Road Trip, ctd. - Day 4

Saturday, July 15, 2006
Day 4 Mesa to Glenwood Springs via Collbran & Rifle 168 miles
On Saturday we drove to Glenwood Springs via Collbran and Rifle (where Teddy Roosevelt went to hunt bears in 1901). We also made brief forays into Parachute and DeBeque. Parachute is a booming retirement community, but it held no particular charm for me, and DeBeque had no appeal whatsoever. We had lunch in Rifle, where I got a photo of a great sign:












Glenwood Springs and the Hotel Colorado















The Ute Indians knew about the geothermal sulfur hot springs at Glenwood for centuries before the springs were “discovered”by a group of explorers led by Captain Richard Sopris (of Mt. Sopris fame) in 1860. To the Utes, the springs were a sacred healing place. The Utes called the springs “Yampa”, or Big Medicine.

Many famous people have visited the springs over the years, seeking cures for various ailments. Doc Holliday and Buffalo Billy Cody both visited the springs when they were terminally ill, too late to reap any benefits, and both died at Glenwood Springs; Doc Holliday in 1887; Buffalo Bill in 1917. Teddy Roosevelt was a frequent visitor to the springs and the Hotel Colorado (which was sometimes referred to as “the little White House”). The Unsinkable Molly Brown was also a frequent visitor. In WWII, the hotel was used as a U.S. Naval Convalescent Hospital, the only time in history that the pool was closed to the public.

I'm very fond of the springs myself. In the winter of 1991-92, my kids and I lived in Aspen. On Saturdays, the five of us used to pile into my Honda Accord, and I’d drive down to Glenwood, where we all enjoyed sitting in the 90 degree water and looking up at the snow-covered mountains all around us.

Road Trip, ctd. - Day 3

Friday, July 14, 2006
Day 3 - Mesa

We spent Friday exploring Mesa and the surrounding area. A borrowed Nathalie’s truck (a Dodge 4X4 hemi), and with Louis and I accompanying him, he drove up Land’s End Road to the Land’s End Observatory on the top of the Grand Mesa, “the world’s largest flat-topped mountain”, which was called Thunder Mountain by the Ute Indians who used to live there.

The view from the top, 11,000 feet above sea level in some places, is amazing. On a clear day, you can reportedly see from Utah to central Colorado without turning your head. Despite the drought, the top of the mesa was lush, and covered with Pinon, juniper, Engelmann spruce, cedar, and aspens. A drove the truck down a long, difficult dirt road, but it was worth every jolt of the rough ride, because we saw alpine lakes, and meadows of wildflowers, including Indian paintbrush, lupine, columbine, penstemon, blue aster, fireweed, larkspur, cinquefoil, and candytuft...to name a few. We also saw lots of chipmunks and a blue grouse.

Days 1 & 2

Day 1 - Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Dallas to Denver: 801.1 miles

A showed up at a little after 7:00, and we loaded my two bags and down pillow into his car. After stopping briefly at Starbuck’s for a little caffeine fortification to go, we drove out of Dallas on Hwy 114, eventually making our way to 287, which we took to Amarillo, in the Texas panhandle. From Amarillo, we took 87 and 64 to Raton, NM, then 25 North, all the way into Denver. We arrived at Brad & Susan’s house in Aurora at a little after 8:00 PM, Denver time. We’d made good time, managing to drive just over 800 miles in about 13 hours, including a brief stop for lunch. Brad provided some much appreciated gin and tonics, and Susan had prepared a delicious dinner of paella with brown rice, which we devoured as their daughter, Molly, told us about her latest adventure, being a Rocky Mountain Roller Girl (not to be confused with her day job).

Day 2 - Thursday, July 13, 2006
Denver to Mesa (via Leadville and Aspen): 280.2 miles

"Please do not shoot the pianist. He is doing his best."

After breakfast, we drove approximately 100 miles (via I-25, 6, 70 & 91), to Leadville, Colorado, the highest city in the United States (10,152 feet, or almost 2 miles above sea level). Leadville has fallen on hard times, but in 1880 it was the site of one of the world’s biggest silver camps, with a population of over 40,000. Many celebrities visited Leadville at that time, including Oscar Wilde, who claimed to have seen the words quoted above on a notice printed above the piano in a local saloon.













From Leadville, A drove almost 60 miles, up Highway 82, over Independence Pass (12,095 feet) and down into Aspen. Independence Pass was as narrow as I remembered, but incredibly lush and green.
















In Aspen, we had lunch on the deck of Ajax Tavern, at the base of Aspen Mountain (aka Ajax). We began with prosciutto wrapped figs stuffed with pecorino (delicious). A then had a steak salad, which he liked, but the smoked chicken salad that I ordered was only OK. We shared a side order of the restaurant's trademark parmesan/truffle fries (french fries topped with shaved parmesan and white truffle oil, very Aspen) which were fragrant and fabulous. We washed it all down with ice tea.















After lunch, we drove to the little miner's house that A's lawyer father had bought after winning a case in 1948. A subsequently sold the house, 50 years later, in 1998.















Like almost everything in Aspen, including the tourists, it's been remodeled to the point that it's almost unrecognizable.

By 4:00 we were on the road again, driving Highways 82 and 70 approximately 120 miles, from Aspen to Mesa, where we met Laurie, Louis, Nathalie and Laura at Nathalie's rustic cabin just outside Mesa.

Roadtrip

7 days, 3400 miles, 5 states: Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and Arizona. I'll write more later, but right now I'm going to get some sleep. In the meantime, this picture says it all.

Tubing on the Guadalupe

I grew up on the Mississippi. Well, that’s not entirely accurate. I grew up in southeastern Minnesota, in a college town, past which the Mississippi swiftly ran. Living so near it, I could spell "Mississippi" by the time I was 6. I remember my older brother, Dick, impatiently saying to me, "Jude, it’s so easy, just memorize this!
M...
I...
crooked letter,
crooked letter,
I:
crooked letter,
crooked letter,
I:
humpback,
humpback:
I".

We never referred to it as the Mississippi, though, and I didn’t know anyone who did. We always just called it The River, as in: "Don’t go down to The River!" or "They were out on The River" or "Do you want to go swimming at The Lake or The River?"

Even though we didn’t live on it, to me, The River was a big part of my life the entire time I was growing up. It was spanned by a long interstate bridge, linking Minnesota to Wisconsin. Each year, in the first days of spring, when most of the snow had melted and the first buds were bursting forth, my Dad would invite me to accompany him on a walk across the interstate, across The River. 6th of 7 kids, I loved the attention, the one-on-one-time aspect of it, and I can still remember how it felt, the way he gripped my hand with his own big, hard, calloused hand. He’d helped sandbag the levee during the Flood of ‘53, and when he’d had too much to drink, that was one of the stories he liked to tell. It sounded thrilling and almost heroic to me, and as a result, every April, the mind-numbing monotony of living in a small college town in Minnesota in the 1960's was broken by the exciting possibility that The River, swollen with runoff from melting snow and spring rains, might once again FLOOD. That happened only once during the time that I lived there. I was in high school then, and although we were excused from classes to help sandbag and/or distribute coffee and donuts to the workers, the reality of The River flooding was much more frightening, and not nearly so thrilling, as I’d imagined.

The River was cold and muddy, but each summer a part of it was roped off for swimming, and as a kid of 8 or 9, sometimes I’d get on my bike and pedal across the interstate by myself, to the beach house on Latch Island, where I’d change into my suit and go swim in The River. There were places that the current was so strong that even sitting in the shallows, near shore, if I lifted my feet off the sandy bottom just a little, I’d be pulled along by the current.

When I was 9, I became friends with a girl, Chris W., whose family owned a houseboat. Each summer for the next several years, I spent many weekends on The River with Chris and her family. Her father would pilot the houseboat to a sandbar, and as soon as it was anchored, as Chris’ parents settled onto deck chairs with gin and tonics in their hands, Chris and I would lower the dinghy into the water and paddle off into a slough, looking for adventure, the sun warm on our shoulders. Sometimes we’d spend the night on The River, an experience I always loved. When I left Minnesota, although I was entirely ready to move on to new experiences and new places, I knew that a part of me would always miss The River.

Eventually, I moved to Texas. I love the heat, and the huge blue sky, and the stark beauty of the desert southwest, and yet I feel landlocked, and although I’ve lived here for 23 years, until this past weekend, I’d never been tubing on the Guadalupe.

A couple of months ago, somewhere on the web, I found a list of things recommended to enjoy tubing on the Guadalupe. It was a short list, of mostly obvious items: hat, sunblock, water, sunblock, sunglasses, sunblock, and sunblock. The only thing that I might not have thought of was the recommendation to wear tennis shoes, river shoes, or sandals rather than flip flops "‘cause the river’ll suck ‘em offaya". Uh-huh. I searched my closet for my TIVA river shoes, from a week-long white water rafting trip I took on the Salmon river in Idaho a couple of years ago. As soon as I found them, I knew I was good to go.

At a little after 2:00 on Friday afternoon, we left Dallas. There were 8 of us, and we drove down in two cars. On our way to Austin, we stopped at Lockhart, Texas, where we ate mouthwatering barbecue at Black’s, and took photos of the beautifully restored county courthouse before driving into Austin, where we spent Friday night in a cheap hotel, talking over each other, arguing, playing Cranium, and having a great time.

Saturday morning we woke to weather I can’t remember experiencing in July in the 23 years I’ve lived in Texas: rain and thunderstorms. We decided to drive to the river anyway. That was a good decision, because by the time we arrived at Canyon Lake to rent our tubes, the sun was shining and the day was Texas hot. At River Sports Tubes we signed up for a "medium", 4 hour float (as opposed to the short float of 2 hours or the long float of 7 hours). We rented 9 tubes: one for each of us and a "cooler tube" for our cooler, packed with an endless supply of water and a 6-pack of Shiner, so the 4 of us who are old enough to drink could have a ceremonial beer on the river. We put on gimme caps, t-shirts, and river shoes, slathered on sun block, picked up our tubes, and headed for the river.

The Guadalupe may be one of the most popular rivers in Texas, but it’s hardly the Mississippi. At approximately 250 miles long, it's roughly 1/10th the length of the Mississippi, and the section down which we were tubing was just a couple of miles long. Still, I was river-hungry and ready for a new adventure, so I stood eagerly on the banks of the Guadalupe, looking around me, at the place where we'd put in.

The water looked lazy and slow, and the moment I put a foot in, I discovered the spring-fed Guadalupe was surprisingly cool. It was also surprisingly crowded. There must have been at least a couple thousand people on the Guadalupe, from college students to other families to what Stephanie politely referred to as "country" people. In case you don’t know what that means...for the record, I saw more tattoos on Saturday than I’ve ever seen in my life, and probably more piercings, too, as well as some real river stupidity. Still, overall it was a mellow crowd, and I liked that.














Stephanie & Chris, chillin' on the Guadalupe

The Guadalupe is at an all-time low, due to the drought, and much of the section we traveled was just a couple of feet deep. However, it was beautiful. There were two small "rapids", where flips flops might well have been lost had any of us worn them, but of course we hadn’t. Floating in tubes, our feet snug in our river shoes, we drifted down the Guadalupe, between limestone bluffs and tall cedar, pecan, cottonwood, oak, elm and sycamore trees . We saw baby ducks swimming, and a blue heron walking along the shore. The four of us who are old enough to drink opened the Shiners, and consumed those. Mike, Chris, Sara and Stephanie drank bottled water and gatorade. We got sunburned, and it felt good. There’s something about a river...

...and a good time was had by all...

Here's Xander, asleep by his dinner, after celebrating the 4th.

The Walrus and The Carpenter

"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--
Of cabbages--and kings--
And why the sea is boiling hot--
And whether pigs have wings."

Tomorrow (July 2nd) I’m having a family party at my house to celebrate the 4th. When I say family, I really mean friends and family, because I consider my friends to be extended family. In addition to tomorrow’s party, we’ll celebrate the 4th again on the actual 4th, and we’ll go see fireworks on both the 3rd and 4th. In case you haven’t figured it out, I’m one of those women who believes that one can never have too many celebrations.

So today I cleaned the Weber, and tomorrow I’ll be grilling buffalo burgers. I’m a big fan of buffalo. It’s delicious, sort of like the best ground sirloin you’ve ever had, and yet even better than that. Some of those burgers will be plain, some will be topped with jalapenos and extra sharp cheddar, and some will be stuffed with blue cheese, according to whatever preferences are expressed. Tonight, I’m going to the symphony, but when I get home, I’ll make a dilled potato salad. For dessert, I’ll serve my traditional 4th of July cake (see pic, above). It’s made with with raspberries and blueberries, whipped cream, toasted slivered almonds, and Cointreau, among other things. I’ll also serve fresh cherries and a cannonball melon, and Anthony is bringing some of his delicious homemade sorbet (mango and raspberry). To wash it all down, I’ll serve iced beer and pomegranate mimosas, and pitchers of ice tea.

I’ve been thinking about my friends and family. There’ll be 10 of us here tomorrow, ranging in age from 3 to 67. Weather allowing, we’ll be swimming beforehand. I’m looking forward to this. We’re a lively, rowdy group. We like each other, but more than that, we enjoy each other’s company. We’re all interested in books and movies and politics, and none of us is shy about expressing our opinions. We all enjoy talking, so all of us tend to talk a lot, and truth be told, a lot of the time we talk over each other. If you were here with us, you’d here, "WAIT! No, you’re WRONG! Oh, you are SO wrong! Will you LISTEN to me?!?!?! Just the other day, I read..."

My kids’ friends always seemed to enjoy the lively atmosphere at our house, and could (and still can) often be found hanging out here. For example, tonight, even as I’m typing, there’s a group of 19 and 20-year-olds in my kitchen (one of whom is my son, Mike), talking, hanging out, eating take out and getting ready to watch a movie together. But sometimes people find this lively atmosphere daunting. I once dated a guy who said that coming to a family party at my house was like walking into the middle of a Woody Allen movie. I don’t think he meant it as a compliment, but I took it as a huge compliment. I like to think he was comparing me to Mia Farrow, in Hannah and Her Sisters, but I could be wrong...

And I once dated someone who used to wait, politely, trying to get a word in edgewise at these parties, only to never find an opening. At the end of the evening, I’d be in a great mood, filled with ideas and energy from all the lively conversations I’d had, only to find him pouting and morose. "What’s wrong?" I remember asking, solicitously, I thought. "Do you realize that all of you continuously interrupt each other?" he said. "Well of course we do! That’s how we talk. We’re excited and happy to see each other. You have to jump in! You can’t be shy! Just say, ‘hold it! I’m trying to say something!’ and all of us will shut up!"

He was wounded by my suggestion. Needless to say, the relationship didn’t last. Relationships come and go, but friends and family...that's what it's all about.

Happy 4th.