gob of pins everywhere on the world map, onecould not even see land anywhere from Bordeaux, France to wellinto Russia, past the Ural mountains. Pins were sticking in themost unlikely places in the world where travellers hadpurportedly originated: Siberia, the Mongolia countryside, andthe mountains of Tibet. I almost believed that these pins mighthave represented real travellers until I saw five of pins crowdedaround a point in the middle of Antarctica. I couldn't quitebelieve that a group of hearty, travel-happy penguins had madethere way to Colorado Springs and had stopped in at the DonutFactory for a donut. Things change, I mused, as we moved towardthat counter which was itself crowded with donuts. I bought mydonut and cup of coffee, then found a table for the two of us andsat down at it. After Axel had bought his donut behind me andcame to the table, he took a bite, then told me that the woman atthe counter had asked him where he was from and then asked him ifhe was a Christian or not. I didn't know what to say to thisother than that the Front Range of Colorado seems to be a hotbedfor religious revivalism nowadays. I thought that lady had lookeda little bliss-filled when sold me that donut. It's a good thingAxel had answered yes or we may have been there for awhile. Thedonut was awesome, by the way--a freshly baked chocolate onecovered with rich chocolate icing--and we left satisfied with theshot of sugar and caffeine to push us along our way.
The road from Woodland Park to Florissant was simply fun todrive--winding and smooth. There was quite a bit of traffic, butthen, this place is growing. We drove through Florissant (whichmeans "flowering" in French) and onto the 11-milereservoir camp grounds where we set up the tent. The wholeprocess of setting it up was quite easy and we were finished inminutes. We were in a flat valley here next to a little mountainstream. The air smelled of cool pine and there was beauty on allsides.
After setting up the tent, we drove to Cripple Creek on abeautiful road with rocks that looked as if they were pouring outof the mountains. We passed a llama farm and stopped quickly atthe Florissant Fossil Beds which we want to visit tomorrow. Wedrove into Cripple Creek the back way, by the post office, not bythe Mollie Kathleen mine. Cripple Creek looked very homey andcountry-like, not the fast-paced, crazy gambling town likeCentral City and Black Hawk. But then, I guess Denver can feedthe latter with a larger volume of gamblers ("gamers"in all political correctness) than Colorado Springs can feed theformer. We walked to the Imperial Hotel where I remember visitingbefore in 1990 and 1993. We hope to see a melodrama tomorrow.Then we stopped in a casino and I taught Axel how to play nickelslots with the money we had turned into nickels to play--I playeda dollar and he played a dollar. I lost my dollar and he wontwelve bucks! Beginner's luck, I guess! Chicago's Pizza was ournext stop for an all-you-can-eat pizza, soup, and salad special.I read a little booklet on the city and learned that a man by thename of Bob Womack discovered the first gold here in 1890 afterprospecting for fifteen years. The next year the town wasincorporated and by 1900 supposedly had 55,000 inhabitantsaccording to some reports. This type of population increase wascommon with Western gold towns of that time. By 1921 CrippleCreek was back down to about 5,000 people. This post-boomdecrease in population was also common, which created quite anumber of ghost towns which can still be seen today. CrippleCreek was one of the last boom towns in Colorado coming aboutthirty years after the first strike up near Denver.
As we walked out of Chicago's Pizza with full stomachs, Inoticed a number of cowboy-types. These were real cowboys withdirt-caked boots, dirty and dusty jeans, a flannel shirt withrolled up sleeves, leather or rattle snake skin belt, a bandanaaround the neck and huge cowboy hats. I admire them much more nowafter having lived in Europe awhile. The cowboy is a real thingand a sort of dying breed running out of rustic land to live hisnatural life. It's almost the same thing that happened to theAmerican Indian.
Tuesday, August 8, 1995
Cripple Creek to The Royal Gorge
After a good night's sleep on an air mattress in the two-mantent on a rainless evening, I woke up to a pretty hot morning.The heat inside the tent seemed even hotter as I rememberedshivering the night before. Crawling out of the tent, I saw ablack squirrel and a ground hog. Soon the tent was put up andcoffee had been made by Axel--Turkish style which involvesfilling each cup a fourth full of coffee grounds then pouring inboiling water, just like I remembered it from the Czech Republic!By the way, this is how you have to drink American coffee if youwant to taste it. Axel had bought a small can of Folgers whichhad printed on it "makes 82 cups." From this can, wewere able to make a total of 14 tasty cups! A little breakfastwith the coffee, then a little cleaning and we were packed anddriving out of the valley. The stream running alongside the roadon the way out looked tempting for a morning swim.
We stopped by the general store (there's a lot of these outhere, each with a three-year-old box of Grape Nuts on the shelfand Cracker Jacks by the door), then motored on the fun-to-driveroads to Adeline Hombek's homestead house. This 19th centurypioneer had outlasted three husbands, gave birth to five healthychildren, and lived with two Indian tribes before she moved outwith all the kids and no husband to the Florissant area tohomestead a splendid house. She even furnished the house withwindows which was uncommon in that day.
The next stop was the FlorissantFossil Beds National Monument which had some splendidspecimens of fossilized tree stumps. It was hard to imagine thatthose stumps were not made of soft wood until you went up totouch them and felt that they were indeed hard stone. A cute17-year-old girl park assistant in official uniform and aSmokey-the-Bear hat informed us that actually only 80% of thefossil was stone. We took a small walk through a nice area ofpine trees then exited through the main entrance. On the way out,a posted quote in a display area caught my eye:
"Whatever befalls the earth, befalls the sons of theearth. Man did not weave the web of life; he is merely a strandin it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself." --Chief Seattle
As we drove up to the Mollie Kathleen mine, I almost gotchills thinking about going back down into that cage and ridingstraight down for 1000 feet into the earth dripping with water. Ihad been here before. We bought our tickets and then took twospecial yellow jackets off the wall which were provided for thetour ("They go from medium to a double X, but it don't muchmatter," said the high-school-age worker--I love themountain talk up here.) "Bob" was our tour guide, atrue-to-life miner who had just spent twenty-four months with anIndian tribe on the Yukon in Alaska panning for gold. As we wereriding down in the double-caged "elevator-on-a-rope,"we passed a tunnel that went out to Cripple Creek. Bob said theminers would escape out that way while their wives were waitingfor them at the top for the paycheck! 
Bob explained to us how the minersused to explode out the walls with dynamite to get the chunks ofore needed to extract gold. Then he showed us (after we walkedfurther through the wet, lamp-lit tunnels stepping over puddlesof red-colored water) some rocks and minerals that had been foundin the mine. One rock in the case looked like gold was not worthanything--"it and two quarters would buy you a cup ofcoffee," noted Bob. He also quite confidently stated that ifit were not for Cripple Creek gold, World War I could not havebeen fought by America. I wonder what percentage of the warbudget was funded by Cripple Creek gold. In any case, before thewar, Roosevelt had toured the mine and found blind donkeys doingall the hard pulling of the ore wagons, so he outlawed themdonkeys in mines. (The donkeys had become blind from lack oflight.) I asked Bob what incentive the miners of that time had towork in such terrible conditions for such low wages. He answered,"High grading." High grading was the illegal pocketingand carrying out of rich ore by the miners. A couple good chunkscould earn a miner a couple days' wages. Some made quite a profitthat way, it is said. We came to the end of the tour, still 1000feet below the surface. I took a glance up the mine shaft throughwhich we were about to ascend in the metal cage to the top.Looking up the shaft, I saw a speck of light at the top as smallas a star. It was eerie. We all got in the cage, and as we rodeback up from this miner's hell (which was actually a lot colderthan hell), Bob explained to us that to crawl out of that shaftup the ladder would take a strong man about three hours. Thatcould very well be, as Bob explained that we overestimate ourstrength when going straight up carrying our full body weight. Inany case, I would never want to try and was glad that the ropepulled that rusty, metal cage with its crowded passengers all theway to the top.
Next attraction in Cripple Creek was the melodrama, the littlecultural jewel in this outback, gambling, mountain town. Webought our tickets to find a free drink coupon and a $2.00-offlunch coupon attached. Axel and I realized that we had thirtyminutes before show time so we ran downstairs, slammed a Red Dogbeer each, then motored to the ritzy restaurant (my non-shaven,unshowered head sticking itself in the oak-framed door and askingthe waitress if it were possible to down everything in 25minutes--"sure!" came the answer, and we entered.) Themeal was scrumptious. Interestingly but expectedly, the $2.00-offis not simply figured into the price of the meal: you pay thefull price at the restaurant and are given a coupon which can betraded for $2.00 at the cashier's desk in the middle of thecasino and the cashier will only pay you in quarters. He pays youin quarters only so that you just might play (why not, come on!)a couple quarter slots on your way out. We didn't-- just yet.
We entered the theater and were seated and served by the fullycostumed actors, which was classy. The show was called "TheSpoilers," which had also been done on film in 1942 by JohnWayne and Marlene Dietrich. The show was great, a story aboutcharacter building, girl winning, and gold stealing in an Alaskantown during the gold rush. The the audience cheered and clappedfor the hero and his girl and hissed and booed at the villain andhis cronies--nice! Afterward the same actors (oh--the pianoplayer was the best, by the way, a smiling little guy) put on a50's medley of songs, skits, and jokes. It was very entertaining.The actors came from as far away as California, Massachusetts,and Canada (afterwards when they thanked the audience, the mainactor said between breaths, "you try coming from sea levelto 7000 feet and singing and dancing on stage for awhile!").The song "Lollipop, Lollipop" and "Sandman"were my favorites of the 50's piece.
Axel and I left the theater and were about to leave when wegot the gambling itch. Earlier, a friendly, talkative strangerfrom Oklahoma in the Kathleen Mine parking lot had told us thathe had read in the paper that some casino that started with a 'w'was supposed to be the best paying in Cripple Creek. He wasn'tquite sure which. On this advice, Axel and I walked along themain street until we found the sign "Womack's Casino."We walked in, each changed five dollars into quarters, and satdown at the two slot machines near the door (those near theentrance are always the best paying). Axel lost his five dollarsin five minutes and I won $46.50 in ten minutes. Breaking morethan even (we had team gambled--the winner paying the loser whathe lost), we got out of town and headed for Cripple Creek'ssister mining town of Victor. (By the way, we were tempted toplay longer and the casino made it easy enough by having eachmachine able to accept a 1, 5, 10, or 20 dollar bill. If thatweren't enough, it accepted three kinds of credit cards!"KEEP PLAYING!" the machines seemed to shout.)
Victor.This is a very mountain town with a general store that has alittle ice cream parlor where I saw two men sitting both eating asundae. A good looking waitress uttered to one of them as shewalked by, "Don't whine. I hate whiners." We bought twobags of ice and left. Trying to get out of town to the south, weflagged down a jeep pulling a boat. Inside was an old man(husband), a rather homely but younger woman (wife) and betweenthem curiously glaring at Axel and me was a cute, wholesome boy."Mountain family" all I could think. Surely they hadcome back from a nice fishing trip to the nearest lake. They werereally nice and helped us get on the right road to the RoyalGorge. On the way we passed a still-active mine which hadsuccessfully defaced any sign of beauty within a two-mile radius.But they need the gold ore, I guess, or whatever it is they'remining. It's only a fraction of the scenery that had beendestroyed, Axel and I realized as we drove the highway down tothe Royal Gorge. This drive was one hour of pure mountain beauty.No words can describe how vast, awesome, and untouched thelandscape is back there. The setting sun doubled this beauty. Thesun was setting even further down as we drove up to the RoyalGorge (families stopping their cars and sending their childrenout into the road to pet the deer wandering about tamely).
The RoyalGorge itself is a man-made wonder spanning a God-made wonder. Wewalked across and back. I felt a bit (more than a bit) woozywalking across looking down at the river far, far, far below. Themost amazing aspect about this bridge is that the floor of thebridge consists of nothing but wooden planks! It's the world'shighest suspension bridge and it was build with simple woodenplanks holding you up hundreds of feet in the air! Not only that,but some of the gaps between these wooden planks are so gapingthat one could lose a camera through one of these slits (itplummeting straight down a good two minutes before shattering orto its death below) AND they allow bumper to bumper, two-waytraffic on these rattling wood planks! A talk with the ticketbooth man afterwards did not calm my anxiety about their safetyconcerns: he assured me that "many" planks werereplaced every year as they wear out. The term "wearout" sent shivers down my spine as we walked on the solidearth (thank God) back to the car.
That night camping, I heard a pack coyotes howling down in thevalley to my right and saw a 30,000-foot high thunderstorm rumblemajestically over the mountains to my left. Otherwise the sky wasclear and the moon was full.
Wednesday, August 9, 1995
The Royal Gorge to The Great Sand Dunes
Kaploosh! Splash! The first thing I remember in the morning atthe KOA camp site at Royal Gorge was falling backward into thepool. Refreshing is the only word for that! The next greatexperience was standing in front of a sliding glass doorrefrigerator in the nearest general store wrapping my hand arounda cold Mug Root Beer! It had been years since I had had a rootbeer as they don't sell them in too many countries outsideAmerica, especially Europe where everyone thinks root beer tasteslike medicine. I brought everything up to the counter in thisgeneral store and put it on a big pile. The teenage girl raneverything up, forgot something that I had on my pile of things,so I picked it up and said, "Did you include this?""You can have it," she said. She didn't care. That'show general stores work.
The drive to Salida on Highway 50 was beautiful (save a fewstrip-minded areas, I have yet to find a vantage point in WesternColorado that does not provide an idyllic mountain scene). Theride along the Arkansas River as the landscape became more andmore New-Mexico looking was a treat for the eyes and remainedthat was as we drove into the circle of mountains surroundingSalida. In Salida we found the old part of town and walked aroundthe western-looking streets lined with red brick buildings, somein better shape than others. We looked for a place to eat, founda nice bar but it didn't serve food. The woman working said wecould go across the street to the deli, get a subway sandwich,then bring it back over and have a beer and eat the sandwich atthe bar. This fine example of commercial community cooperationbut we opted to go on down the street looking for a book store.We found one but unfortunately a closed sign was hanging on thedoor. It read, "Do To ILLNESS We Will Reopen Tommorow atNoon." The English teacher in me wanted to get out my redpen and correct the mistakes; unfortunately the note was on theinside of the store. We stopped in across the street at the FirstStreet Cafe and asked for directions to another bookstore; shetold us "down the street and to the left." We wentthere. We walked in this bookstore. Immediately I sensed a strongesoteric atmosphere: maybe it was the UFO-siting book next to the"Basic Guide to Zen Buddhism." Across the room, onecould find a book entitled "Country Lesbians" and a fewbooks away an 800-pager called "The Female org*sm."However, I browsed a bit more. To my surprise, I soon found awhole wall dedicated to inexpensive (one dollar each) Classics!It was a gold mine put out by the "Dover ThriftEdition" line of books. The books I picked out (andsubsequently that the gap-toothed, esoteric-looking-himself ownerrang up for me) were: Carl Sandburg's "Chicago Poems,"Nathaniel Hawthorne stories, John Donne's selected poems (I hadmysteriously opened it up to the poem "The Bait" whichI had memorized years before, so I bought it), Longfellow's poemsincluding "Paul Revere's Ride" and "The Courtshipof Miles Standish," James Joyce's Dubliners, and Lincoln'sgreat speeches. (All for a buck each!) I asked the owner wherethere was a good place to eat and he suggested the First StreetCafe, the same place that had suggested I go to this bookstore;another good example of commercial community cooperation.
We ran through the rain carrying our bags of newly boughtbooks until we were under the safe, dry protection of the FirstStreet Cafe. As I sat down I asked the bus girl what was the bestthing to eat there (she looked like she was not a day older than13). "Everything," she said with a smile. The burgerswere great.
Next stop was a card shop in which the owner gave us somescrumptious free fudge (home-made of course) and upon finding outthat Axel was from Germany said in almost accent-free Germany,"Ich kann etwas Deutsch sprechen." It turns out she hadlived her first four years in a German speaking part ofLithuania. She had moved with her parents to Nebraska and then toSalida with her husband. Next stop was Salida's version of ageneral store: SAFEWAY! Thank God! This was a full-blown storeand we stocked up on everything most of those country generalstores don't carry, like good wheat bread, and spiral note pad,and other necessities of life.
Leaving Safeway, we soon found ourselves driving 60 m.p.h.down a nice, paved road right southward into the heart of thebeautiful San Luis Valley surrounded by mountains in thedistance. It's a beautiful, flat valley and almost seems holy.I'm sure the Ute Indians had thought so when they lived here.Perhaps so did the Mormons when they came through. Axel read aneat pice of history about the place as we drove through: itseems that a man named "Rich" lived here in the 19thcentury before anyone had come out here. He lived out in themiddle of the valley and was so isolated that he would go threemonths sometimes without seeing another human being. During oneof these lonely spells, he became so desperate for company thathe made a huge bon fire thinking it would attract attention.Well, it did! The far-away Ute tribes saw it, interpreted it as awar signal, converged for battle, and rode out to the fire! As itturns out, after that meeting, Rich became a good friend of theUtes, so good, in fact, that when he left and a new family movedinto his house, the Utes made a formal request to that familythat he "be returned."
The San Luis Valley is huge and vast and we kept on drivingand driving down a Kansas-straight road. We found a little"point of interest" and stopped to find that it was aplaque and some information about Bison. Behind the plaque at adistance one could see a herd of these fenced-in brutes. Ilearned that before 1800 there were from 50 to 125 million Bisonand by 1895 so many had been exterminated that only 542individuals remained! Careful breeding of these animals sincethen has gotten their number back up to 100,000 today.
We could see the Great Sand Dunes from a distance for the pasthour but now we were nearing them. We stopped quickly at a campsite to secure a place to camp. While in the general store at thecamp grounds, I overheard this wholesome sentence said by amother to her bright-eyed eight-year-old daughter: "Go homeand see what's on the children's channel then clean the guineapig cage out because it needs cleaning." We found a nicespot up in some stunted scrub trees, then drove on to the dunes.
The Great Sand Dunes look at once awesome and out of place.What are they doing here (they are the nation's largest) in avalley in the mountains in the middle of Colorado? A littlepamphlet told me that wind comes eastward from the San Juanmountains, picks up sand from the banks of the Rio Grande whichruns through the valley, blows it further eastward and when itreaches the Sangre de Christos, it carries the lighter sandupward but drops the heavier sand. We arrived at the dunes and awarning sign along the path instructed us: "Lightningsometimes strikes the dunes, creating lumps of fused sand called'fulgurites.' Don't become a 'human fulgurite' . . ." Ithink this sign was made by the same person who put the "nofishing" sign on the royal Gorge. A river runs in front ofthe dunes and creates a phenomenon called "bores."These are little wave-like surges that ripple down the streamabout every twenty seconds as sand builds up and causes water tosplash upward down the stream as it flows. They are created whenstreams or rivers flow at enough of an angle through loose sand.It's hard to explain them if you haven't ever seen a"bore" splash down the stream, but you can watch themfor a long time without understanding what they are or how theywork. Axel and I began climbing the dunes, and climbing, andclimbing, and climbing. My God, we were so deceived by theirmass! This is one huge sand hill! We decided (out of breath andlying face down in the sand like two Arabs out of water andwithout camels) that we would skip going to the highest dune asoriginally planned and just play for awhile. I made myself into apencil and rolled down fast! It was awesome so I tried asomersault down. That was great, too, so I slid down face first!Then we just sat on a dune and marvelled at the beauty of thesurroundings. After Axel dug a huge hole and I covered myself upwith sand, we snapped some pictures of the place to try tocapture the vast beauty (which can't be done) and carried oursandy bodies on our bare feet back to the car.
Returning to the camp site we found nearby three graves on theside of the hill, each marked 1895. Who were these men? How didthey die? On a full moon night, we went to sleep with thesethoughts in mind.
Thursday, August 10, 1995
The Great Sand Dunes to Durango
Here's the answer to the mystery of the three graves: Themens' names were "Grandpa Nelson," "JimBowerman," and "Jack Reimer." And there's thereason they all died in 1895: That year, they were allprospecting for gold in the Sangre de Christo Mountains whensuddenly their dream of dreams came true--they found gold! Tocelebrate, one of them went to the nearest town to buy somealcohol. The liquor store owner sold them wood alcohol instead.The man brought it back to the camp, the three men drank it, andall of them subsequently died. We got this information from thewoman at the camp site's general store. I suspect that thatliquor store owner had some how found out that the three men hadstruck it rich and intentionally poisoned them so he could jumpthe claim. That's just how the West worked back then, it seems tome. (You just have to read the story of Soapy Smith in Creede toknow that.) Axel and I decided to ditch the effort to climb thehighest dune this morning. The reason? It's 700 feet high and,well, it will always be there ("Geologists believe that onereason the dunes do not move much is that they are moist almostthroughout. The moisture comes from the rain and snow.")
Instead, we found ourselves speeding down Highway 160 Westtowards Monte Vista having just blinked through Alamosa (Is thereanything to see there? Don't know. Probably.) The radio stationblasting into the car and out the windows was 88.7 KRZA Alamosa.We happened to catch the show "Modern Jazz Plus." Weheard a country song ("My Sweet Little Cherokee"), adeep soul song, a light jazz, trumpet-dominated piece; then anawesome travelling Reggae song by [pah-TAY-kay pah-TAY-kay](spelled here phonetically because I have no idea how the groupspells it). This "Modern Jazz Plus" show seemed to havemore "plus" than modern jazz.
We sped over Wolf Creek pass playing some country music:"Dreamin' with my Eyes Wide Open" then sped down intothe valley towards Pagosa Springs. Near Pagosa Springs (whichmeans "healing waters") there is the story of Albert H.Pfeiffer who was chosen by the Utes to lead them into battleagainst the Navajo (we're talking late 19th century here) andHerr Pfeiffer (he was from Prussia) led them to victory and,hence, won the beautiful Pagosa Valley for them. But the moreinteresting story about Mr. Pfeiffer is that he had a bad case ofacne and bathed in the Pagosa springs to help cure himself ofthis skin ailment. Well, one day he was bathing with his wife andservant girl in a spring when they were attacked by Indians! Thesad part of the story is that the Indians killed both his wifeand the servant girl. The funny part of the story is that Mr.Pfeiffer took off out of the water buck naked and ran the wholeway home through thorny bushes, over cactuses, hot rock, andsand. He arrived home "safely" with ripped up feet andlegs and an arrow sticking in his back. Well, maybe it's not toofunny, but it happened here in Pagosa Springs.
Still motoring westward along 160, we spotted a pair of rockssticking straight up in the air. "Chimney Rock" waswhat it said on the map, so we decided to investigate.Unbeknownst to us, we were in for the longest, most personal tourin our lives, given to us by an old, friendly, lovable characternamed "John." We pulled up to the visitors center (asmall hut at the bottom of the hill from the high rocks) and metJohn and his talkative wife (I don't know how she eventually goton the subject of South African military service, but she did)."Follow John up the hill in your car," she instructedus finally. John created storms of dust as he drove his palegreen Ranger's pickup up the hill. We followed him about fivemiles up to the proximity of "Chimney Rock." We got outof the ar and it slowly dawned on us that we were the only oneson the tour. After parking and getting out of his truck, John atdown on a rock in the shade and invited us to sit down next tohim and we did. As the groups are normally ten people or more, hehas to give basic warnings such as "Don't pick up anythingon the tour" and "Don't throw rocks over theedge." He looked at Axel and me and realizing the sillinessof telling us this, he smiled and went on. He started out with abroad, grandpa-like smile and asked, "So, what do you knowabout the Anasazi?" I answered that they had lived in MesaVerde about 1300 A.D. and that they had made some pottery. Axelsaid that he heard that they had mysteriously disappeared. John'seyes sparkled and a grin came on his face. He began to tell usabout the Anasazi and the Choco Indians. Basically, the Choco hadcome from the south (today New Mexico) and taught the Anasazi howto live up on the hills. The Choco-influenced Anasazi built"Kivas" (ceremonial huts) and "pit houses,"that is living quarters, that were on the top of this hill nearchimney rock. The largest of the kivas was called the "GreatHouse" which was in some kind of lunar line with the gapbetween the two rocks. John told us quietly that the Anasazihated the Navajo Indians and said he couldn't say much more aboutthat since mostly Navajo Indian workers were working all around,reconstruction the Anasazi ruins. As John told us about thehistory of one of the pit houses, a worker (he looked like somestudent from a college in California) was shaking his head wildlyin the background showing his disagreement with John'sarchaeological theories. John saw him and shouted over to him,"So what do you think it was, Joe's Bar and Grill?" Thestudent shook his head and pushed his wheelbarrow filled withcement bags up the hill. John went on. He showed us a hole in asolid rock surface wand said that nobody really knew what it was."One woman who had been on a tour with John had oncesuggested that it was where the Anasazi placed the crystal skullto show the alien space ships where to land." John chuckledto himself at that and we continued up the hill towards "TheGreat House." On the way, we met the Californian workeragain. John and he got into a rip-roaring fight about whether theChocoan Indians were farmers or not. Axel and I stood there whilethese two heatedly debated this fine point of SouthwesternAmerican Indian history. The last shot that the Californian madeas "Don't walk away from me, John, tell me how the ChocoIndians were not farmers if basic agricultural tools and largeamounts of turkey dung have been found near their ruins!"John retorted with, "Stop reading comic books and get backto work!" as he walked away. John's point with the kid wassimply that, of course the Chocoan farmed, but they were morethan farmers. They had built such great buildings and roads fortrade which suggested a class society in which some had thepleasure of not farming full time. This was John's point whichthe college kid couldn't comprehend. We followed John and the kidpushed his wheelbarrow down the hill again, miffed. John furtherexplained that the Anasazi were a maternal society--the familyname was carried by the women and the mother's brother was theone to raise her children, not her husband! When the Anasaziflourished in the Chimney Rock area (around 1100 A.D.), therewere from 1200 to 2000 on the hill and in the surrounding area.As we got to the Great House, we learned that the first part ofit was built in 1076 (ten years after William was bashingHastings over in Europe!) and the second part of it was built in1094, twenty-eight years later. This is significant because everytwenty-eight years, the moon rises three nights in a row betweenthe two huge rock formations as seen from the Great House. Fromthe top of this hill we could see the mountains near Durango tothe San Juan mountains--about a 100 mile span. As we walked down,I thought about how when Indians die, their spirits stay in thesame geographical location. I could almost feel these Anasazisouls present in the air, moving slowly in the sweltering heat.In any case, the whole Chimney Rock area was beautiful, almostmagical, almost holy . . .
So we found ourselves in Durango. The town has always been aname to me, but tonight it was a lively street of young peoplemingling, shops open till nine o'clock, warm evening air,teenagers cruising and whatnot, and tourists strolling downstreets full of people. I broke into the conversation of twoteenage guys with pony tails, "Where's the local microbrewery?" I asked. They gave me directions. I knew we weregetting closer when I heard a passerby tell to his companion,"I drank fifty-six kinds of beer . . ." Before we gotto the place, however, we were told by a woman in a bookshop totry the micro brewery "Carver's" instead as it was morehomey. We did. Axel and I entered "Carver's Bakery, Cafe,and Brewery" on Main Street. I knew it was going to be agood place when I heard "Come on Baby Light my Fire"playing by the Doors when we walked in. We sat down at a huge,wooden high-backed booth and I read on the front of the menu:"Before they were old enough to see over the counters, theywere learning traditional baking from German bakers in Milwaukee,Wisconsin." To my right on the wall was a painting entitled"another Dysfunctional Family," probably by a localartist. It was one of those new, postmodern, bizarre pieces ofart that seems to want to disturb and cause uneasiness with thecolors, figures, and title. I didn't particularly like it. Ilooked at the picture next to it above the adjoining booth by thesame painter. It was called "Artful Insemination" whichconvinced me that I would not miss anything by not looking at anyother pictures in the series above the other booths. Axel and Iordered the "taster's kit" which consisted of the ninebeers that the micro-brewery brewed. When they came, allmulti-colored on our respective trays before us, one decided totry the worst first.
* Belgian Witbier *
Axel chose it because we both hate Weizenbier (wheat beer) and"Witbier" sounded a bit like it. It was gross.
Score: 2
(I chose next and then we alternated.)
* Golden Wheat and Honey:
A very light-tasting beer with a real smack of honey. Actuallyquite good, but a bit sweet for beer.
Score: 4
* Iron Horse Stout:
Beyond porter beer in thickness and weight, too strong, tastesalmost like a burnt syrup, worse than Berlin's NeuzellerKlosterbraeu, bah! You would have to be an iron horse to drink apint of this.
Score: 1
* Raspberry Wheat:
This "ale" tastes a bit like cool-aid, weakcool-aid, no, it tastes like a Raspberry tea! In fact, I think itis raspberry tea! Don't order this one!
Score: (doesn't rank as a beer!)
* Old Oak Amber Ale:
Smooth, with a slightly burnt almost coffee aroma with a nuttyaftertaste. I would order a pint of this.
Score: 7
* San Juan Porter:
Has an immediate, deep, dark roasted nut flavor, just likePhiladelphia's Juengling Porter--awesome for a porter beer.
Score: 9
* Colorado Trail Nutbrown Ale:
A full-flavored nutty beer, adequately hopped, very pleasingto the palate and quite drinkable in quantity.
Score: 9
At the end of the beer tasting (and the wonderful burgers thatwe had enjoyed), Axel found a fitting quotation on the menu:"Bread may be the staff of life, but beer is lifeitself." Might be, but in any case, it certainly added to itthat evening.
We walked out onto the summer evening street of Durango (MainStreet--the only happening street). It was a night ripe for"verbal snapshots" Here were a few:
Two young mountain-types, a man and woman, walked by steeped in serious conversation: "He didn't get nearly what his bike was worth . . ."
A teenage guy walking by came up to a group of teenage girls and gave them the finger with both hands, then walked off. The leader of the girls shouted after him: "You're an asshole, Steve!"
Two teenage guys passed: "She treated me like dirt!"
A man passed us walking with three of his business friends: "I probably should call my wife and tell her where I am . . ."
Teenage couple, passed with multi-colored, twisted balloons on their heads.
A man in a cowboy hat waved and smiled to a passing pick-up truck.
Two girls in the White Water Rafting ticket booth: "Wait! Yesterday Jerry Garcia died while we were camping? What did he die of?" -- "Natural causes I think."
Axel and I didn't know who Jerry Garcia was. We then read onthe front page of the newspaper in the next newspaper dispenser:"The loss . . . just digs down really deep. --BobDylan" I asked out loud, "Who was Jerry Garcia?"-- "Grateful Dead," answered a yuppie-type to my left.Unfortunately that reminded me of a joke, which I told aloud,"How do you know that a dead-head has been in your house? --He's still there." No one laughed. Perhaps I should havemourned instead.
Friday, August 11, 1995
Durango
In the morning we woke up at "Butch's Beach" whichwas near a pleasant-sounding mountain stream which was next toHighway 160. The noise of the latter drowned out the noise of theformer. We got up, packed the tent, and tried to find the postoffice which we finally did. It was a wholesome, small townpost-office. Then it was on to the goal of all tourists who cometo this area: Mesa Verde!
Things that people say are great are always different thanwhat people say. The first surprise about Mesa Verde was that ittook so long to drive there. It is really out in the middle ofnowhere! No wonder no one discovered it until 1888! After drivingabout a half hour south into a seemingly increasing desertlandscape, we got to the visitor's center for the Mesa VerdeNational Park. The tours for the buildings (The Balcony and theCliff Palace) were for 5:00 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. (all the onesprevious were booked up by the world's tourists) so we decided tojust drive around and look at the sites from afar. We did, and Iwas really touched by the site of the Cliff Palace. Why? Thethings was build about 1100 A.D. and the people living in it leftabout 1300 A.D. I looked at it as a symbol of the potential thatthe North American people had of building an enduring cultureparallel to the European culture. Why didn't they develop thewheel? Or gun powder? Or the sailing ship? They were so close,but they died out--or moved, and the history of North Americanwas put into the hands of the more sophisticated Europeans in1492. Standing, looking at those impressive 14th century ruins, Ihad to think, "Man! Almost guys! Almost!" All of theother sites were basically the same--the gave me the feeling andrealization that human beings had been living in this valleyabout 900 years ago. All of it was a bit eerie andincomprehensible.
Almost by mistake, because of our growling stomachs in fact,we ended up on our way back to Durango in the town of *Mancos*.Very soon I came to realize that you could cut the communitypride in this tiny mountain-ranching town with a knife! It wasstrong. The ironic thing about this community pride was thatthere was not even a block of stores in this town. You wouldthink it was a dying town if you didn't go into "Lizzy D'sSweet Things" and pick up a complimentary copy of "TheMancos Times-Tribune" as I did. Inside one can read:
"So you're here. You've seen the ruins, strolled thoughthe shopping district [shopping district? my God, it's only fivestores!], and you love the place [well...]. You want to stay acouple days [no, just until Axel and I finish our hamburgers,actually]. Or you want to stay forever [forever?]. How can youfind out more about what Mancos offers? Or suppose you're nothere. Perhaps you have relatives here [the probability of thiscauses a divide-by-zero error] and they've sent you this VisitorGuide. Perhaps you picked it up on the Silverton Train [likely,but no], or on the plane from Paris [now what would someone inParis be doing with a Mancos--population 900--newspaper, I askyou].
The paper was too much! You would think that *Mancos,Colorado* was the last place on earth that people were crowdinginto because of its beauty (it's not bad but...) and economicfuture (the only economic future I see for this town is when theCalifornians invade it with their saving accounts). At any rate,we wandered into "The Bounty Hunter" of the Mancos,Colorado main street. It was a hat making place. You could buy aleather hat from between $300 and $400! Axel asked if he couldtake a picture of the wall of hanging hats. The answer was"No!" We moved on. I asked the woman at the cashierwhere the best place in town to eat was. She put forth a choiceof two: "the Hamburger Haven, or, if you want to get realsick, try Candy's up by the highway." On our way out, therewas an autographed picture of Jack Nicholson on the wall thankingthe place for a hat they had made for him! The place at leastseemed to have connections!
We went across the street to "Buck's Saddlery" andentered to a conversation going on in the corner: "I reallylike to break boots in . . ." I looked up on the wall. Therewas a picture of Ronald Reagan (!) holding a saddle that they hadmade for him in this store. This place obviously had connections,too! Well, saying good-bye to the owner as he further explainedto a customer how he liked to break in boots, we left thepleasant leathery smell of the store and walked up the centralstreet of Mancos. On the adjoining street we saw a row of fourinstitutions:
The Mancos Public Library
The Mancos Recreation Center
The Mancos Town Hall
The Mancos Post Office
And that was it. That was Mancos, except for "thehaven" which was the short name for "The HamburgerHaven." (I had learned this from the owner of Lizzy D'sSweet Things.) This is where we went in order to quench ourthirsts and satisfy our hungers. As we entered "thehaven," I noticed two diplomas on the wall, framed. Theywere high-school diplomas (!) from 1990 and 1993. The waitresscame to our table, told us the special was bacon burger, so weordered two of them. Then she moved to the table behind us totake an empty plate away from a cowboy sitting there in the boothstill drinking his coffee. I heard "Thank you, Roy" and"Thank you, Diane." It's a homey place, Mancos!
The ride back to Durango involved more country favorites onthe radio. Here's the lyrics of one song that just had to touchyour heart: "Sittin' all alone tonight with no one to loveme" and the song's last lyric was "I don't know why I'mnot as lucky as the others are, perhaps I'm just wishin' onsomeone else's lucky star . . ." Country songs always fit topassing country scenery.
Back in Durango we got a camping place, then saw theDurango-Silverton train, but didn't go. Why? Because it cost 42dollars. We are both on student budgets and that ride will haveto wait till a later socioeconomic class comes to rest uponus--later. We walked in a Walden's bookstore and browsed. Icouldn't help overhearing this comment from a woman (possiblestudent) as she came in: "Farewell to Arms. That's theabsolute worst book . . ." Then I happened to overhear theowner of the store refer to a customer as the "JeopardyWoman" as she came in. Being a Jeopardy fan, I struck up aconversation with "the Jeopardy Woman" and found outthat she indeed was qualified for and had taped a game ofJeopardy which will air September 22, 1995. Her name is AnnButler--look for her! (She didn't win.)
We then went to the "Barley Exchange," a basem*ntbar that seems to be the place to go for the well-to-do (at leastin terms of money) in Durango. Well, this place is famous forserving over 100 types of beer and the quote of the evening camewhen a mechanic-type at the bar turned around to a passingwaitress, held up his bottle of long-neck Budweiser beer andyelled, "This is a really good beer, I tell you what!"Two tables away I heard a woman student tell her friends,"So I'm listening to this goddamn symphony in the middle ofthe exam. I couldn't tell if it was Mozart or what . . ."
Axel and I soon moved over to Carver's again, a much morerelaxed atmosphere. The place was packed. One of the girls fromthe next table yelled at the waiter as he passed, "How areyou doing?" He yelled, "Doing!" without turninghis head as he sped out the door to the patio to take orders.Axel and I drank and talked and wrote for hours.
I was later at another club alone (Main Street, Durango isopen until the wee hours). An impressively good, wanderingEast-Coast-type singer and guitar player explained how he came towrite the love song he was about to play: "I said to myself,Paul, why don't you write a love song? . . . Well, the things welearn . . ." I talked to him afterward. He was fromIllinois. He had tried different things in life until he foundthat his true love was music, and now he's doing music. Aftergoing to another club and dancing to "Monkey Meet," anawesome all black Reggae band, I walked back tot he tent asDurango rolled up the carpet, about 2:30 a.m. Durango--it's not asleepy mountain town!
Saturday, August 12, 1995
Durango to Montrose
Before leaving Durango, we stopped by Fort Smith college,student population 4,200. The population on this Saturday insummer was about 8, but I was able to get a pamphlet on thecollege and get a feel for the campus. It's a perfect school:liberal arts, in a small, happening town, good professor/studentratio, and in a beautiful, historical area. Maybe they'll want aColorado boy to teach foreign languages there someday. I talkedto a student who was working at a store in town. He studiedchemistry there and couldn't say enough good things about theschool. "I love it there," he said. This was the lastsentence I heard in Durango, and it had a nice ring to it. UnlessGunnies is an outrageously fun place, Durango is going to be myfavorite town on this whole Colorado trip.
Our Saab sped its way up the million Dollar Highway towardSilverton. The scenery consisted of beautiful mountain afterbeautiful valley with intermittent ensembles of lakes, peaks, andblue skies with white, fluffy clouds (which all makes one wonderwhy the county or state does not install a couple more guardrails on this road--a second-too-long stare at one of thesegorgeous scenes and your car would be plunging down into it. Thesame safety engineers who designed this road probably installedthe wood planks with the gaping slits between them on the RoyalGorge bridge. speaking of road builders, the man who built manyof the roads in these awesome canyons between Durango and Ouraywas Otto Mears, a Jewish immigrant from Russia. If you would liketo read an "American Dream" success story, get abiography of Otto Mears. He came to America as a penniless orphanlanding in San Francisco and became a success through hard work,talent, and efficient road-building.
Coming up over Red Mountain Pass, we had the country musicjamming: "If the world had a front porch like we did backthen, we'd still have our problems, but we'd all befriends." I was able to sing along about the third go-aroundof the chorus. A couple songs later we were entertained by theselyrics: "You better kiss me 'cause you're going to miss mewhen I'm gone."
The first glimpse of Silverton as we winded our way down intothe valley made me think, "My god, what a perfect place fora town!" The flat little valley between the rising majesticmountains seems to yell, "Build a town here!" We pulledinto the visitors' center which is a beautiful, old 19th centuryhouse. We parked next to an RV that had a blank map of the UnitedStates on it. States where the RV had been had been colored in.The map was about half colored. The sign on the visitor's centersaid "open daily 9 to 5." Another sign said,"Sorry, we're closed." (It was 11:00 a.m.) Another signsaid, "Will Return At 9:00." Nonplussed, we left.
Silverton is a town of shops and we did them all, at least onthe main street in town. Silverton seems to have more than oneman street, especially since the train from Durango comes intotown a few blocks away from the main drag and commerce seems tohave set itself up around that focal point. The sign of the daygoes to a renovated hotel that advertised itself as "Aluxury hotel for non-smokers." This non-smoking thing isgetting strong in Colorado. I remember as I got out of the planeat Denver International Airport last month a woman casually askeda man, "Can you smoke in this state anymore?" Well, asI walked past a liquor store, I was a lazy, yellow dog lying inthe main aisle. Across the street was the Greyhound stop ($54 toColorado Springs). Axel and I ate at the "Romero'sRestaurante y Cantina," fine Mexican dining. We sat down anda little Mexican looking kid came up and banged down two waterswith ice on our table. "Thanks," I said."Yep," he muttered as he took off back to the kitchen.It turns out that a whole family (The Romero Family) owns thisplace and the whole family including cousins, sisters, brothers,serve you. They are incredibly overstaffed, but it's all family;it doesn't matter. The restaurant had a rustic atmosphere withold license plates on the walls along with old tools such as sawsand hammers. I ordered the Quesadilla plate and Axel ordered"The Mole." I was a bit concerned until I saw that themeat was going to be chicken. I don't know why they called it"The Mole." Looking around I saw a woman with "TheMountain Look" and looking at her I realized that I couldfinally describe this look in words. I had seen "TheMountain Look" on people in Durango but couldn't quite putmy finger on it. First of all, to have the mountain look, yourhair must not be combed and should be quite grown out. There aremany variations. Your face should look natural, as if you justgot back from a day's mountain bike ride, tan and flushed. Youmust be able to smile brightly and your eyes should haveadventure in them. And you should have tan, leather hiking bootswith grey, scrunched up sock (wool socks).
Well, another guy, a mountain type, was telling a story to atableful of men and women. He was describing a fight he hadgotten into. "I hit him" and "He punched me"were to things I heard. The most classic line was much later whenhe, still talking about the fight, said, ". . . and that'swhen I should have kicked him in the head." Sounds like agreat fight!
We ate our Quesadillas and Mole. It rained. It stoppedraining. We left. We stopped at the gas station where the veryhappy looking (what makes these people so happy--the mountainair, the improving economy?) attendant blasting classical music(Vivaldi?). He wanted to buy some German marks from Axel. Axelsold him 2.5 marks for $1.50. That guy must have a big collectionof foreign change.
We got on a wrong road out of town but finally got back onHighway 550 north to Ouray, part of the million dollarhighway--and the scenery is worth more than that. There isabsolutely no end to the beautiful mountain scenes on thatstretch of road. Unfortunately there are also no guard rails onkey curves and embankments, as before, and a lot of hair pinturns looking over tremendous valleys (in which I was surprisednot to see piles of tourist cars and RVs). Soon we saw Ouray.Didn't stop. Sped through. And soon we were out of the mountainsheaded toward Montrose. I made a mental note, however, to learnabout the relationship between Chief Ouray and the Whites. It'san interesting and hopeful chapter in the history of the Whitesand Indians before the terrible massacre at Meeker.
Sunday, August 13, 1995
Montrose to Gunnies
The day started with a visit to the Ute museum. Unfortunatelyit was closed, so we simply looked at the Dominguez and Escalantememorial to their 1776 journey through this area, which was nearthe Ute museum. Their goal had been, of course, to find a routeto California from Sante Fe. So why were they way up in westernColorado? Because they were trying to avoid the hostel Apache andHopi Indians in Arizona. Dominques and Escalante went north intoColorado and then cut over West after getting out of the San Juanmountains. They supposedly completed their journey without firinga shot (they were Franciscan priests) and had a few Ute Indianguides. They never made it to California, having left Sante Fe onJuly 29, 1776 and returning on to Sante Fe January 2, 1777.Another man profited from the trip very much: the cartographerDon Bernado Miera y Pachero, retired captain of the Sante Fearmy. During the journey, he prepared a map of the four cornersarea for Charles III of Spain. As we drove out of the Ute museumparking lot, I looked around at the landscape. It occurred to methat it was quite unlikely that this land belonged to the UnitedStates today. At the time of Dominques' and Escalante's trip, acouple tiny colonies where fighting guerilla warfare thousands ofmiles away on the East Coast. Yet they eventually acquired allthe land clear to the West Coast through a series of unthinkabletransactions (Louisiana Purchase), wars powered by ManifestDestiny (Mexican American War), and unstoppable incentives (goldand silver). As I looked out the window on the area aroundMontrose (Walmarts, McDonalds, car washes, gas stations), itlooked so everyday American, so normal. None of the historyshowed itself. If you didn't think, it might appear that it hadalways been this way.
Driving on toward Gunnies, we stopped for about a half hour tosee the Black Canyon. more than a half mile deep in some placesit's simply a dizzying thing to look at from atop one of thesheer cliffs. The Gunnies river winds green and snake like below.An awesome feature of the canyon is that, like the Grand Canyon,the river has cut down into a plateau. I learned something aboutgeological erosion there: the north sides of the canyon are muchsteeper than the south sides. any idea why? Because as the sundries out the north side wall, it does not crumble as fast as themoist side with water that seeps through the cracks of the rocks,causing them to slowly dislodge faster than those on the northside. After this river-made and God-made creation, we met withtwo man-made creations: The first was an irrigation tunnelcutting through one side of the canyon which supplies farmersnear Montrose with water. The second was Blue Mesa Lake, createdby a dam. Really, dam projects seem to be win-win situations:they keep some trickling semblance of a river going, the damcreates loads of energy, and a beautiful lake is created. Thislake did destroy one historic Monument, however: the old narrowgauge railroad built by the Denver Rio Grande through part ofthis canyon. Like the irrigation tunnel, it was a masterfulengineering feat. Men were lowered into the canyon by rope wherethey drilled into the rock and placed dynamite charges with extralong fuse to allow them to scramble back up the cliff before theexplosion. This was the pre-safety-conscious days of the late19th century.
The Denver & Rio Grande railroad was either directly orpartially responsible for many towns in Colorado including ournext stop, Gunnies. Our first stop was Western State Collegewhere we (on a Sunday in summer) found the library open and met anice woman student who told us lots about student life there andgave us some catalogs and pamphlets about the college. Thisliberal arts college just embarked on a new scheduling systemcalled the "Scholar's Year" in which they have foursemesters per year. The school is also closed on Wednesdays sothat students can take part in speeches, talks, honorsactivities, and faculty can have meetings. Sounds like anexciting experiment. The students we talked to seemed to like it.Who wouldn't really?
On the advice of the two Western State students, we walkeddown Main Street, Gunnies (the only street, really, except thehighway that runs through). On Main street we sauntered by the"Gunnies Camera Center" (it was closed--most shops wereafter 5:00 p.m.) which had displayed in the windows pictures ofeach float that had appeared in the recent Gunnies Parade. Eachpicture had a number with which you could order prints of it.Many locals were pictured waving on floats, riding bikes in theparade, or just standing on the side. I suppose that many localshad already ordered many pictures of themselves and friendstaking part in the parade. What a marketing idea for a camerashop!
"Timbers Sports Bar & Grill" housed us next aswe cooled down with two Rolling Rocks in a homey sportsenvironment. About all of the pro and many college football teamswere represented with rows of helmets on the wall shelves. Butthe dentist chair in front of the large bay window was out ofplace. I didn't understand why it was there until the bartenderwalked out behind his bar, got in the chair, cranked it up in theair so his feet dangled and then spun it around so that he satfacing the window and Gunnison's highway. He sat there danglinghis feet as the cars zoomed by.
We camped at KOA Gunnies that night. KOAs are wholesomeplaces. They belong to America like baseball and apple pie. As wewere sitting at our picnic table talking and reading, I heard aman pass a boy who was carrying a bow and arrow. "You got abow and arrow, huh?" said the man. "Homemade!"cried the boy with joy and a gleaming face. I thought I wassitting in a 3-D Normal Rockwell painting! A woman stopped by ourtable on her way to the bathroom. "You guys on the UltimateFrisbee team?" she asked. We replied and got into aconversation with her. soon we established that she was fromBoulder and so were Axel's relatives. "I saw you had Boulderplates, " she said. "I don't just talk to anybody, justpeople from Boulder!" Across the way an old (I mean quiteold!) couple pulled up, set up their own tent, and whipped out alarge, black frisbee and started throwing it back and forth toeach other. They always hit their target: each other's outreachedhand. They had probably stared playing frisbee with each other inthe early 1930's! WHAM! A little girl racing around on a rentedhot-wheel-looking tricycle almost crashed into a parked car. Herlittle brother zoomed by on his cycle. She yelled to him,"It was an accident! It's not my fault you're anidiot!" Her chain had come off. Soon she yelled over to us,"Hey, can you fix my bike?" Axel and I jumped up andwent over to her bike. We spent about ten minutes working on herbike, getting our hands all black and greasy, until finally wehad her chain back on for her. "Thanks!" she yelled asshe zoomed off. I walked to the bathroom to wash my hands. Ablack man was sitting Indian style on the sink counter reading."Late night read?" I asked. "Well, there's light,it's warm, and it's quiet." He was right. "I'm readingby candlelight outside," I replied. "Just like AbrahamLincoln!" he said smiling. He went back to his reading. Ilet. I read for awhile longer but never saw the man come out.
Monday, August 14, 1995
Gunnies to Leadville
The first thing I experienced in the morning was Axel runningup to the tent saying, "There's this strange black guy inthe bathroom! He talked to me for about 10 minutes and I hardlyunderstood one word of what he was saying! He told me he was fromChicago. I told him I was from Germany and he kept repeating 'DasLeben ist eine Einbahnstrasse! -- Das Leben ist eineEinbahnstrasse!'" ("Life is a one-way street!")
We drove to main street again to look at the bookstores anddrop by the post office. Even though Gunnies has only one mainstreet, this street has two lanes going each way (Highway135--it's the only road going up to Crested Butte) and afterstanding on the side of it for five minutes watching cars go bywaiting for a break in traffic through which we could run, wefinally were able to sprint across between a couple of movingcars. We got inside the bookstore and I saw the owners bothlooking out the window onto the street where we just were. Ilooked out, too. An old man with a cane was attempting to cross,hobbling one baby step at a time! "Does that old guy have adeath wish or what?" commented one of the owners of theshop. I couldn't watch. I never heard anything further, noscreeches or skids or thuds, so I guess the old guy made it!Gunnison--a small town with a bumper to bumper traffic!
The traffic was much thinner speeding out of Gunnies eastwardon Highway 50. The scenery here is also much thinner. Whathappened to all the trees? Ever since Montrose the landscape hasresembled a grassy moon. It was only on our way up the mountainto Leadville that the trees came back!
As we drove into Leadville, I saw Oro City on the right side,a ghost town. Horace and Augusta Tabor spent their poor mountainyears there. I would pay big money to be able to go back in time,stop into their modest cabin, and talk to them. People from thepast become personalities and we forget they were real people.
Axel and I parked the Saab and split up, agreeing to meet backin an hour. Leadville has a nice look to it--many false-frontedWestern buildings and a wide main street. I passed "The BabyDough Bakery"--a clever name. I walked into an antique storeand saw everything from Western knickknacks to "hand-paintedeggs from Poland" to an old Rod Stewart "Blondes HaveMore Fun" 8-track! It was a bizarre store--what a mix! Iwalked up and down main street again, trying to get the 19thcentury feel of the town. I couldn't I got some excellent coffeeat a shop in a building built by Tabor. I finally met Axel, wehad our daily beer at the local saloon (The Silver Dollar Saloon)and then headed off for the only camping grounds in Leadville:"The Sugar Loafin' Campground." We paid at the generalstore on the campgrounds. A sign above the store read,"General Store -- We generally don't have it, but askanyway." Paying for the camping place, we learned that therewas to be an "ice cream social" at 8:00 p.m. and a"slide show of the area" at 8:30 p.m. Sounded nice.
At the ice cream social I met a woman who had lived in Europefor ten years in the sixties and seventies. The slide show was,well, amateur at best but well meant. The elderly woman who ranthe slide projector and explained the slides had not taken theslides so she could only guess at what they were. She introducedhalf of the slides as "deer country" and the other halfas "beaver pond."
Tuesday, August 15, 1995
Leadville to Breckenridge
We woke up and it was cold! Leadville is the highest city inAmerica (not the highest town, however, as Axel later discoveredthat Montezuma is higher than Leadville, but just a town). It wassimply cold up high in the mountains, even in the middle of thesummer. In fact, the two Leadville Fourteeners Mt. Elbert and Mt.Massive both had large amounts of snow on them. We drove intoLeadville again. This time I went straight to the "AspenLeaf," an office supply store which had a computer withwhich you could send emails on the Internet. I sent three emailsfor three bucks. These Internet services ought to be springing uplike mushrooms. Why aren't they? Maybe I should start one. Nextstop was "Dee Hive Gift Shop." the only notable thinghere was an actual 1988 Wheaties box with the Broncos pictures asthe NFL Champions! They actually lost, of course, but Wheatieswas so sure they would win that they had printed thousands of theboxes before the game even started! It reminded me of the pictureof Truman holding up the newspaper which read, "DeweyWins!"
The Tabor Opera House, Leadville's leading historicalattraction, was our next stop. It's not a tiny place, seating 750people, and was part of the "Silver Circuit" of showsfrom its opening night November 29, 1879 to its last bigproduction ion the circuit in 1927. Horace Tabor built it butsoon lost it when he lost his fortunes in the 1880s. The housepassed many hands until it fortunately was bought by EvelynFurman and her mother in 1955. Their subsequent cave andrestoration of it won them a "Phoenix Award" which isgiven to people and institutions that restore historicalbuildings. This rad, gold, white and sky blue opera house hassome interesting stories behind it. On opening night back onNovember 29,1879, attendance was low as there had ben a hangingthe night before and everybody was either"entertained-out" or were not in the mood for an opera.John Philip Sousa and his band played here as did Houdini performhis magic. One day in winter when the circus was in town it wastoo cold for the animals to be outside, so the opera house openedits doors and the circus performed on state. The stage is quitesmall and the front row is about two leaps away from the stage.When the curtain went up, the well-to-do ladies in the front rowwere quite overcome by the four lions perched on their haunches acouple feet in front of them! Jack Dempsey even fought on thisstage and until 1960 the Leadville high-school held itsgraduation here. Today it is used to perform melodramas onWednesday, Friday, and Saturday nights.
Adjoining the opera house is an antique store that has quite alot of old junk mixed in with some interesting items. They hadsome old minutes from a 1921 jury screening process which I spenta good 15 minutes reading. Reading the parched paper whichcontained every single word of an actual conversation which tookplace more than 70 years ago was like looking through a timewindow into the past. The rest of the stuff was old spoons,forks, and dusty books. Upon leaving I saw a sign on the wallwarning of old mines in the area and informing of the importancenot to explore them. The poster contained the following choicesentence: "The fall down a mine shaft is just as lethal asthe fall from a tall building--with the added disadvantage ofbouncing from wall to wall in a mine shaft and the likelihood ofhaving falling rocks and timbers for company."
After this we motored out of Leadville up to the Climax minewhich has successfully erased a mountain top. It is still inoperation and is quite a man-made eye sore. We got to Interstate70 and quickly arrived in Frisco. Immediately one could noticethe money flowing through this city. It wasn't an old mining townwhose history lay in the 19th century like Leadville. Frisco'shistory is today. And together with the more impressiveBreckenridge, it's easy to see why Summit county is called"Colorado's Playground." We arrived in Breckenridge anscoped out the town. It's main street is an endless series ofbeautiful mini-malls which provide a wonderful shoppingexperience, most stores taking all credit cards possible. (Thewriter of that Mancos newspaper should come to Breckenridge tosee what a real shopping district looks like!) It's a place tospend money on shirts, ski supplies, fine dining, and drinkingand dancing. I found an establishment more to my liking: the"Gold Pan Saloon," established 1905. It stilled lookedlike the Old West and on the wall was a sign that read,"Split Wood, not Atoms."
Wednesday, August 16, 1995
Breckenridge to Monument
Having spent the night in Ky Fox's condominium"Tannenbaum by the River" (appropriately named as it issurrounded by numerous high tannenbaums and situated near abeautiful, full-flowing river), we drove straight to CentralCity. In 1859, this tiny valley was invaded by gold seekers andtoday this tiny valley is being invaded by casino builders. Weparked in one of the parking lots made on top of the surroundinghills and were shuttled down to the casinos in a van full ofgamble-happy folk. The driver-comedian made jokes the whole waydown. He told us that he was going to drive the shuttle straightto Las Vegas and forget Central City! An old man piped up that hewould cash in his food stamps and pay for the gas. We arrived,however, quite soon in Central City and we got out laughing andtipping the driver. Playing the slot machines lasted about aslong as buying the post cards, and cost about 100 times as much,so we left. We didn't leave the city, however, before bothenjoying a twenty ounce steak (!) with potato, vegetable, coleslaw and the works for just $6.75! Full-stomached, we got out oftown.
We drove on a beautiful road (80% of the roads we had been onhad been beautiful--one idyllic mountain scene after another)into Boulder. In Boulder, we headed to the Pearl Street Mall. Weparked a block away and as soon as I stepped out of the car, Icould smell the sweet smell of marijuana blowing threw theafternoon air. It was coming from the outdoor mall. As we gotonto Pearl Street, I noticed that the number of "liberaltypes" had doubled since the last time I had been there. Wewalked up the street once and down once. I saw a girl (mountaintype) say to a guy (liberal type), "Yeah, we're going toArizona for a few days . . ." They both kind of nodded andsmiled. Several seconds later, the guys said, glassy-eyed,"Cool."
As we walked a bit further, a clean-cut college kid sitting ona bench with a friend yelled out to us as we passed, "Changefor a fix?" It was odd. The guy looked so normal. Perhaps hewas doing an experiment in social relations for his psychologyclass. I hoped so anyway. Or maybe I'm getting old.
Well, our trip had come to an end. The only thing left was togo thank David Pinkow for allowing us to use the car (no problemsthe whole way) and go thank Ky for letting us use his condominiumin Breckenridge. Both of them lived in Boulder and by 10:00 p.m.we were out of town. The trip back to Monument brought thissummer 1995 Western Colorado Mountain Camping trip to a quiet,relaxing, and thoughtful close.
